This game was going to be the perfect opportunity for Michigan to pull out their much needed first road win. But it was not meant to be, and the Wolverines are left with a loss to an overlooked Arkansas team.
The Razorbacks had one of the most efficient offensive halves that I have ever seen. They began the game making their first 12 shots (4 of them were threes). They finished the half with 7 missed shots, but 4 offensive rebounds that they converted to points. Pretty much they didnt score on 3 possessions in the entire half. Usually Michigan surpasses that total while on the road after the first 4 trips down the floor. This led to Michigan being down 46-33 at the half, it was more than a few teams have scored on us for the entire game. It was a combination of great shooting, bad defense, and turnovers leading to easy shots.
Michigan looked confused by Arkansas' full court press in the beginning, leading to 5 early turnovers. But then settled in very nicely and performed well for most of the game. The early hot streak by the Razorbacks put us into a 20 point hole, and for the rest of the game we slowly chipped away at the deficit. The same thing happened on Saturday that has happened with all of our earlier road losses. We began chipping away once Michigan began attacking the middle of the suspect defense. Jordan Morgan had 3 huge dunks in a row to begin the second half, and finally the lead was under 10 points. Once Michigan pulled within 2 points with 5 minutes left they were held scoreless for the next 3:30. The frustrating part of this stretch was that Arkansas also did not score. The Wolverines began shooting three after three. The worst culprit of this, again, was Stu Douglass who went 2-10 for the entire game. For the first time he also did not take a single bad shot in the game. He missed corner threes all game. For being a group of great shooters, they have gotten into a slump as an entire team. If they can put together a game where they shoot well finally, they will be really tough to beat. Let's just hope it comes against MSU or OSU... or during the NCAA tourney.
After Arkansas started 12-12, Michigan's defense dominated the game. With just under 10 minutes left to play in the game, the Razorbacks had a 34-14 lead. In the last 30 minutes they didnt even match that total to finish with 66 points. So Michigan outscored Arkansas 50 to 32 for 75% of the basketball game, yes it is pretty easy to see that the better team did not win on Saturday.
While losing at Arkansas will not go down as a bad loss, since they haven't lost at home yet, but it was definitely a winable game. And most people in the nation do not view Arkansas as a good team. I think the game was a very good one for Michigan to play, and I even think it will help with it being scheduled during conference play. It gave us the chance to play against a different style than we are used to in the B1G, and it let us play in a hostile environment that we are not used to. I just wish they would have pulled out the W.
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