Michigan 72, Northwestern 70 (OT)
It wasn't easy. It was, in fact, excruciatingly difficult to watch. In the end, however, Michigan survived a borderline-comedic series of late-game issues to eke past Northwestern, and they'll play for their NCAA Tournament lives tomorrow at noon against top-seeded Indiana.
In a tight game late in the second half, Michigan twice split a pair of free throws that could've helped seal the deal, first by Zak Irvin then Duncan Robinson. On the first occasion, Northwestern capitalized with an Alex Olah three-pointer. On the second, which kept the Wildcats within two points after the shot clock was turned off, Olah put back a Tre Demps miss with 0.1 seconds remaining to force overtime. Robinson shouldn't even have had the chance to extend M's lead in the first place; after Michigan burned two timeouts trying to get the ball inbounds, Northwestern trapped Robinson in the corner on M's third attempt, and before they fouled him the officials missed an obvious travel.
Robinson went off for 14 first-half points then was silent in the second half before his ill-fated trip to the line; his miss there was just his third of the season. That didn't shake the shooter's confidence, however. Robinson opened the scoring in overtime with a triple from above the break, and after Tre Demps and Nathan Taphorn put the Wildcats ahead by three, he knotted the ballgame at 70 with 46 seconds to go with another bomb off a well-designed sideline inbounds play.
After Bryant McIntosh missed a shot on Northwestern's ensuing possession and the ball grazed Taphorn on its way out of bounds to give Michigan the rock, Irvin rose above McIntosh for a long two and the lead with only three seconds left. The game appeared to be over when Irvin tipped Northwestern's desperation inbounds pass to Derrick Walton, who seemingly dribbled out the clock. Since nothing can be easy, though, an official review revealed Walton stepped on the baseline with 0.6 seconds left.
Mercifully, Walton was spared an ignominous fate when Taphorn's three-point attempt at the buzzer clanged harmlessly off the front of the rim.
Robinson finished with a team-high 21 points, Irvin added 16 points and 8 rebounds, and Abdur-Rahkman had 14 and 8. Walton had seven boards and five assists but couldn't get his shot to fall, scoring his only two points at the line while going 0/7 from the field. Michigan's big men were once again dominated by Olah, who put up 20 and 13 despite a quiet first half; Mark Donnal and Ricky Doyle combined for just 8 and 6.
Michigan's postseason dreams are still alive for now. If they turn in a similar performance against Indiana, however, the NIT beckons.
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Is an absolute genius.
This game seems like an apropos microcosm of the entire season. There were brief flashes of brilliance that were unfortunately overshadowed by long lulls of frustration. Northwestern is a team that we should never being into OT with; yet, due to the same crap that’s plagued us all season, we not only found ourselves in OT, but it was a major scare. Unlike some posters, I do think we have some talent on this team – or talent that could be molded – but the mental aspect of the game seems lost on every player! I don’t really understand how this team can continue to have so many mental lapses for long durations of a must-win game.
As many positions a Jabrill Peppers players, should be pretty easy to rotate him in at PG, right?
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The inbound plays are pretty bad. That sounded like a major issue.
Still, a win is win. Give them a shot against IU.
The long bomb was open on the 1st ill-fated inbounds timeout. Maybe it was a bad angle that Irvin didn't see, but I wish we would use that as a viable first or second option in late game inbounds situations.
Walton running out of bounds was priceless. I've been one of the hated Beilein apologists all season. I give. This team is a disaster. Northwestern sucks and we were still lucky to win.
Oh, and the best thing to happen to Michigan sports in decades will be rooting for Indiana tomorrow.
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I was speaking of the Harbaugh family sitting by the Indiana bench stupid. I was not referring to myself as the best thing to happen to Michigan sports in decades. Also, I have a life and it's going just fine dipshit.
Do we have to beat Indiana, or is a close game possibly enough to acquit ourselves?
Their RPI is dragging them down. Here's an interesting article on the topic:
http://thebiglead.com/2016/03/09/michigan-is-getting-screwed-by-the-rpi/
Interesting. We've definitely got to do a better job of avoiding those extremely low-RPI teams.
As others have noted, they've been making the mistake of scheduling bad bad teams instead of good bad teams for years now.
Yeah. This is about as terrible a 4-game stretch in terms of RPI you can play:
- Delaware St (345)
- N Kentucky (296)
- Youngstown St (280)
- Bryant (320)
And that followed up playing Houston Baptist and (233) and Charlotte (234). Had they even played 1 or 2 top-150 teams. Play EMU, Buffalo, Richmond, etc. Those top-150 teams that you can usually beat and give you some nicer wins.
That was a good read, Thank you for posting that.
Game outcomes matter, but the specific scores don't.
I know it was a terrible call, but I was in a bar with no audio. It appeared that Olah went to the line, and then there was a discussion that involved Beilein and then they took it out of bounds (and hit a 3, of course). Why? It was out 7th foul.
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called that a player control foul. If he fouled, it was while the ball was in the air on its way to him. Did they really SAY it was a player control foul or are you just surmising that that is the only conceivable answer?
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There cannot be player control. I guess that, given the two major calls they should have called against us (Robinson walk and Doyle charge during inbounding with 3 secons left), we shouldn't complain about this.
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stepping on other players feet and inheriting hip issues.
JB awkwardly feels recruits' hips like an aging golden retriever. Recruiting plummets further.
I don't understand the people who say Michigan's resume should have them in the tourney already. Our resume really isn't that great. Sure, we don't have any bad loses. But we're 3-9 against top 50 RPI teams. That's awful. We beat the teams we should and lose to the ones we should, generally by a lot.
If I'm the selection committee, I'd rather put in a mid-major who hasn't had the chance to prove themselves yet or a team that has shown they can play with the top tier teams, even if it means a bad loss here and there. We've had the chance to show if we can play against top tier teams, and more often than not shown we can't.
Also, I generally hate the "eye-test" nonsense, but it actually applies to us here. We do not look like a tournament team. If you have watched us this past month plus, by no means do we look like a team that should be playing in the tournament. We need to beat Indiana tomorrow, and badly.
I don't think UM's resume is particularly good either, but most bubble teams have poor top-50 records; if they didn't, they wouldn't be on the bubble. And UM does have some nice wins against Texas, Maryland, and Purdue (the latter 2 basically without Caris, which helps the argument that this version of UM can win), so it's not like they haven't shown they can compete with the top teams in the country. I mean, chances are Monmouth would get run off the court just as much by IU as UM.
If UM beats IU, then they are in 100%. If they don't, then it's probably not good news for them unless the bubble stays soft with few bid stealers. The one advantage UM has is that two sure-fire teams (SMU and Louisville) are out of the bracket, so that give you a little more breathing room than usual.
What’s more impressive, going 20-11 against Michigan’s schedule or 22-9 against VCU’s and 24-7 against Akron’s? Here’s a comparison of their opponents, both home and road, against different levels of opponents.
http://thebiglead.com/2016/03/09/michigan-is-getting-screwed-by-the-rpi/
VCU and Akron must be better because they have more wins in the 126-225 category lol
MVP, but he is finishing on a low note. Over the last four games he is shooting 12-40 from the field and 5-18 from 3 point range. He is hurting us by forcing up shots when he isn't hitting.
Overall, I thought we looked pretty good on offense today when we actually ran the offense, but too many times we were throwing up early threes.
A lot of our second half shots were hitting the front of the rim. That is often the sign of a tired team. We really miss LeVert and Spike. Our guards are playing too many minutes.
Are Walton and Irvin sharing the same pair of long socks? Walton wearing the right one, Irving the left lol
Yay march basketball, anything can happen. Ill go with that tomorrow!
We started the year with one of the best arrays of 3pt snipers in the NCAA, maybe tomorrow is the game when they start sniping......
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suboptimally at the end of OT. Most teams do the same thing. You've got 3.3 seconds to go the length of the floor.
Northwestern called timeout before inbounding the ball, which meant they had to go the length of the floor in one play. (They almost lucked out when Walton stepped out-of-bounds.) But a better strategy seems to me to inbounds the ball well up court when the team that just scored is disorganized, and then immediately call timeout. Now you're inbounding the ball from ~half court with ~2.8 seconds to go. The inbounds becomes a more normal pass.
In fact, Irvin was celebrating with his back to the action. Had Northwestern scurried to inbounds the ball into the front court w/o calling timeout and had the receiver noticed Zak, he might have had an uncontested layup.
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March 11th, 2016 at 12:02 AM ^
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