You should have gone to see the Sklars.

Down 54-31 With 13 minutes left in the second half, the Wolverines finally showed a spark of life. Two high-effort defensive stands led to two stops, two runouts, and two open threes. Terrance Williams sunk his, but Will Tschetter airballed the second one. On the next possession Jaelin Llewellyn  was popped out of his shoes by a simple stepback from Noah Fernandez. The Rutgers lead was back to 24, the Rutgers shooting percentage was back to 58, and as Jace Howard drove to the rim then put the ball off of it, Michigan's FG percentage dipped back permanently under 35. It would finish at 31.6%: 6/23 from three, and 10/20 from the free throw line.

Michigan's short bout with competence followed a now-regular defensive collapse as soon as their opponent got a look at a whiteboard. This time it was taking advantage of mostly indifferent defense in the paint, as the worst Big Ten offense in seven years stretched a 15-point margin by another 9 points. Taking advantage of an off night from Tarris Reed and the lead shoes of Tschetter, Knights center Clifford Omoruyi ripped down 15 rebounds, 5 off the offensive boards to go with 19 points on 12 shot equivalents.

Playing their first game with Dug back from his six-game road suspension, the Wolverines never led. Rutgers won the jump ball, Reed overplayed a drive, and the Knights took their first lead on a pullup jumper. Reed was fouled on the other end but missed the front end. Michigan played Jeremiah Williams (a 25% three-point shooter) and Aundre Hyatt (32%) softly on the perimeter, apparently forgetting that the worst shooting team in the Power 5 turns into snipers against this defense. The visitors threw the ball away off double-teams on their next two possessions for a couple of runout scores, and were quickly down 16-4 by the first Under-16 timeout. Even when Nimari Burnett poked one of those transition opportunities away, it just created a perfect follow pass and a dunk for Derek Simpson, his only points of the night.

So things went as Michigan turnovers mounted and Rutgers opened up a 25-point margin on an Austin Williams steal from Nimari Burnett. This was the first time Rutgers inserted its deep bench, and Michigan pounced, with Dug keying a 10-0 run at the end of the first half to end the frame down 15. Thus followed a stretch that was virtually identical to the start of the game, and which stretched the Rutgers lead back to 25. Dug McDaniel picked off a late bad pass from Jeremiah Williams to set up the Terrance Williams three, and our opening sequence.

Rutgers's backups made a pair of triples in Kenpom Time to push the lead to 30, and the final few minutes were spent trying to get a beloved walk-on his first points of the season. I've got a box score below if you want the gory details. If there's anything positive to take away, it's that Burnett and Williams were battling for rebounds, with TW2 pulling down five offensive boards. Unfortunately he could only 9 points to fall off a team-leading 17 shot equivalents, while Nimari coughed up five possessions on turnovers alone.