ron harper jr

About seven minutes into the second half, Michigan PF Moussa Diabate went up for an uncontested dunk. The French big man slammed the ball violently at the rim, but it did not go in. The ball popped out, Michigan fans everywhere put their faces in their palms, and when they re-opened their eyes, the ensuing possession was ending with Rutgers' Caleb McConnell draining a three pointer. That pushed the Scarlett Knights' lead to 17 points and seemingly closed the door on the Wolverines' chances of leaving Piscataway with a win. That feeling was proven correct, as Rutgers toppled Michigan 75-67 tonight. Michigan is now 1-2 in the B1G and 7-6 on the season. Michigan's season is in terrible shape. 

For the second consecutive game, Michigan got battered by two players with exceptional nights, this time being Ron Harper Jr. and Geo Baker. The former killed Michigan from distance (5/6 from three), while the latter killed Michigan using his height/length to knock down off the dribble jumpers with ease, shooting 7/8 from inside the arc. Meanwhile the Maize & Blue were dreadful from three point range and also subpar at the rack, going 13/22 on easy layups, blowing far too many bunnies in big moments. It's another loss and with an even tougher schedule coming up, the train continues to steam forward towards an NCAA Tournament-less season. 

The game really never had a crisp stretch of basketball from Michigan, even right from the beginning. The Wolverines fell behind 9-2 just over three minutes into this game and then 24-11 ten minutes into the contest. They were fighting uphill even from before the game started after it was revealed that huge chunks of their rotation (mostly bench pieces like Brandon Johns Jr. and Terrance Williams II) were going to be missing from the contest. But it didn't get any better once the game actually started. 

Dickinson was Michigan's bright light offensively [Campredon]

After that equilibrium of a 10 or so point Rutgers lead developed, the game just sort of seesawed in that state. Michigan struggled defensively in the first half, breaking down in coverage and leaving shooters wide open from the perimeter. On the flip side, they continue to stagnate on offense with no dribble penetration, and the three point shots were not falling. Even when they got open looks inside, the layups often clanged off the iron to no avail.

With about 6.5 minutes to go in the first half, your author opined that if Michigan could whittle the ten point Rutgers lead down to five by halftime, they'd be in decent shape. That didn't happen. It was a nine point lead at the break thanks in part to Moussa Diabate settling for a long two with seven seconds left in the half with the shot clock turned off that didn't fall, affording Rutgers another try before the buzzer (which fortunately did not fall). Still, the dysfunction and poor offensive decision-making was all too familiar. 

Michigan didn't get a fast start out of the gate in the second half either, falling down 14 points yet again just five minutes into that stanza. They continued to be unable to contain Geo Baker off the dribble, they lost Ron Harper Jr. and Caleb McConnell outside, and then the offense, with its faulty interior scoring and awful three point shooting, wasn't enough to keep up. After the Diabate dunk mentioned in the intro popped out, Michigan trailed by 17 and the game felt over. It was. 

Ron Harper Jr. was open from behind the arc far too often tonight [Campredon]

To Michigan's credit, the Wolverines didn't quit. They used the next six minutes to trim the lead down to ten, but yet another huge swing play happened with about seven minutes left: an Eli Brooks three pointer bounced out and then Harper Jr. came off a double screen to knock down a three and just like that, the lead was back up to 13. A minute or so later, a Diabate three went down and Michigan had it cut to seven, but again Rutgers answered with a huge shot, as Caleb McConnell banged in a three. Not long after that, the 2-3 zone coaxed Kobe Bufkin to go after McConnell while Baker hit an open three to make it an 11 point game. Even when Michigan's offense flowed well, as it did during that stretch, they couldn't consistently get stops, and that was a story of the game. 

In the end, Rutgers was able to ride out the last six minutes and win by eight, with Michigan never seriously threatening after those moments. In totality, both teams shot about the same mark from the field and both teams made ten free throws. The difference lay in the three pointers, where Rutgers made eleven (47.8%) and Michigan made three (20%). Hunter Dickinson had a fine night inside (10/16, 25 points), and the visitors did dominate the paint. It's just the difference outside was so large. Diabate added 15 points of his own, while Houstan and Brooks each chipped in 12 and 11 points. No other Scarlett Knights scored in double figures. 

Michigan now enters the toughest stretch of its season *gulp*, hosting Michigan State on Saturday afternoon. That game is at 2:30 pm and is slated to be on FOX. There is no content after the jump. 

Yesterday's Michigan-Penn State game served as the opener to the Big Ten season as a whole. Before the rest of the conference tips off tonight, let's check in on each of the teams and stick them in tiers. If you remember, we did a preseason roundtable that included some comically large tiers as we tried to make sense of a tightly packed conference:

TITLE FREE-FOR-ALL

Wisconsin
Illinois
Iowa
Michigan State
Ohio State
Michigan

SCRABBLING FOR BID

Rutgers
Indiana
Purdue
Maryland
Minnesota

EATEN ALIVE

Penn State
Northwestern
Nebraska

There's been some movement since then despite a relative dearth of marquee games, especially outside of the ACC/B1G Challenge.

The Standings

Here's how KenPom's and Bart Torvik's rankings have the Big Ten stacking up so far, with the caveat that we're still early enough in the season that preseason projections remain a significant factor. Michigan and Penn State are the only teams to play a conference game so far (that changes tonight when Rutgers travels to Maryland) so you're not missing anything with B1G records omitted from the table. Yes, if you were checking the front page around 12:30 today, you may recognize this table.

The conference somehow managed to group itself closer together. So much for clarity.

Onto the tiers, I guess. Please remember that, despite the size of these tiers, the order within each tier matters less than which tier a team falls into. The distinction between a lot of these teams, at least for the moment, is minimal.

[Hit THE JUMP.]