Much of Michigan's success next season will depend on the return of Manny Harris.
I realize that Michigan has a game on Thursday against Iowa, and crazy things can happen in March. However, Michigan beating Iowa, Ohio State, the Wisconsin/Illinois winner, and either Purdue or Michigan State — essentially, what the Wolverines need to do to make a tournament run — goes beyond crazy and into the realm of the completely impossible, so I’m going to go ahead and address something more relevant: what will this team look like next season?
First thing’s first: I’m assuming that Manny Harris, who said he’ll be back next season in the midst of a year where his NBA draft stock has plummeted, will in fact be back next season. If he’s not, this article could be extremely short: we will be bad, there will be blood, and the hockey team will be our only hope of having a decent spring. Kind of like the whole Ellerbe era. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen.
Second, I’m becoming less and less convinced that Michigan will be able to land Trey Zeigler: he’s got great offers from better schools, and if he wants to stay close to home he has the option of playing for his father at Central Michigan, something that seems to be a very real possibility, or playing for Michigan State, only one of the best programs in the country. With Harris probably returning, and the Michigan program not looking nearly as good as it did a year ago, nobody would blame Zeigler for heading to MSU, UCLA or Duke or taking the opportunity to be the star on a team his dad coaches. In short, I’m not optimistic that John Beilein will be able to convince Zeigler that Ann Arbor is the place for him.
So, what does that leave us? Something like this:
Point Guard
Shooting Guard
Small Forward
Power Forward
Center
Darius Morris
Stu Douglass
Manny Harris
Zack Novak
Jordan Morgan
Laval Lucas-Perry
Matt Vogrich
Tim Hardaway, Jr.
Evan Smotrycz
Blake McLimans
Eso Akunne
Jon Horford?
Obviously, the actual lineup could appear much different next season, but the cast of characters remains the same. Darius Morris will have the point guard position locked down, and Manny Harris will obviously be starting on the wing. Other than those two top-100 guys, Michigan will be rolling out a shooting guard who has completely lost his touch (Douglass), a shooting guard masquerading as a Big Ten power forward (Novak), and in all likelihood an untested redshirt freshman at center (Morgan, probably, or McLimans, but he’s more of a power forward).
Freshman Evan Smotrycz has a solid shot at starting, which could help this lineup immensely: if he can play at power forward, Michigan can shift Novak down to the three and play Harris at shooting guard, which would suddenly give Michigan a decent-sized lineup and great rebounding from their wings and guards, something the team will probably need given the situation at center. The added bonus would be being able to bring Douglass from off the bench at point guard, instead of leaving him in the starting lineup despite his struggles on both offense and defense this year. That hangs on a huge if, however, and that is if Smotrycz is ready to step in and play at power forward in the Big Ten.
There are some wild cards. I included three-star prospect Jon Horford on the above list, although Michigan has not yet extended an offer. I would expect, if Michigan loses out on Zeigler, for Beilein to grab Horford in this year’s recruiting class, and he could add some depth and possibly compete for a spot at the four or the five (he’s listed at 6-9, 185, so hopefully adding weight would be in order before he took the court next season). The younger Tim Hardaway is an interesting prospect at the wing — the guy is scoring like crazy in high school, and could be the type of instant offense this team has desperately needed outside of Harris and Sims the last couple years. Again, however, he will be a freshman. Matt Vogrich will have a full offseason to get physically prepared for Big Ten college basketball, but it would take an enormous leap for him to be a big-time contributor after spending the majority of this season riding the pine.
Maybe this year has beaten all the optimism out of me, but I have a hard time looking at that lineup and seeing a team that will be better next season. Maybe the system will finally take hold. Maybe the shots will start falling. Maybe Zeigler bolsters an already-solid recruiting class and adds another scoring threat on the wing. Maybe Evan Smotrycz is Kevin Pittsnogle 2.0. Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like Michigan will be depending on a lot of maybes if they hope to be an improved team next season.
There’s not a whole lot to analyze about this team right now: heading in to Saturday, few thought Michigan could hang with Ohio State, a team contending for the Big Ten title. They were right. The Buckeyes could roll out five former top-100 recruits and know that they’d get solid contributions from at least a couple of them (in this case, 18-11-7 from Evan Turner, 24-9-4 from William Buford, and 14 from Dallas Lauderdale). Michigan would try to counter with their duo of top-100 players, but with neither Manny Harris nor DeShawn Sims bringing their A-game, the Buckeye run in the second half to put the game away felt like an inevitability.
The frustrating part about this team is that, as far as I can tell, the offense, schematically, is working: Michigan has done a great job of limiting turnovers (just six this game) and getting some decent looks, but their shots just don’t fall (in this case, 17-47 from the field and 5-17 from three). I was arguing with a Michigan fan the other day about whether giving John Beilein an extension was a mistake (he said yes, I said no, for the record), and both of us agreed that this team would be really dangerous if we could just his 35% of our threes. This is not exactly asking the world of Michigan — shooting 35% from three would put a team at 144th nationally — but it’s a far cry from what Michigan is putting up: 29.8%, good for 320th in the country.
That’s what’s so frustrating about this team: in a slightly alternate world, where Michigan becomes just an average three-point shooting team (not crazy, since they shot 33.4% last year and brought practically everyone back), this is a dangerous team vying for another NCAA tournament bid. Instead, we’ve been treated to a lot of games like Saturday: 40 minutes of hoping the shots will fall, but knowing we’ll probably come up short. Can this season be over already?
For once, Michigan got some decent, balanced scoring, with all five starters breaking double-digits. Unfortunately, when Sims and Harris combine for 21 points (on 5-20 shooting), Michigan has almost no chance of winning. This team got about as good a contribution as they could hope for offensively from their role players, but the stars didn’t step up this game.
Yes, Darius Morris’ three-pointer was banked in, but he’s still making great strides as a point guard: 11 points on 4-8 shooting, three rebounds, three assists, and just one turnover. If he can continue this kind of improvement in the offseason, Michigan will have a very solid point guard for the next few seasons.
Novak and Douglass had similar games: decent offensive output mitigated by defensive struggles against bigger, stronger, faster players. See the above picture for an example of why Zack Novak is not a Big Ten power forward, and Douglass was absolutely abused by Evan Turner (who, in fairness, is one of the two best players in the country) when he was forced to guard him.
The bench, once again, had no impact: Zack Gibson had the only bench points, with two, to go along with four rebounds and three fouls in 11 minutes. Laval Lucas-Perry has mastered the on-court disappearing act, going 0-3 and not recording a single other statistic in 14 minutes. Ant Wright and Matt Vogrich barely saw the floor, combining for six minutes.
Rarely does a narrow overtime victory over a 3-10 Big Ten team inspire confidence or hope in a fan, but I’d be lying if I said that last night’s performance by Michigan didn’t have me excited, at least temporarily. It may have been Iowa, it may have been meaningless to the Big Ten standings, and maybe it shouldn’t have been that close, but I can’t be angry when I see Michigan pull out a road game in dramatic, come-from-behind fashion. With the way this season has gone, nobody would have blamed the Wolverines for letting up down the stretch, when Aaron Fuller kept making big shots and Iowa held a five-point lead with 22 seconds to play. Instead, Michigan’s big man hit some big shots of his own, and the Wolverines were able to pull out a great overtime victory on the road. The fans may have given up on this team a long time ago (I know I’ve said some things to that effect), but this team continues to fight to the bitter end. You have to tip your cap to John Beilein for that.
If you told me before the game that Michigan would hit over 50% of their threes, I would have expected a blowout victory. Instead, Michigan had to battle with an equally-scorching Iowa squad that was lighting it up from outside and riding the hot hand of Fuller (30 points and 13 rebounds) inside. This wasn’t anywhere close to Michigan’s best defensive effort, but the offense carried the day. We haven’t been able to say that much this season. While you’d certainly hope that the team would play better D, it was nice to see the team find its shooting stroke (at least from the outside).
This wasn’t DeShawn Sims’ best effort, as he struggled to hit his inside shots (10-25 from the field), but he hit the biggest shot of the game when the team ran a play specifically to get him an open jumper, and you can’t ask for much more than that from your senior leader. Sims managed to battle through the game despite not quite having it all night, and he ended up with 27 points — to me, that’s the sign of a really good player.
Manny Harris also struggled from two-point range, going 3-10 on the night, but he finished 4-7 from three (including a few pull-up shots that had every Michigan fan cringing until they went in), pulled down 10 boards, and added seven assists. When Manny was struggling to create his own shot, he was able to find open teammates and help the offense with his passing. Again, it’s great to see your stars finding ways to make the team better when they’re not having their best game — Manny managed to be effective despite not having his bread-and-butter (getting to the hoop) and made some big plays in overtime to help lift the team to victory. Yes, he had six turnovers, but Manny’s good plays offset his poor ones.
Stu Douglass started hot, hitting two early threes, but then disappeared from the stat sheet until he hit a huge three in overtime. While it’s nice to see him hit that late shot, we need more production from Douglass — three rebounds, no assists, and two turnovers is not what you want from a guy playing 42 minutes at guard.
Zack Novak put up a nice overall stat line — 3-5 from the field (all his attempts from three) for nine points, four rebounds, five assists, a steal, and no turnovers, but you can’t talk about his game last night without mentioning that he was the main guy guarding Fuller, who routinely abused Novak in the post. It’s tough to put too much of that on Novak — on any normal team, he wouldn’t be guarding power forwards — but you’d still like to see Novak hold his guy under 30.
Darius Morris has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks, but last night he was a complete nonfactor — 26 minutes, no points, 0-3 from the field, two rebounds, two assists. Games like this make you remember that he’s still a very raw, freshman point guard getting his first taste of Big Ten basketball.
Laval Lucas-Perry briefly caught fire in the first half, hitting three consecutive three-pointers to help stake the Wolverines to a nice first-half cushion (that completely disappeared by halftime). He finished with his best stat line since early January, scoring 13 points on 3-5 shooting, hitting 4-4 free throws, and adding five rebounds and two assists. I’ll never understand how LLP can have games like this and then completely disappear for a month, but it’s always nice to see him step up.
Zack Gibson finished with three blocks in just 12 minutes, but didn’t haul in a single rebound, which is somewhat unacceptable for a 6-10 college basketball player. Michigan went with Sims down the stretch, obviously, and it’s way too late in his career to complain about how limited Gibson is — at this point, he is what he is, which is a guy who can block a couple shots, eat up some minutes in the middle, and is a very inconsistent offensive player.
For more on last night’s game, check out the recap from UMHoops.
Darius Morris has earned the starting point guard role as a true freshman.
With the Michigan basketball team hitting the home stretch of the regular season with little to no hope of an NCAA Tournament berth, it’s time to start looking ahead to 2010-11. There are just six games remaining before the Big Ten Tournament (@Iowa, PSU, ILL, @OSU, MINN, @MSU) but still a lot of questions to be answered about this team and their potential next season. Here are five things I’d like to see out of the team before the season is over:
The continued improvement of Darius Morris: This is an obvious one, but also very important. We’ve watched Morris grow in the last couple weeks from an offensive non-factor to the guy John Beilein trusts as his starting point guard, and the true freshman appears to be getting better with every game. If he can continue that improvement, Morris could be one of the stars of the team next season. If his game doesn’t develop, we could have another season with a point guard who won’t score more than 5-10 points in any given game. I’d like to see Morris, who has been deferential sometimes to a fault this season, look to create his own shot a little more — if Manny Harris ends up going pro, Michigan will need someone to step into the role of slasher/creator, and Morris is the most likely candidate. If he can show an ability to get to the basket and finish consistently, Michigan’s outlook for 2010-11 gets a lot better.
Manny Harris playing within himself: Let’s assume, at least for the time being, that Manny Harris will stay true to his word and come back next season. If he does return, Manny may have to shoulder even more of the offensive burden for Michigan without partner in crime DeShawn Sims. We’ve seen what happens to Manny when he tries to do too much for the team: turnovers, poor shot selection, and unnecessary risks on defense. Harris has made strides in the turnover department, improving in turnovers per game and turnover rate every season of his career, but his overall efficiency on the offensive end hasn’t made the leap that Michigan fans were expecting heading into this season. If he can start showing maturation now, I’ll be a lot more confident that Manny can be an efficient and effective player while still carrying his supporting cast.
Someone — anyone — find their shooting stroke: I guess I should amend that to “any returning player” but you get the point — as a team, Michigan is shooting 29.8% from three, and only three players (LLP, Stu Douglass, DeShawn Sims) who have attempted more than 25 is shooting better than 30%. John Beilein’s offense is predicated around the three-pointer, and that’s not going to change anytime soon, so it would be nice to see someone step up and start consistently hitting shots. If I had to pick a player I’d like to see find his stroke, it’s Zack Novak — he does everything well for this team right now except score, the other players feed off of his energy (and when he plays well, you can feel how he boosts the team), and he’ll almost certainly be starting next season, so having him become a bigger offensive threat would really benefit this team.
Stu Douglass regain his offensive confidence: It’s been tough to watch Douglass playing against himself for much of the season, and you can tell that his inability to hit jumpers has caused him to lose confidence in his all-around offensive game. With Morris now manning the point, Michigan doesn’t need to keep Douglass in the lineup going forward — few teams should be desperate enough to keep giving 30 minutes per game to a guy who shoots 31.5% from the field, doesn’t rebound well for his height, and can be exposed defensively against quicker guards. I’m not ready to give up on Stu, however, because of his ballhandling, passing, and his potential as a shooter. If Stu starts getting more aggressive, like he showed against Minnesota with that great backdoor cut for a layup, he could be an integral part of this team for the next two seasons. If he plays like he did earlier in Big Ten play, when he was passing up open layups and tripping over himself to avoid shooting, he may find himself getting passed over by younger players starting next season, when Evan Smotrycz and Tim Hardaway get to campus.
See what Matt Vogrich can bring to this team: When this team was still battling for a (meaningful) postseason berth, I had no problem with John Beilein keeping the freshman Vogrich mostly out of the rotation (6 mpg this season). At this juncture, however, I’d like to see how Vogrich responds to a bigger role — in very limited opportunities, he has shown a Novakian ability to get to rebounds and loose balls as well as an effective three-point shot (9-for-24 on the season). Especially if Manny Harris turns pro, Michigan will need Vogrich to take on a bigger role next season. With nothing to lose this year, it would be nice to get him some experience getting big minutes in Big Ten play.
Michigan has a good opportunity to continue their momentum from the Minnesota win tomorrow night when they take on cellar-dweller Iowa on the road. Given how their first game against the Hawkeyes went (a 60-46 victory that wasn’t that close), the game could be an opportunity to see some experimenting with the rotation if John Beilein desires, and a chance to see guys like Vogrich get some burn off the bench.
Stu Douglass was one of several Wolverines to hit the deck hustling last night.
Watching Michigan defeat Minnesota 71-63 on the road last night, you could see why this team was supposed to make the NCAA Tournament in 2009-10: when both our stars are on, and the supporting cast, well, supports them, this is a team that can play some really quality basketball. If Michigan doesn’t fall into foul trouble early in the second half (helped, in part, by some dubious officiating) and miss some late free throws, this could easily have been a 15-20 point victory.
The story of the game was the performance of DeShawn Sims, who was benched just a minute into the game and finished the first half with just six points, then exploded in the second half for 21 points on 10-12 shooting. To say that was the whole story, however, would be to shortchange the efforts of the whole team — Michigan managed to take a one-point lead into halftime thanks to some very solid man-to-man defense, which they kept up throughout the whole game, and the team received very solid performances from Manny Harris, Darius Morris, and Zack Gibson (!) on the offensive end.
Before I get to the player bullets, I thought I would introduce a new feature to the game recaps: stealing a little thunder from UMHoops, I decided to head over to StatSheet and see what other charts they had. I like the one below, which is essentially a bar-chart box score, which is nice for visualizing the overall impact of each player.
John Beilein didn’t like what Sims was showing on defense early, leading to a lengthy first-half benching, but Sims responded exactly how you’d want a senior to respond: by playing like hell when he got another opportunity. Even though Minnesota had a big size advantage in the post, they had no answer for Sims, who showed off his entire array of post moves and threw in a couple mid-range shots and a three-pointer for good measure.
You can’t talk about Sims’ performance without mentioning the effect Manny Harris had on his game last night. Manny wasn’t shooting particularly well (5-14 from the field), but he was able to consistently get to the basket, leading to a lot of free throws (8-10 on the night) and opening the lane up for Sims, who Harris found with several great passes in the second half. Manny finished with seven assists and only two turnovers, playing within himself for most of the game and creating offense for himself and the team.
Darius Morris is really getting better with every game, and this may have been his finest performance as a Wolverine. He finished with five points (2-3 shooting), three rebounds, five assists, a steal, and just two turnovers, and for the most part was able to handle Minnesota’s full-court press like an experienced point guard. He had a couple really gorgeous plays, including a highlight-worthy behind-the-back dish to Harris on a two-on-one fast break. Morris is responding really well to the extra minutes he’s earned, and we’ll likely see him for 30+ minutes a game from here on out.
Although he had a few really ugly shots and only finished 2-7 from the field, Stu Douglass played a solid all-around game, dishing out four assists (to zero turnovers), adding five steals, and scoring a critical second-half bucket on a beautiful backdoor cut. That last play was really nice to see from Douglass — he was able to earn himself a layup (and an and-one opportunity) by playing smart and having the confidence to look for his own offense.
Zack Novak didn’t have much of an impact on offense, in part because of more foul trouble, but he was his usual gritty self on defense, hitting the floor multiple times for loose balls. His hustle appears to be infectious — Douglass dove for loose balls a couple times, and even Laval Lucas-Perry made a really nice play on the ground to get control of the ball and call a quick timeout for Michigan. When you see a player put in the kind of effort Novak has all season, it makes the rest of the team want to step up and match that level of intensity, and Michigan did a great job of doing that last night.
When Zack Gibson came in early to replace Sims, and immediately got called for traveling at the three-point line, I must admit I immediately called for Beilein to put Peedi back in. After that snafu, however, Gibson put in a great game, scoring eight points (on 3-3 shooting, including two threes) and hauling in two rebounds in just nine minutes, mostly in the first half. Without Gibson stepping up like he did, Michigan likely goes into the half with a deficit. Instead, Gibson provided an unexpected lift to the team, and Sims was able to build on his success in the second half.
Anthony Wright and LLP both played somewhat sparingly (13 minutes for Wright, 11 for LLP), and each finished with zero points. Besides one bad turnover by LLP when he couldn’t handle the Gophers’ press, neither had much of an impact — positive or negative — on the game. Frankly, during a game when Michigan’s other role players really stepped up, that’s fine by me.
Michigan's defense also appears ready for the season to end.
As the season wears on, it’s getting tougher and tougher to write these game recaps. I think, for the sake of my sanity, my mind has stopped allowing me to get emotionally invested in Michigan basketball games. On Saturday afternoon, as Michigan’s deficit hung somewhere between 16 and 20 points for what felt like an eternity, my friends and I took entertainment in seeing which referee would make the most animated call (Ed Hightower, of course, emerged as the champion). We left when the clock ticked below eight minutes. Call me a fair-weather fan if you want, but at some point, you have to cut your losses and move on with the rest of your day.
Despite the score, the team didn’t play particularly bad, at least in the first half — Wisconsin simply didn’t miss, shooting 15-22 from the field (and a ridiculous 9-13 from three) in the first 20 minutes to open up a 49-26 halftime lead that would not be relinquished. For the latter stanza, Michigan seemed resigned to its fate, as DeShawn Sims (15 first-half points, 2 second-half points) and the rest of the team (12-20 on field goals and 2-2 from three-point range in first half, 5-19 — including 0-9 from three — in second half) cooled off considerably.
Manny Harris continues to slump — and kill his 2010 draft stock — with some ugly shot selection and a broke jumper. He scored just 11 points on 4-11 shooting, and just doesn’t look like himself. It’s tough to tell how much of Manny’s woes are mental and how much are physical, but it’s clear that he’s not playing on the same level he was early in the season, and this team can’t afford to have one of its two stars not playing like one. I guess the positive here is that Manny may have no choice but to come back next season.
DeShawn Sims did all he could in the first half to carry the team, dropping in 15 points on an array of fallaway jumpers and inside post moves, but was likely discouraged by the lack of support from his teammates — with only two second-half points on five shot attempts, it didn’t look like Peedi was working as hard to get in position like he was earlier in the game. It’s tough to blame him on this — after that kind of first-half effort, only to see those results, I’d be discouraged too.
The (only) bright side of these past few games, Darius Morris has made some encouraging progress at point guard, where he has now earned the starting spot. Morris was efficient in all facets on offense, scoring eight points on 3-4 shooting and dishing out three assists against only one turnover. Since he doubles as Michigan’s most athletically gifted perimeter defender, expect to see Morris get even more playing time as the season wears on.
The rest of the team was nowhere to be found. Zack Novak and Stu Douglass combined for three points on 0-5 shooting. Those two players comprise 40% of this team’s starting lineup. That wouldn’t be so bad if this team had any bench production, but only Laval Lucas-Perry scored among the reserves, with four points on 2-3 shooting. You can’t expect your team to be competitive if only five players score in a game. You just can’t.
I haven’t even bothered to check if this team has a chance at postseason play (and when I say postseason, I mean the NIT or that other random postseason tournament that nobody watches), but at this point, I’d like for this season to mercifully end as soon as possible, so we can regroup, assess what went wrong, and gear up for next season. This team is clearly ready for this nightmare to end, as DeShawn Sims is the only player you could say has remotely lived up to expectations, and he’s an outgoing senior. Hopefully John Beilein can get this team to put together a few decent games down the stretch, Manny will reaffirm that he’s coming back, and we’ll move on.
Sorry. I have a hard time thinking about last night’s game without bursting out into a stream of expletives. Up three, with a minute and a half on the clock, with the ball — even the most cynical of Michigan fans would’ve had a hard time betting on MSU at that point. If these past couple years have taught Michigan fans anything, however, it is that cynicism is the only protection against crushing disappointment.
Sonofabitch.
A couple points on the last play before I get into player breakdowns:
I was not just okay with the play drawn up at the end, but thought that was by far our best chance of getting a basket in 1.5 seconds from near midcourt. I’ve seen or heard several people say they would have rather seen Michigan get a look at a jump shot. Have you seen Michigan’s ability to hit jump shots? We shot 19-58 from the field against MSU, and 7-29 from three. We managed to get our best inside player a shot from within three feet of the basket. It didn’t fall. Barely. Of all the things to c0mplain about, the final play call is not one of them.
Yes, DeShawn Sims was probably fouled on that last play, as this screenshot from UMHoops shows. If you expect a ref to do anything but swallow his whistle on the final play of a game, however, you haven’t watched a lot of basketball — it would’ve taken a full-fledged assault to draw a foul on that play. That’s basketball. In this instance, we lost. Those are the breaks of the game. If you really want to complain about something, complain about the two airballed three-pointers in the final two minutes, when we could’ve made a last-gasp effort unnecessary.
Motherf******.
Let’s get to the good part about the game: Michigan, with a converted shooting guard and a true freshman manning the point, only turned the ball over four times. I’ve watched a lot of basketball, and don’t remember many games where a team held on to the ball that effectively.
Of course, there’s the bad part about this game (or this team, really): They can’t shoot. At all. I’d love to have an easy explanation for this, be able to say that John Beilein’s offense isn’t getting open looks, isn’t creating chances, and we could all point fingers and play the blame game. When your team goes 7-29 from three, you should be able to say that they were forcing bad shots, and this is a poorly coached team. Except it isn’t. The vast majority of those 29 attempts were good, open looks. But, just like the rest of the season (Michigan is now a stellar 29.7% from three on the year), the shots weren’t falling.
Quickly, before I give up on life, or at least sports, let’s get to the player bullets:
Even with the two late misses from DeShawn Sims, you can’t put this loss on either of Michigan’s two stars. Yes, Sims wasn’t efficient on offense, scoring 19 points on 7-18 shooting, but the Wolverines didn’t exactly have a lot of other options to go to. He hit a couple of huge threes down the stretch, and actually went 3-5 from downtown in the game. Manny Harris, after a bit of a slow start, finished with 16 points, four rebounds, five assists, five steals (!), and two blocks. After struggling on the defensive end in his last couple games, Manny came out focused and put in his best defensive effort of the season, cutting off passes like a free safety. The two stars came to play, which leaves, well, the rest of the team…
Stu Douglass just can’t get on track, and you can tell from his play that his confidence on offense is completely gone. He had a few plays where he beat his man off the dribble, but instead of going up strong for the layup, Douglass would stop and either force a pass or, in one case, travel. He accounted for three of Michigan’s four turnovers and went just 2-7 from the field (1-5 from three). Michigan’s lack of depth appears to be the only thing between Douglass and the bench — there just isn’t a reliable alternative. He’s going to have to break out of his slump at some point, or his starting spot will be in serious jeopardy when Evan Smotrycz, Tim Hardaway, and potentially Trey Zeigler hit campus next season.
I love the way Zack Novak plays — I’m not sure how many more ways I can say I like how much he hustles. This game was no different, as Novak pulled down five offensive rebounds and seemed to get a hand of half of Michigan’s (numerous) misses. However, he shot 2-9 from the field (1-7 from three), and that’s just not going to get it done.
Like Novak, Laval Lucas-Perry played a solid game if you took shooting entirely out of the equation. But, since the object of basketball is to put the ball through the basket, it’s tough to praise a starter when he puts up a goose egg on the scoreboard — LLP was 0-4 shooting, and his misses were not pretty.
The reason Douglass remains on the floor, as evidenced last night, is that Darius Morris is simply not a threat on the offensive end. Morris played just about how he’s played all season — 20 or so minutes, two points, two assists, one turnover, decent defense, no offensive impact. He had an open look at a three from the corner, and clanged it off the side of the backboard. That about sums up Morris’ offensive acumen at this point in his career. I expect him to get much better, but he just isn’t someone the defense has to account for right now.
Nobody else really got significant minutes, which is merciful, since I’m getting really sick of writing about this game. For more pain recaps, check out UMHoops, MGoBlog, and The Only Colors (an MSU blog, so you’ve been warned).
Zack Novak played well in Manny Harris' absence, but it was not enough to lift U-M to victory.
No matter who Michigan put out on the floor in West Lafayette, the Wolverines were going to have a lot of trouble upsetting Purdue on Saturday. When the news came down just a couple hours before tipoff that Manny Harris had been suspended for an undisclosed incident at practice, Michigan chances dwindled even further. What played out was not a surprise: DeShawn Sims continued his strong play for Michigan, scoring 21 points on 8-18 shooting and grabbing eight rebounds, but even with Zack Novak (16 points, 6-11 shooting, five rebounds) stepping up big, the Wolverines could not find the offensive production to keep up with Purdue, who walked away with a ten-point victory that could’ve been even worse.
The local news sites are reporting that Harris’ status for Tuesday’s Michigan State game will be determined later this afternoon, so I’ll hold off comment on that situation until more of the facts come to light. Instead, I’ll focus on the on-court issues.
Shooting has been Michigan’s Achilles heel for most of the season, but this team continues to find new, more frustrating ways to lose. This week, they pulled the “let’s suspend our best player, then shoot very well but turn the ball over like crazy” trick, which worked out really well if the goal was to cause my hairline to recede at a very accelerated pace. Besides the aforementioned Sims and Novak, nobody in a Michigan uniform could claim to have played well on the offensive end: Laval Lucas-Perry was the team’s third-leading scorer with seven points (on 2-2 shooting), but he turned the ball over three times. Stu Douglass continued his brutally poor season with a two-point, four-turnover performance and a rough day on the defensive end. Darius Morris also chipped in four turnovers and missed six of his nine shots. Matt Vogrich was the only other player with a stat line that didn’t make me cringe, but four points on 2-3 shooting and two rebounds was not going to make up for the rest of the bunch.
Watching Michigan try to get into a rhythm on offense without Manny Harris was really tough to watch. We forget that, as well as being the team’s top scorer, Harris might just be the Wolverines’ best passer as well. He’s also the only player on the team that can consistently beat his man off the dribble, something which really opens up the offense when he’s playing well. Yes, there are flaws in Manny’s game, but watching the game on Saturday should squash any ill-formed arguments that this team plays better when he’s not on the floor. The rest of the guards just don’t have the ability to replace his production and what he brings to the team.
That said, Saturday’s game could be encouraging if Michigan is without Harris for any length of time. Despite playing a top-15 team on the road, without their best player, the Wolverines hung tough and managed to keep the game respectable. If they could have held on to the ball better, Michigan would have been in a position to really challenge Purdue. DeShawn Sims continues to make a strong push for first-team all-conference, and Zack Novak finally broke out of his shooting slump. There were some good signs here, even if you have to look hard to see them.
Unfortunately, it looks like Michigan will now officially be playing the role of potential spoiler: at 10-9, any tournament resume will probably be of the NIT variety. If Michigan loses Manny for any serious length of time, even the NIT may be a stretch. Let’s hope that isn’t the case.
For more postgame coverage, check out UMHoops and MGoBlog for their takes. I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on the Harris situation as soon as the details come out.
That about sums up Michigan’s 54-48 loss to Wisconsin last night. I’m really at a loss for words when it comes to this team — even with leads of 13-2, 21-10, and 39-30 (the last coming with just nine minutes left in the game), a collapse always felt just around the corner. Maybe I’m just paranoid, or too used to watching the post-Fab Five Wolverines, but the entire game I was bracing myself for what felt like the inevitable. Then Michigan scored its 43rd point of the night with 5:18 left in the second half to take a three-point lead, and stayed at that number until Manny Harris hit a jumper with 38 seconds left, with Wisconsin now up six. In that stretch, Michigan went 0-4 from the field, turned the ball over twice, and committed four fouls. That’s not how you close out a game against a strong home team like Wisconsin.
What went wrong for the Wolverines? Well, besides DeShawn Sims, who had 23 points (9-14 from the field), 13 rebounds, two blocks, and two steals before fouling out late, just about everything:
Manny Harris played one of the poorest games I’ve seen him play as a Wolverine. He scored just 11 points on 4-14 shooting, with four rebounds, one assist, and three turnovers. As Dylan points out at UMHoops, as bad as he was on the offensive end, Manny was just as ineffective a defender — he was the main culprit in allowing reserve forward Rob Wilson to score 13 points in just 18 minutes. A couple weeks ago, all the talk was about how John Beilein needed to motivate Michigan’s other star, Sims, to play to Harris’ level. Now, it seems, Michigan has the opposite problem.
I love the way Zack Novak plays, but it’s hard to sugarcoat a zero-point, 0-6 shooting effort. Novak did do a good job of hitting the boards, pulling down six rebounds (two offensive), but he also missed a couple open layups that the Wolverines really needed to drop. Sometimes it seems like Novak’s hustling style can work against him — on one of the layup misses, he had to put the ball up with his off-hand while flying towards the opposite side of the basket. If Novak plays a little more in-control, he can make the game a little easier for himself.
On a tough road trip, you need your shooters to hit big shots. Unfortunately, Michigan didn’t get much from Stu Douglass (2-8 from the field, 2-7 from three, eight points) and Laval Lucas-Perry (2-5 from the field, 1-3 from three, five points). These two seem to have problems of the “polar opposite” variety: Douglass has been jacking up shots with reckless abandon, while LLP seems all-too content with passing the ball off and generally playing as passively on offense as possible. Still searching for a reliable third scoring option…
Speaking of searching, can somebody put out an APB on the bench? I realize that there’s little depth to work with here, but the entire bench combined for one point, zero shot attempts, four rebounds, an assist, and three turnovers. Darius Morris, whose play has improved all season, was exploited on the defensive end and wasn’t able to create much on offense. Zack Gibson continued to alternate nice plays on defense with ugly turnovers on offense. Ant Wright and Matt Vogrich only played four minutes each and had little impact on the game.
Michigan needed to make a statement during this critical stretch of conference play, but the only statement they made last night was “choke”. In order to salvage the season, they’ll need to put this game behind them and come out a very different team against Purdue on Saturday.
Manny Harris slams home two of his 18 against UConn.
First thing’s first: Michigan still has a long way to go to get back into the NCAA Tournament picture.
However, that was really fun, wasn’t it?
It’s tough to overstate how great it was to see this team battle a bigger, more athletic, more talented team for 40 minutes and come away with a statement win in a game that would have surprised no one if it went the other way. For the first time in longer than I care to think, every Michigan player who saw the court played within their role while adding something positive to the team’s effort, and it showed in the final score. If you told me before the game that Michigan would only shoot 37.3% from the field, I would’ve left Crisler for the comforts of my own home — luckily, that didn’t happen, and I was treated to watching the Wolverines do all the little things it takes to win big games.
DeShawn Sims, despite scoring only eight points on 11 FGA against a huge UConn squad, was a beast on the boards, hauling in 11 rebounds. Seven different Wolverines contributed at least one steal, as Michigan hounded the Huskies’ ballhandlers into turnover after turnover. Stu Douglass did a great job running the point, dishing out four assists to only one turnover, and had a couple huge threes despite a subpar overall shooting day (4-12 from the field, 3-10 from three). Manny Harris had a couple huge dunks to set the crowd into a frenzy, went 8-10 from the free throw line, and added eight rebounds to his team-leading 18 points. Zack Gibson stuffed the stat sheet in only 13 minutes, scoring four points and adding four rebounds (two offensive), two assists, two steals, and a ferocious block to give the team a spark off the bench. Anthony Wright (!) went 3-5 from three, adding nine huge points from an unexpected source. And Zack Novak, well, he played like every stereotype of the gritty white basketball player dictated he should play, pulling down four rebounds against UConn’s enormous front line, battling for every loose ball, adding an assist, steal, and a block, scoring 10 points, and drilling a three-pointer from the top of the key with 1:30 left to break a 58-58 tie.
This was the Michigan team everyone expected to see when the preseason polls had Michigan ranked 15th. It’s not always pretty, but this team is finding a way to get things done the past few games. The Michigan team that showed up on Sunday at Crisler is one that can compete with any in the Big Ten. And who knows — they just might.
"When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing."
- Bo Schembechler
“I ask no man to make a sacrifice. On the contrary! We ask
him to do the opposite. To live clean, come clean, think clean.
That he stop doing all the things that destroy him physically,
mentally and morally, and begin doing all the things that make him keener, finer and more competent" - Fielding Yost
“People come up to me and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m not sorry because I received the greatest thing from the University of Michigan anyone can receive: a degree.” - Zia Combs
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