A few weeks ago, I took a look at what Michigan basketball’s lineup would look like in 2010-11, with one large assumption: that Manny Harris would be staying with the team. With Manny now off to pursue a pro basketball career, the Wolverines are left without their top two scorers and rebounders from the past three years, and not a whole lot of production from their returning players. With Harris, DeShawn Sims, Zack Gibson, and Anthony Wright departing, Michigan loses 61% of their points, 53% of their rebounds, and 39% of their assists from players who took up just under 42% of the team’s minutes last season.
That wouldn’t be such an issue if the load was spread evenly across those four players (and the rest of the team), but Harris and Sims obviously accounted for most of that production. Now Michigan’s leading returning scorer and rebounder is Zack Novak, who averaged 7.4 points and 4.3 boards per game last season, while Darius Morris is the team’s returning assist leader at 2.6 per game. The scariest part? Morris also is the team’s leading shooter among returning players… after shooting 40.6% from the field last season.
The good news? Michigan is adding two guys with the potential to be high-volume scorers in PF Evan Smotrycz and SG/SF Tim Hardaway, Jr., as well as depth up front in PF Jon Horford. Here’s what next year’s rotation looks like right now:
I hate to say it, but that looks like a team that will struggle to remain in postseason contention of any kind, let alone a squad that will lift the Wolverines back into the NCAA tournament. There is, however, one huge wild card still at play: SG Trey Zeigler, the #26 player in the class of 2010 according to Rivals.com, has Michigan in his final five teams, and many expect his final decision to come down to the Wolverines and Central Michigan, where his father is the head coach. Zeigler could provide something that appears to be lacking in the above lineup, a player who can get into the lane, create his own shot and bear his share of the scoring load.
Even if Zeigler signs, however, there will be huge question marks surrounding this team next season. The lack of depth up front borderlines on dire, with two redshirt freshmen coming off injury-plagued years (Jordan Morgan and Blake McLimans) representing the only returning Wolverines capable of playing center — and that’s a stretch for the lanky McLimans — and two true freshmen (Smotrycz and Horford, who is rail-thin for a 6-9 power forward) as the only other bigs on the roster.
There are equally large concerns with the players who have seen actual minutes with the Wolverines as well. Can Darius Morris round out his game and continue the improvement we saw from him over the course of his freshman season? Will Zack Novak be more effective if he is able to play small forward instead of extremely-undersized power forward? Can Matt Vogrich become a reliable rotation player after barely seeing the floor as a freshman? Will Laval Lucas-Perry do something — anything — positive with any sort of consistency?
Of course, the biggest question, perhaps the key to the entire season, will simply be this: Can this team find their shooting stroke? Michigan finished 2009-10 shooting 41.6% from the field as a team, and just 29.9% from three, in an offense predicated around finding open jump-shooters and knocking down triples. Even if Smotrycz and Hardaway come in and shoot the lights out, this team will still need Douglass, Novak, and Morris to greatly improve their shooting performances from last season if they hope to stay in postseason contention and out of the Big Ten basement.
Manny Harris leaving early may become the ultimate test of John Beilein and his system — he will have to take a nucleus of supporting cast players and true freshmen and mold them into a productive team, somehow, or there will be very serious questions about his job security (whether those questions are deserved or not). Let’s all hope he’s as good a coach as his resume makes him appear to be, or it could be a very ugly 2010-11 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.
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.
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.
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.
For the second straight game, Michigan’s basketball game featured a furious second-half comeback by the road team. Unfortunately, Michigan was the home team this time, as the Wolverines squandered a 17-point first-half lead to fall to Northwestern by a score of 68-62. A few observations from one of the most frustrating games I’ve watched as a Michigan fan:
Don’t put this one on DeShawn Sims, who broke his trend of disappearing in losses by dropping 17 points (on 6-12 shooting) and eight rebounds. He was very effective on the block, but Michigan just couldn’t find ways to get him the ball in the second half. The one criticism you could make is that Sims seemed to take himself out of the game in the second half, seemingly frustrated with the lack of touches.
Manny Harris also played very well, leading the team with 24 points and nine rebounds. Every time Michigan needed a basket to stop the bleeding from a Northwestern run, it was Harris that took control. Unfortunately, he couldn’t match Northwestern’s hot second-half shooting by himself.
Another loss, another game where nobody stepped up as a third scoring option: After Harris and Sims, Michigan’s leading scorer was Zack Novak, who scored seven points on 2-8 shooting. Stu Douglass managed just six points (on 2-6 shooting) in 38 minutes, and starter Laval Lucas-Perry was held scoreless in 22 minutes. The team needs someone to step up, and none of the role players seem willing (or able) to do so.
Despite the late turnovers, I was pleasantly surprised with Darius Morris’ play. He led the team with seven assists and hit two huge threes down the stretch to give Michigan a chance — he took those late shots with a lot of confidence, something I haven’t seen from him until now.
Where was Zack Gibson? With Sims looking dominant at times and frustrated at others, you would think John Beilein would want to put in his other post scoring option. Instead, Gibson saw only four minutes of play, scoring two points and also dropping a perfect pass from Morris that would have been an easy two. With no bench depth up front, Michigan needs more from Gibson.
Programming Note: My recruiting updates will be posted tomorrow and Wednesday, as the first full week of school has caught up to me a bit. Posting will be more timely, and regular, as I figure out my weekly schedule.
I don’t know what to say about this team. Besides Manny Harris, the best thing about last night was seeing Ann Arbor native (and freshman walk-on) Eso Akunne get major minutes and not look totally overmatched. For most of the game Michigan was jacking up ill-advised (and poorly-aimed) shots while Utah was allowed to take whatever shot they pleased. I have no idea how Michigan was in the game until late in the second half, but it certainly wasn’t because of solid all-around play — if Utah didn’t commit 17 turnovers (yes, that’s partly Michigan’s doing, but it was also just carelessness on their part) this would have been a blowout from start to finish. A few player-specific bullets:
Let’s highlight the one good part of last night’s game: Manny Harris continued to carry this team as far as he could, scoring 25 points on 8-16 shooting, pulling down six rebounds, and adding four steals. He probably would have had more than one assist if anyone else on the team could make a shot. At this point, I really wouldn’t blame him for going pro as soon as this season is over.
DeShawn Sims — I don’t know how many different ways it needs to be said, but it seems to come up every game: You are not a good three point shooter. Period. Sims’ 10 points came on 4-12 shooting, including 2-7 threes, and Sims — our starting center and second scoring option — failed to get to the free throw line even once. I don’t care how big the team you’re playing is, that’s totally unacceptable. If John Beilein has to anchor him to the block in practice, that’s fine by me. So far, Sims’ senior season has been a complete disappointment, and a large part of it has to do with his unwillingness to stay in the post.
I really just feel bad for Stu Douglass at this point. He is now shooting an abysmal 23.9% from the field, and is 8-34 on the season from three. Add in the fact that he’s a liability defensively because of his lack of quickness, and he’s really hurting the team just by being on the floor right now. I really hope he finds his shot soon, because the longer this goes on, the less acceptable it is that Beilein gives him big minutes. We need Stu hitting shots if we hope to be a decent team in the Big Ten, but this is one of the worst shooting slumps I’ve ever witnessed. Hope he gets back on track soon.
The defensive effort as a whole was completely uninspiring. The team isn’t playing help D, is selling out for turnovers, and got beat down the court several times after made baskets. I have no idea how much of this is on coaching, how much is on effort, and how much is on the team’s lack of physical ability, but something needs to change.
Quickly, the rest of the guys: Anthony Wright needs a long benching after the idiotic transition three-point attempt when Michigan had a chance to make the game very interesting — he just isn’t bringing anything to the table right now. Darius Morris shows flashes of brilliance, and I think he’ll be a very good point guard when he learns how to finish and adds a decent mid-range shot. Zack Gibson totally disappeared, and I have no idea why. Matt Vogrich had one very nice pass to Manny for a layup, but just gets consistently exposed defensively. LLP clearly is doing something wrong in practice, because he played six fewer minutes than Akunne on a night when Douglass struggled mightily and Zack Novak was out with the flu.
For more post-game wraps, check out MGoBlog and UMHoops. At this point, I’m actually looking forward to homework — anything to not have to focus on Michigan sports right now. Yes, it’s that bad.
Well, that sucked. A few thoughts on the Boston College game, before I get all sad and write depressing things:
I really thought this would be the year DeShawn Sims would put it all together and become a consistent threat, every game. After a four point, four foul performance, I’m very disappointed. Yes, he had foul trouble early, but when Peedi came off the bench for the second half, he spent most of his time hanging around the perimeter and seemed completely out of sync with the offense. I don’t know what John Beilein has to do to convince Peedi he isn’t a shooting guard, but whatever it is needs to happen.
Darius Morris simply isn’t ready. I still think he’s going to be a very good player here, but right now he’s having a very tough time running the offense, and he doesn’t have the finishing ability to make any impact on that end. Yes, he’s a much better defender than Stu Douglass, but he just isn’t giving Michigan much choice about who to play.
For longer stretches than I care to say last night, Zack Gibson was Michigan’s best player. He plays hard on both ends, hasn’t been forcing it too much on offense (which I thought was his biggest issue last year), and provides Michigan with a legitimate post presence on offense and defense. More importantly, he knows that he’s a post player, and plays like it — DeShawn would be wise to learn from Gibson.
The offense in general looked completely stagnant last night — some well-deserved comparisons to watching an Amaker offense have already popped up. Watching Manny Harris settle for contested jumpers all night — his 19-7-6 stat line doesn’t look nearly as good when you check the 7-18 on field goals, or the 1-6 on threes — was nothing short of excruciating. I’m not sure what Beilein should do to remedy this — more pick and rolls, more cuts to the basket, play Manny at the point, etc. — but it needs to change, and quick.
The loss leaves Michigan stuck at 3-3 and looking at a big uphill climb if they want to make a repeat appearance in the NCAA tournament. The Utah game looks like a must-win now, and there’s a very good chance Michigan will need a big upset over Kansas or UConn (neither of which seem at all likely) to have a legitimate resume. Throw in the hockey team’s struggles and the disastrous football team, and this may be the worst time to be a Michigan sports fan in generations.
Seriously. Just for kicks (very depressing kicks, that is) I checked through Michigan’s record books to find the last time that (1) both the basketball and hockey teams missed the NCAA tournament and (2) the football team finished with a losing record in the same academic year. The result? In 1962, the football team finished 2-7 under Bump Elliott, and the 1962-63 hockey and basketball teams missed the tournament, finishing 7-14-3 and 16-8, respectively. So, yeah, if it feels like Michigan sports have reached a new low in your lifetime, there’s a very good chance you’re right.
Coming off back-to-back losses in the Old Spice Classic, Michigan is currently unranked and heading into a tough matchup against Boston College. Some fans are already touting this game as a must-win, even with the lion’s share of the season still ahead. So, is this really a game Michigan has to win? Let’s look at both sides:
Yes, this is a must-win:
A third straight loss against a beatable opponent could send this team reeling, especially without the senior leadership that C.J. Lee and David Merritt provided last season. With just one game between Boston College and a trip to Utah, there would be little time to right the ship before the Wolverines would be facing another tough challenge. With all the youth on this team, confidence is very important.
Every at-large tournament team needs a signature non-conference win. If Michigan loses to BC, then the only chances at that win remaining are on the road at Utah and Kansas and at home against UConn. It’s never easy to win on the road against a quality opponent, and it would certainly be a huge upset if Michigan were to knock off Kansas in Lawrence. UConn is a very tough matchup for Michigan themselves, boasting a lot of size and athleticism. Tonight looks to be Michigan’s best crack at a big non-conference win.
John Beilein has yet to settle on a rotation for the rest of the season, given Michigan’s struggles in the past few games. Another loss would raise further questions about playing time, and who deserves it, with only a handful of games left until the Big Ten season begins.
Are you crazy? This isn’t a must-win:
Remember last season, when Michigan dropped several “must-win” games deep into the conference schedule before getting hot and making the tournament? I don’t think Michigan fans particularly want to go through that again, but we have to remember that the tournament committee is often swayed by how well a team is playing heading into the postseason. Those December games that felt so meaningful at the time are many times quickly forgotten once the team heads into the conference slate.
Michigan still has several chances to earn that signature win. Besides Utah, Kansas, and UConn, Michigan still has a very strong Big Ten schedule to deal with, and victories over the likes of Michigan State, Purdue, Ohio State, and Illinois would go a long way towards an NCAA tournament berth.
This team is still very young, still learning John Beilein’s system, and has a lot of games left to gel and mature. Yes, Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims are the clear top guys on the team and upperclassmen, but the rest of the players are still figuring out their roles as complimentary guys. Darius Morris is still a true freshman with all of five games under his belt. Same with Matt Vogrich. Stu Douglass, Zack Novak, and Laval Lucas-Perry are all in their second year in the program. Michigan is still hoping to find a third big man after Sims and Zack Gibson. These guys will get better, given time, and this team should play very different in March than they have in November and December.
Which side do I fall on? I’m leaning towards the latter argument, although a win here would give the team a huge boost heading into a tough stretch in the schedule (after a home cupcake in Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Michigan has @Utah, vs. Detroit, @Kansas in a ten-day span). Luckily for Michigan, Boston College is struggling with injuries — their leading returning scorer, Rakim Sanders, is out, senior forward Tyler Roche is questionable, and go-to guy Joe Trapani is dealing with flu symptoms, although it appears he will play tonight. I think Michigan takes this game — we can’t shoot that poorly from three all season, right?
For more on the game, check out UMHoops and MGoBlog, who both have previews up. Go Blue!
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