Michigan 74, Minnesota 69
Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog
Nine for thirty-one.
Michigan was bound to have a bad shooting night eventually, even in a game where they got a steady stream of open looks. That's exactly what happened tonight; the Wolverines were fortunate to be facing a hapless Minnesota team when the ball refused to behave.
Zak Irvin had himself a night, posting a 19-11-3 line. He did his best work off the dribble, utiziling the high screen to get layups and make 3/5 three-pointers. The rest of the team, however, combined to go 6/26 from beyond the arc. That included a 3/10 mark for Duncan Robinson, who uncharacteristically missed several wide-open looks from his favorite spot just above the break.
The result was a near-unwatchable slog. Minnesota is not a good team, and despite the final score they didn't play particularly well outside of Nate Mason, who scored 25 points—Michigan's perimeter defenders couldn't stay between him and the basket. The Gophers repeatedly gave up great outside looks; Michigan simply couldn't get them to fall.
The Wolverines pushed their lead as high as 15 points in the first half. Robinson, left all alone, had a chance to bump that up to 18, but couldn't find twine. Minnesota finished the half on an 8-0 run and twice as close as three points in the second half, but never kept it there for more than a minute at a time.
Each time they got that close, it was Derrick Walton who responsed, first with a driving layup, then by finding Aubrey Dawkins for a triple that actually fell. Walton scored 22 and got to the rim at will, making 4/7 two-pointers and 11/12 free throws. (He went 1/6 from three, because it was that kind of night.)
While the final result never truly felt in doubt, Michigan survived a scare in a game they'd have no business winning against a quality opponent. They were unlucky with their shots; they were lucky with their foe. It's probably best never to speak of this game again.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:08 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 11:08 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 11:14 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 11:46 PM ^
to like Nebraska. They beat MSU 10 or 20 more times and I might become a fan.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:15 AM ^
Nebraska has a little kryptonite against MSU apparently. I believe this is MSU's 3rd loss in a row to the Huskers now.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:10 PM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 7:36 AM ^
The parallels sure are eery.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:16 PM ^
It would be great if the mods could do someting about Donnie Brasco. Here are comments he has made about the basketball team in the last week alone:
"Nebraska gonna beat the hell out of us"
"No tournament for this squad. Gonna be a fight for the NIT."
(On Maryland) "I expect another 15 point loss. Might be worse."
"Dakich +- has gotta be the worst in the country."
"This team is the worst defensive team in the country."
"We have terrible point guard play."
"I hate Walton as a player. Terrible."
His comments about Harbaugh and the football team are even worse.
January 21st, 2016 at 7:38 AM ^
If only someone could neg him with 100,000 points......
January 21st, 2016 at 7:39 AM ^
Timmayyy!!!
January 20th, 2016 at 11:15 PM ^
That was a hard game to watch but win is win!
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 20th, 2016 at 11:18 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 11:30 PM ^
January 20th, 2016 at 11:37 PM ^
Ugly offense is one thing. The defense was once again just flat out bad. Many think Caris coming back is going to solve a lot of problems but it's not, especially since we may possibly see a stretch of games where they struggle once he's back in the rotation and this new comfort-level-with-one-another the guys are playing with, goes out the window. He's especially not going to solve the defensive problems where again, this team is truly bad.
But, keep playing and hopefully keep improving.
January 21st, 2016 at 11:15 AM ^
starting to wonder that it is an "if" Caris comes back and not a "when" Caris comes back. "Lower leg injury" with essentially no time table for return? IDK.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:47 PM ^
It was an ugly game, but it's also somewhat expected given the stretch they just got over with. It'll never be a good defensive club, and average might be the best-case scenario. But in tournament play, all you need to do is string together two solid weekends of play to make a deep run, and this team has that ceiling with the right matchups. I always thought top-4 seed was unlikely after seeing them play early on against Xavier and UConn, but this is still the type of team that can be sneaky-good for a couple of games, especially when Caris returns.
I'll take the win.
January 21st, 2016 at 3:54 AM ^
That screaming guy, that one is nice.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:48 PM ^
was abysmal on defense. They let Minnesota roll the ball to half court, brought Dawkins in for Donnal, so all Minnesota had to do was drive the lane because there were no shot blockers. That all took 2-3 seconds max because they started the possession at half court. I'd much rather see them play some token pressure, force Minny to inbounds the ball and dribble up, then have a shot blocker like DJ underneath to swat those forced drives that you know are coming.
It seemed like the team got up by 15 and lost interest. That, combined with the poor shooting led to an ugly win. Fortunately, Minnesota is an awful, awful basketball team. You'd think Coach Wolowitz would have had a better plan to replace all of the Hollinses, considering they played at Minnesota for 7 years or so.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:12 AM ^
The substitutions were poor imo all night. I think we're still struggling to find a good rotation. Obviously Caris out has caused disturbances there. I checked the box score and it has Wilson down for only 3 minutes. It felt like a year.
I don't think we got up by 15 and lost interest. I think we got up by 15 and started playing some odd combos and tinkering with the lineup with unfortunate results.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:16 AM ^
Seemed like Dakich and Doyle were on the court (at the same time, no less) for way too long. Would much rather see Wilson and Wagner get all of the backup center minutes.
January 21st, 2016 at 11:17 AM ^
is going on with Doyle? He wasn't like Tim Duncan last year or anything but he was more than servicecable. I don't get that at all.
January 21st, 2016 at 9:22 AM ^
WTF was going on for the last minute? I have never seen so many possessions in that time period. In addition to letting them roll the ball, we just entered some ridiculous mindset that the worst thing in the world is a foul and so we should just let them drive for layups. Thank God we shot free throws well. A couple more missed free throws and we very easily could have lost this game up 9 with a minute to go. You should apply some light full court pressure to make them use an extra few seconds to get the ball upcourt, and then you still have to play solid defense. You try not to foul, but you have to defend and contest to burn the clock. There should have been half as many possessions in the last 1:04.
EDIT: Just checked and Minensota had TEN possessions in the last 64 seconds! That means we had about the same number. I know they fouled quickly, but good God man, that is terrible defensive execution on our part.
January 21st, 2016 at 10:02 AM ^
He rarely puts pressure on the ball, even when it makes the most sense (e.g., Evan Turner getting a free run to beat us a few years ago). This is just another example. No excuse for letting them roll the ball up. None.
The end of that game last night was an affront to all that is good in basketball -- it was terrible team (Minn) and a good team playing terribly (UM) extending the game in the most painful fashion. There is zero reason why Minn was having so many 3-5 seconds possessions in the final minute.
Overall, I am big Beilein backer and I glad that he's our coach, but just like Andy Reid needs to hire someone to help him with two-minute drill drives, I half-jokingly think some assistant should take over/give advice on last-minute defense. It boggles my mind.
January 21st, 2016 at 10:47 AM ^
In 1995 it was a buzzer beater in the tourney when Tyus Edney went the full length of the Court in 4.8 seconds and got a shot off. If you assume our 10 possessions average only 2 seconds each, Minnesota did that 10 times in a row yesterday. Granted they did not make them all, but they were allowed to execute it. I also love Beilein and support the team 100% but you are right, put someone on this issue. It is crazy how many basketball games come down to execution in the final two minutes.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
Edney is a perfect example -- an all-time play, and even then it *still* took basically 5 seconds. That was considered very fast. However, last night in the final minute allowed this:
- Nate Mason made Free Throws (5 seconds elapsed)
- Nate Mason made Layup. (4 seconds)
- Joey King made Three Point Jumper. Assisted by Nate Mason (3 seconds)
- Nate Mason made Free Throws (3 seconds)
- Carlos Morris missed Layup (4 seconds)
- Nate Mason made Three Point Jumper (5 seconds)
- Dupree McBrayer made Layup (4 seconds)
That is SEVEN freakin' "Edney fast" plays (six of them successful)! Only the last one was meaningless, b/c the game was over.
That can not happen - it was pathetic. If we didn't shoot the lights out from the FT line (10 for 10 - great job by Walton and MAAR), we could have blown this game.
January 21st, 2016 at 11:23 AM ^
with you re: Beilein. There does not seem to be a complete cohesion of teaching overall principles to acheive success and then applying basics to ensure success. It is really odd sometimes. I don't know if I would call it a lack of attention to detail or just the position (sometimes stubbornly) that if we do what we need (and what I want to do) then we will succeed.
He is like a brilliant scientist who cannot figure out how to open a Lunchable.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:52 PM ^
This was the worst I have seen Michigan play defense in a while. Michigan failed at the fundamental stuff.
- Getting beat off of the dribble. Michigan defenders got beat off of the dribble pretty regularly. To play good man-to-man defense, you have to move your feet well and watch the opponent's midsection.
- Stop the ball. Once a defender gets beat, someone else has to stop the ball. Michigan either didn't rotate at all or rotated way too late. This was in part because...
- You have to see your man and the ball. There were a multiple occasions where Michigan defenders couldn't see the ball handler for Minnesota, which led to easy layups once he beat his man.
Michigan had a terrible shooting night and the aforementioned defensive issues and still won, which is good.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:08 AM ^
I see hedges, switches, and some doubles; but other than those things, nothing of note as far as a defensive philosophy stands out.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 21st, 2016 at 12:32 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 21st, 2016 at 12:37 AM ^
They fouled quite a bit tonight and more this year than in past years.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:14 AM ^
Impressively, they're even worse in a zone defense. Beilein really needs to bring in someone to coach the team on defense because none of the current coaches can do it.
January 21st, 2016 at 7:29 AM ^
A win is a win.
January 21st, 2016 at 9:05 AM ^
a RED HOT Nebraska team that just beat MSU in EL and we are staring at another loss easily
January 21st, 2016 at 9:16 AM ^
Maybe they are not awkward and just really bad at defense but against one of the worst teams in the league they could not do very much. I think and hope this game was a flook. Our win against Texas looks good every game they play while Uconn, not so much. Does anyone even know IF Caris is coming back? Our defense will get a bit better MAYBE with him on the court but it still won't be great. Offense is our game so we'll see what happens. At this point I feel more optimistic than I did at the begining of the season. Go Blue, Go Beilein!
January 21st, 2016 at 9:37 AM ^
Robinson went to the floor hard after contesting a shot and I don't believe he scored again after that play. It appeared that he landed on his tailbone. I wonder if he was in some pain the remainder of the game and it affected his shot.
January 21st, 2016 at 9:37 AM ^
but on the positive, Irvin looked very solid in the first half before going cold on his shot. Looks like he's finally getting fully back into form from his back. Walton stepped up and took over in the second half to lead the team, like he's supposed to. Yes, there's still a lot to work on, but the two guys we most need to improve and lead are moving forward. It's a promising sign.
January 21st, 2016 at 10:07 AM ^
Solid game from Irvin and Walton. I need to stop expecting Robinson to make every 3 he takes.
January 21st, 2016 at 11:01 AM ^
January 21st, 2016 at 11:58 AM ^
a moral defeat / actual win ("ugly win").
We're better than this.
January 21st, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
Defense wins championships!
January 21st, 2016 at 12:05 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 22nd, 2016 at 1:39 PM ^
Comments