ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The No. 17-ranked Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball team must be studied by archaeologists, as their poor play down the stretch of the season with the chance to secure a Big Ten Conference championship is head-scratching.
In a must-win situation, the Wolverines played with minimal effort on Wednesday (March 5) and were defeated 71-65 by the No. 15-ranked Maryland Terrapins.
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Don’t let the final score fool you, as they look like a totally different team, and the season comes to a close for the Wolverines.
If you’re counting, that’s back-to-back losses at home where they were once 12-0 this season.
This team’s games are like Groundhog Day: They either get up big and squander the lead or find themselves in a nail-biting dogfight.
Or they’ll dive up these astronomical runs on the road or at home, which would leave you scratching your head.
The Wolverines hit back-to-back threes early in the first half, taking a 14-7 lead, forcing Maryland to call a timeout.
After that timeout, while in front of the Maize Rage inside Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, the Terrapins went on a 26-8 run to take a 33-22 lead into the half.
Michigan got contributions from Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf, who each had 20 points, and Tre Donaldson, who had 10 points, but they kept turning the ball over, which they’ve done all season.
The Wolverines ended the game with 12 turnovers, shooting 7-20 from deep and sending Maryland to the free-throw line 19 times.
Yes, they got the game down to 59-57 with 6:50 to play, but the Terrapins ended the game on a 12-8 run to pull away and all but end the Wolverines’ title hopes.
All is not lost, as the Wolverines will need help from the Iowa Hawkeyes on Thursday night against the Michigan State Spartans. However, at this point, the team is not playing its best basketball.
“First off, I’d love to thank our fans and the contributions that they made in Crisler this year. We created a home-court environment, we had great energy, especially tonight during spring break, and people out of town.
Obviously, we haven’t performed at the level that we liked, but this is part of it. We’d love to be riding the wave of success, but we got to figure some things out, and there’s a lot of very meaningful basketball in front of us in the near future. And personally, I’m excited for the opportunity and the challenge to get this thing going in the right direction as we head into the postseason.”
Michigan Wolverines head coach Dusty May
On Sunday, the Wolverines lost 93-73 at home to the Illinois Fighting Illini during Senior Day, giving up 19 offensive rebounds.
--> Atrocious performance spoils Senior Day as Michigan basketball’s struggles continue vs. Illinois
The Wolverines once were the leaders in the Big Ten Conference and are now looking like the team that everyone wants to play against.
They’re a turnover-riddled team that does not play defense with a stagnant offense.
Every game, May talks about getting the offense going, and they come out with the same game plan: dump the ball inside to Goldin, and everybody stands around as he attempts a tough contest at the rim.
May talked about his team’s approach and how proud he was as they dug in to try to finish the game, which was riddled with turnovers and poor shooting.
“It comes down to concepts and principles, and we didn’t play with a great discipline. Against a defense like this, the one-handed hook passes; I do think when they penetrated and collapsed on Vlad, we didn’t find the penetration reactions that we need to against a team like that.
Credit Maryland. They keep you off balance. There’s a reason they are the second-best defense in our league while playing really only five guys in their rotation. So, we were stagnant, we didn’t finish around the rim when we had opportunities.
Tonight, for us to shoot seven for 20 is actually moving in the right direction. So when you’re not finishing and you’re turning it over and you’re not shooting well from three, you got to figure out other ways. I credit our guys who dug in to try to finish, but we just came up short.”
Michigan Wolverines head coach Dusty May
The Wolverines’ only option for hope is the possible return of Sam Walters, who is with a back injury, and a little luck from the Hawkeyes as they’ll need to knock off the Spartans Thursday night in Iowa City for Sunday’s rematch between Michigan and MSU to matter.
