The offense stumbled to 78 points, which is normally good, but Michigan shot 66% in two pointers and managed 20 free throw attempts. The Wolverines were held without a field goal for nearly 7 minutes in the 2nd half, and shot 25% from deep while mostly taking open shots. Michigan did not play Ohio State or even Wisconsin, they were shut down when it mattered by the worst team in the conference. I know Penn State played well, and you have to give them some credit for not folding when they were down 15 with 10 minutes left, but this game was absolutely given away by the coaches and players alike. Trey Burke somehow managed 6 turnovers not because of being defended by Aaron Craft but because he tried to force too many passes and played too fast at times. Honestly, I don't remember him playing too quickly even last year as a freshman. Michigan continues to lack any semblance of a consistent post presence. Jordan Morgan was able to get 4 uncontested layups in the first half, but it is obvious his ankle is still hurting because he is not able to get his normal lift. In the second half the Nittany Lions got smarter and each time Morgan received a post feed he was fouled. He wasn't able to finish any of the shot attempts and he barely hit the rim on most free throws. The freshmen progression has seemed to hit a wall on the offensive end, Stauskas has turned himself into just a jump shooter, one that isn't even shooting with any confidence right now. Glenn can get easy buckets in transition or from offensive rebounds, but has yet to force a difficult defensive assignment in the half court offense. McGary seems to be going through the motions lately. He seems to take himself out of most games with a few missed shots or mistakes, and he has stopped rolling to the hoop hard because he knows the ball is not going to thrown there. The Michigan half court offense just seems like Trey Burke trying to break down a defense off the dribble, and if he can't then he shoots a fall away 25 foot jumper. The Wolverines need to get back into the habit of running their plays and trying to find back cutters or rolls to the basket because currently they can't score with any consistency if they are not in transition.
The coaching staff did little to excite me as well. It took until the game was out of reach for anyone to look even remotely fired up. Yes, I commend Coach Beilein for calling a timeout after yet another blown defensive assignment by Nik Stauskas (the specific play is highlighted below), and absolutely screaming at the freshman. It is about time someone showed that they were not alright with getting embarrassed by Penn State. I thought the bulk of the loss falls on the players because it seemed like they packed it in at the 10 minute mark and started looking ahead even more to Michigan State. Once the Nittany Lions were making a run, Michigan could not match the energy or effort. But, the late game coaching was questionable at best. Coming out of a timeout, late in the game, Michigan's offensive sets consisted of one pass and a jacked up contested three point attempt. The Wolverines were still in the game at this point, and if they could have ran some clock and got a better look they are probably coming home with a win. Also, after it was clear Michigan was in trouble they wasted 20 seconds playing defense when they should have been fouling to extend the game. I know you are not expecting to have to do that against Penn State, but there will come a time in the near future when Michigan will be forced to do it again. All I can hope for right now is a rough few days of practice for these players. I know most of the guys are exhausted, bruised, mentally worn down, but I would like to see a few of the hardest practices of the season before Michigan welcomes the Spartans on Sunday.
The defense was the most glaring problem, again. Michigan was late rotating on help side defense, couldn't keep the ball handler in front of them, and was slow to close out on shooters. I know people said, of course Penn State the worst three point shooting team makes 10 in one game and shoots 50% from behind the arc, while that is true, the majority of the looks were wide open. I don't care how bad of a college shooter a team is, if they are left open for 20 shots I almost guarantee they make 10 of them. The addition of Jordan Morgan playing 25 minutes didn't seem to combat defending the pick and roll any better, Burke still over-pursued too often and was beat off the dribble, and Stauskas cannot understand that anybody shooting a wide open 3 can look as good as him. It's the same problems that the Wolverines have been struggling with for the past month. I am sick of talking about their drop from decent defensively to dead last in the conference. I thought I would change it up a bit and give you a snap shot of one example of bad rotation and a terrible close out. After this play coach called a timeout, and basically used the time to rip into Stauskas.
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| Newbill initiates drive baseline using the Travis screen. Burke goes over top of screen, and stays on Newbill's left hip. |
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| Burke still trailing Newbill, Morgan is late rotating to the near block, and Stauskas gets sucked into paint for unknown reason. |
Of course the Penn State point guard chooses the best option, which is feeding the ball to the hot shooter Jermaine Marshall. He finished 6-10 from behind the line in this game, but when most of his shots were like the one above the high percentage is understandable. You would assume a team with so many freshman to continue to improve with each game, especially defensively, but Michigan has regressed. Stauskas has been victim of this all B1G season. He needs to realize that there is no benefit for him "helping" from his man. Even if he rotated perfectly down to the near block to stop penetration it leaves his man wide open at the top of the key. The Wolverines are struggling to understand when help defense is needed and from what position it needs to come from.
Michigan has a lot of problems to fix before the NCAA Tournament, and it is not looking realistic to assume they will. Hopefully the team was looking ahead from Penn State to their showdown this weekend against Michigan State, because then maybe they will be focused on Sunday. My expectations for this team continue to plummet, and its looking like I will have to try to enjoy March Madness without my team for another year. I wonder if Kansas, Duke, or North Carolina fans still enjoy the tournament even when their team under-performs and gets bounced early. For the longest time March has been one of my favorite months of the year because if Michigan made the tournament any win would be cause for celebration, and I was able to just enjoy the endless exciting games. But this year I feel like I have seen Michigan's potential (national championship contenders), and anything less than a Final Four will seem like a disappointment.
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