kaleb wesson

Oh no.

Word is that Xavier Tillman will return to @MSU_Basketball & pull out of @NBADraft & that would be great news for Spartans plus for Xavier . He can elevate his stock for next year’s draft plus give MSU a super chance for a national title .

— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) July 15, 2020

Oh YES.

Ditto this as well. https://t.co/5rMjRhcCT8

— Chris Solari (@chrissolari) July 15, 2020

Looks like it's time to check in on the NBA Draft. The withdrawal deadline for early entrants who haven't signed an agent has been set for August 3rd at 5 pm Eastern. That applies to 12 of the 15 players with Big Ten ties listed below, including Michigan's Isaiah Livers.

Staying In

not much left to do here [Paul Sherman]

Maryland C Jalen Smith (So.)

While an expected loss—Smith could've come out after his freshman year—this leaves a huge hole in the middle for the Terps. Smith played 35+ minutes in most every important game last year unless he got into foul trouble, which was rare. His backups were mostly invisible in the few minutes they played.

Mark Turgeon surrounded Smith with a bunch of wings who topped out at 6'6", so there isn't a burly power forward to slide over—like Turgeon did with Smith when Bruno Fernando went pro. Maryland added grad transfer Colin Smith from Alabama, but he's a career backup who wasn't effective in the SEC, and there's no big man in the 2020 class.

Minnesota C Daniel Oturu (So.)

A loss of similar impact, except Minnesota is also significantly worse than Maryland in the first place. Minnesota may have a better replacement lined up, however, in Western Michigan grad transfer Brandon Johnson, who averaged 15 points and eight boards last year. He's not nearly on the level of Oturu as a post presence, however, and the returning backups are probably still a year or two away from being solid.

If seven-foot Drake transfer Liam Robbins, who ranked sixth in the country in block rate, is granted a waiver to play right away, the Gophers would regain a shot-blocking presence and be able to play Johnson at the four. Regardless, they'll miss Oturu's ability to do everything you'd want from a big man, including stretch the floor.

Ohio State C Kaleb Wesson (Jr.)

Wesson slimmed down and turned himself into a legitimate stretch five as a junior. He's another prospect internet scouts can't agree on; some have him as a mid-to-late second-rounder, some don't have him on their big boards at all. His loss leaves the Buckeyes forced to go the small, scrappy route.

Kyle Young, a 6'8" rebounding specialist, comes back after missing the latter portion of the 2019-20 season to injury. In his absence, Wesson's primary backup was 6'6" freshman E.J. Liddell, who performed surprisingly well under the circumstances but struggled to finish against Big Ten centers. While Liddell tried, neither showed the shooting acumen that allowed the Buckeyes to really space out defenses last year.

[Hit THE JUMP for the undecideds.]

That got away in a hurry.

After Michigan either narrowly led or closely trailed for most of the game at Ohio State, we appeared to be in for a classic finish when Franz Wagner knotted the score with a three-pointer and Jon Teske rolled in a hook shot to tie it up again after OSU's CJ Walker responded. With 6:51 remaining, the score stood at 54 apiece.

You already read the final but I'll save you the math: the Buckeyes closed the game on a 23-6 run before Wagner hit a buzzer-beating triple that'll only count for KenPom's calculations. A tight game ended up verging on a blowout. 

Much like the prior game against Wisconsin, much of Michigan's problems stemmed from falling well short of their foe on points beyond the arc. Unlike that game, the Wolverines had no problem generating looks today, they just couldn't hit them. Wagner, who led the team with 18 points and ten rebounds, went 4/8 on three-pointers; the rest of the team went a combined 3/18.

Franz Wagner was the only Michigan shooter to find his range [Campredon]

In another frustrating similarity to Thursday's loss, Ohio State made it rain on Michigan's defense. The Wolverines had three significant problems: Duane Washington (5/7 3PT) was dialed in and punished the defense whenever they switched, Kaleb Wesson (4/5 3PT) got open looks because M's centers didn't get out on him, and both Kaleb and brother Andre Wesson managed to bank in second-half threes. OSU went 11/21 from beyond the arc, including 6/9 in the second half.

On Michigan's ensuing possession after Teske tied it up, the big man committed his fourth foul. On Thursday, the Wolverines made a late run at the Badgers by playing Brandon Johns at center after Austin Davis had difficultly staying with their stretch bigs. Today, Juwan Howard decided to stick with Davis. While the first triple with Davis in was the fortuitous Andre Wesson bank after Wagner had nearly come up with a steal, the second in as many possessions came when Davis lost Kaleb Wesson on a pick-and-pop, and the Buckeyes suddenly held an eight-point lead.

Walker took the lead to double digits with one of seemingly a hundred midrange pullups out of the high screen to take the deficit to ten, and then Michigan crumbled. A Simpson pass to an unsuspecting Isaiah Livers, who had a brutal 2/11 outing from the field, clanged off his hands for a backcourt violation. Teske bit on a Kaleb Wesson pump fake to give up a layup. With the game all but over, Kaleb then bonked in his three off the glass to seal it.

Bank Brother #2 won his matchup with Isaiah Livers [Campredon]

After Wagner, Simpson was the only Michigan player to score in double digits, going for 12 points on ten shots with seven assists and four turnovers. Teske needed nine shooting possessions to net his eight points and coughed up three turnovers; Davis had eight points on 4/4 shooting but he too committed three turnovers. Eli Brooks, sporting a Batman-like mask in his return from a broken nose, had seven points, seven rebounds, and two assists but went only 3/8 from the field.

All five Ohio State starters hit double-digit points as Chris Holtmann had to go with a short rotation down starting forward Kyle Young and reserve Alonzo Gaffney. Washington, Young's replacement in the starting lineup, led the way with 20, Walker posted 15 and 7 assists, the Wesson brothers each had 14, and Luther Muhammad chipped in ten to go with a pair of steals. Andre Wesson visibly dominated his matchup with Livers on both ends of the floor, which proved impossible for the Wolverines to overcome.

The loss drops Michigan to 9-9 in the Big Ten and a full game behind OSU, which also holds the head-to-head tiebreaker after completing the season sweep. The Wolverines are tied for eighth in the conference with Rutgers. They'll be heavy favorites for Thursday's home finale against Nebraska before closing the regular season on Sunday at Maryland. Hopefully the jumpers start falling by then.

[Hit THE JUMP for THE MASK and the box score.]

I hate writing up games like this.

It's not the loss. I've been writing up football games since 2012, after all. If you told me heading into tonight that Michigan would lose a close game, I wouldn't have dreaded writing this, even though I would've planned to skip the comments section.

I hate when the refs force me to choose between summarizing the game like an "objective" blind person or being a "homer" for saying that, yes, bad officiating sometimes has a direct outcome on the result.

So let's start here: the officials—Terry Wymer, DJ Carstensen, and Paul Szelc—were awful all around tonight. What started as a typically physical Big Ten game became a wrestling match by the second half with all sorts of contact going uncalled on both ends. This was a game for brutes. Kaleb Wesson was responsible for half of Ohio State's offense. Austin Davis was Michigan's second-leading scorer.

Big Country's 11-point, 4-for-4 performance wasn't enough for a win. [Campredon]

While cold shooting accounted for a lot of the poor offense in the first half, I don't know how anybody could be expected to finish a contested shot in the paint with the way the game was called. Players bumped ballhandlers out of bounds, grabbed whatever limbs they could while chasing rebounds, and brought their arms crashing down on shooters. The Buckeyes made under 44% of their two-pointers; Michigan connected on only 34% of theirs. There's letting the kids play, but you have to let them play basketball.

Fitting such a contest, both teams fought hard. The lead changed hands 19 times. The game was tied for nearly ten full minutes of action. The margin never reached more than four points for the duration of the second half. Wesson played a tremendous game, leading all scorers with 23 points on 15 shot equivalents, pulling down 12 rebounds, and dishing out three assists against zero turnovers, including a feed to Duane Washington Jr. for a three that put OSU up one point with 54 seconds to play.

Then the officials decided the game. I don't know another honest way to put it. Zavier Simpson drove to the basket after getting switched onto big man Kyle Young, crossed over to his left hand, and drew an obvious shooting foul on Young with 33 seconds left. While parallel to the ground, after getting fouled, Simpson grabbed Young's jersey to break his fall; this tore Young's uniform, though it wasn't enough to even bring him to the ground.

Kaleb Wesson decisively won the battle of the bigs, outscoring Jon Teske 23-3. [Campredon]

Despite not calling anything on Simpson initially, the officials hit him with a flagrant foul after a review. Simpson still received, and made, his two free throws attempts, but Young was able to cancel them out with two free throws of his own and OSU got the next possession. Michigan had no choice but to foul, CJ Walker made both free throws, and a well-designed play for Eli Brooks resulted in a missed corner three with 0.5 seconds to play.

Michigan went from having a chance to get a stop to force the Buckeyes into desperation foul mode to being in desperation foul mode themselves because of an atrocious call that wasn't made in real time. Yes, it also matters that the Wolverines couldn't slow down Wesson. Yes, it also matters that they made only 10-of-31 three-pointers. As with any close basketball game, you can point to a huge number of moments that could've turned the results of the game.

But the moment that swung the win probability more than any other was a review that resulted in a mindblowingly bad flagrant foul. That stinks now, it'll stink when we see these same guys blow calls the rest of the season with seemingly no consequence, and it'll really stink if Michigan comes up short on Selection Sunday. At 13-9 overall and 4-7 in the Big Ten, they're running out of margin for error and Michigan State comes to town on Saturday.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]