Michigan 78, Jackson State 68
Author's note: I'm going to keep this recap brief so I can get back to FFFFing
In a sleepy pre-Thanksgiving clash at the Crisler Center, Michigan moved past Jackson State by a score of 78-68 in a game that was neither truly close nor as comfortable of a victory as Michigan fans would have liked, with a late Jackson State rally pulling the margin to a tighter-than-it-was 10. Michigan got off to a slow start, scoring just three points in the first 4.5 minutes before getting going on the offensive end, but even then played neck-and-neck for awhile with a SWAC opponent that KenPom had them favored by 22. It was not until the tail end of the first half that Michigan began to turn it on, with a Terrance Williams II jumper, a pair of Jett Howard free throws, a Kobe Bufkin layup, and a Howard three just before the buzzer giving Michigan padding. That 9-0 run in the final four minutes put them up 37-27 at halftime.
The second half saw Michigan pulled ahead of Jackson State with a 10-5 run out of the jump, establishing a comfortable double-digit margin that they would hold until the closing minutes. Three pointers began to fall for the likes of Joey Baker and Jett Howard and the Michigan offense was able to pull away from the Tigers, while Juwan Howard subbed in more bench pieces. The second unit's performance was not dominant enough to bring the walk-ons in with extended time to play and necessitated the return of the starters with 4:37 remaining in the game. The starters bumped the lead back up to 17 points but then fell asleep in KenPom time, turning the ball over and allowing Jackson State to bomb away from three. That 10-0 run in 90 seconds allowed the Tigers to start fouling but Jaelin Llewellyn made his free throws and the lead never sank below six. In the end, it was a 10 point win.
Michigan was led in the scoring column by Jett Howard's 19 points on 6/10 from the field, knocking down four three pointers. Williams led the team in field goal attempts and scored 11 points, while Kobe Bufkin chipped in 10 points in a stat-stuffing effort that included 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks(!), and also 3 turnovers. Hunter Dickinson was rather quiet, scoring 9 points on only six field goal attempts, but did lead the team with 12 rebounds. Dug McDaniel's 9 bench points led the second unit, knocking down a three in the process. Michigan shot 42.4% from the floor and 40% from three, while a 16/19 free throw outing was a bright spot.
Michigan is now 5-1 on the season and has six days off to prepare for a difficult test against Virginia next week at home. The box score is after the jump.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:05 PM ^
Definitely a rough start to the year, but the silver lining to me is that they haven't done anything fatal to their resume by actually losing one of these games. Come selection Sunday, a November neutral loss to a PAC12 team isn't the end of the world, but home losses to Ohio and / or Jackson State would have been major anchors.
Of course for any of this to matter in March, they need to get significantly better very soon.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:38 PM ^
Relax. It’s still football season. The negative Nancy crowd needs to calm down. We’ve got talent that’s still learning how to play with one another.
November 24th, 2022 at 7:02 AM ^
I keep reading people say this. Who is this talent? The high school rankings? If you watch this team, defense is not in many of this team’s skill set. Shooting? Not historically supported by data. This team may have players but it does not appear to have any semblance of high talent, outside HD. Jett is showing signs on O. That’s about it.
November 24th, 2022 at 8:00 AM ^
They did a pretty good job this game getting to the defenders and did not get lost on shuffles. They made some threes even with a hand in the face. Last 5 minutes and it seems their intensity went down. They have potential to be a decent defensive team. We will see if they get there.
I don't understand the historical data comment. They are playing freshmen key minutes. You can see in this game they are trying to get to the basket more. There were some slashes in there for layups. All they can use to build on. Would that be enough? I don't know. But they have pieces and they might figure it out. Remember that last year's team was up and down and they did the best in the tournament better than other B1G teams.
November 24th, 2022 at 8:10 AM ^
I think being critical about the teams' performance doesn't qualify under 'Negative Nancy'; hey, if we can't be critical, why post on the blog? Should we simply be prepared to toast the banal at the drop of a hat? That sounds boring.
November 24th, 2022 at 11:33 AM ^
Be critical when we're on the bubble in january mid conference season. Right now it's basically preseason, waste of energy to criticize the team right now.
November 24th, 2022 at 9:56 AM ^
To be fair, there were a lot of similar complaints early on with last year's team and they ended up 7th in the big ten. Sure they got better, but there were clear, identifiable issues from the outset that never resolved themselves completely. Pointing out concerns with this team doesn't mean they won't improve on them, but it definitely does signal a lot of the red flags that are obvious to the average watcher.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:05 PM ^
Briefer is actually better!
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:43 PM ^
Amen. One of the byproducts of Covid “break” is the lack of economy of words. Writers, bloggers, online news authors, posters, etc. Don’t take 1000 words to say what you can in 100. Even NYT, Washington Post, and WSJ are awful in this regard.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:10 PM ^
You are not going to win many games over better competition giving up 15 offensive rebounds.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:14 PM ^
lmao for a second I thought you were saying something... else
so I can get back to FFFFing
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:45 PM ^
Orji in the ENDZONE!
November 24th, 2022 at 8:12 AM ^
That would be great to hear this Saturday. It means we’re blowing them out.
November 24th, 2022 at 8:12 AM ^
Me too!
'Wait Babe, stay here and keep things wet, I need to write something..."
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:18 PM ^
What a mess.
Williams is an airhead — he doesn’t box out, he spaces out both on offense and defense. However, he’s one of the few people who actually offensive rebounds. I’d like to see Cheddar get some of his minutes.
Jett is the best pure scorer on the team, but his defense and rebounding are lacking. Still, he needs to play as we needed his offense.
Dickinson was out of sorts all night. The offense should always run through him but for whatever reason it didn’t tonight and too often it doesn’t overall. If he’s injured, we are screwed.
Baker was pressing. He needs at least 15 minutes every game so he doesn’t have to feel like he hast to put it up every time he gets the ball on the offensive end because that might be the last time he gets it.
I don’t see how our transfer point guard started at Princeton, let alone can play serious minutes in the Big 10. I hope he gets rid of his nerves fast.
Still a chance for a pretty good season, but it is dwindling with every game. This was a chance to build confidence, and that didn’t happen.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:47 PM ^
Wait, what?! 4-1 and the sky is falling? Clearly someone got a head start on the brown liquor before thanksgiving…
November 24th, 2022 at 8:39 AM ^
Actually, they are 5-1! The sky isn’t falling, and they still have a chance to make the tourney, but the early signs are pretty worrisome, as they are struggling against well below-average teams. Juwan has got his hands full, as the games are about to get a lot harder, and his PG and SG are shooting 14 and 17% from 3, defensive rebounding is atrocious, FT shooting is only 67%, and so on. I hope it can come together quickly, but there is a *lot* that needs to improve.
November 24th, 2022 at 12:59 PM ^
Hey now! Chill with all that reason and logic. Lol
November 24th, 2022 at 11:07 AM ^
Hunter was definitely fighting through something in the first half. A few minutes in the locker room, and a few more on the sidelines getting stretched out and spinning on the bike. Looked a bit stiff, maybe even bored for much of the game.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:26 PM ^
What a curious start to the season. On one hand, lots of individual skills. On the other hand, the team's still figuring out how to work together.
November 23rd, 2022 at 11:48 PM ^
Which, quite literally, happens every year for almost every team in college basketball.
November 24th, 2022 at 12:04 AM ^
Jett is delivering, needs better D and consistency, could be OAD?
Bufkin making strides before our eyes, could be all conference next year, and this year will firmly be #3 option. Weird to say but this could be “his” team next year
Now we know what the coaches saw in Dug, he’ll be 50/50 split with Llewelyn by Jan.
Llewelyn is bad on D and isn’t impressive as a playmaker or shooter. Mature player just not P6 starter as of now, but early days still
agree with announcer who said T-Will needs to be more assertive at this point in his career, hope he can pull all the pieces together bc he’s shown he can drive, hit mid range and hit the three
Baker looks like what we thought, which I’m good with
Defensively we have a big guy in the middle and some length on the wing, but few plus defenders and team defense has been bad
November 24th, 2022 at 7:59 AM ^
Bufkin has impressed me the past couple of games. He's been a solid defender, a good playmaker, and an all-around performer. I'm interested to see how he looks against UVa coming up.
And yeah, at this point I'd rather they start Dug because at least the things he does well (defense, being fast) have worked as opposed to Llewelyn, who had another couple of bad turnovers and couldn't hit from outside. I think it'll come for him but right now it seems like the jump to high-major is a lot for him and he's having to adjust his game significantly.
November 24th, 2022 at 12:04 AM ^
When I saw the size of Jackson St compared to Michigan before the tip I immediately thought we'd win by 20+ points easy. There was no way that team could compete, but it was pretty competitive well into the second half. And that little run by Jackson St near the end probably frustrated a lot of people, myself included (spread was 15 points). Two glaring issues for Michigan are rebounding and defending the three point shot. We are not a well oiled machine but I think the pieces are there to get a lot better.
But free throws were actually good tonight! Don't dismiss the importance of free throws. They could be the difference between the NIT and the NCAA tourney this season.
November 24th, 2022 at 12:28 AM ^
Unfortunately wasn't able to watch this, but uh, one of their guards shot 16 3's?? ...and only made 5? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
November 24th, 2022 at 7:57 AM ^
Some of those 3s were open and a sign of poor defense but some were reasonably contested 3s he just threw up because the shot clock was counting down or he was just bored.
It was a weird game where the final box score looks one way but the actual flow was different. For example, with 2.5 minutes to go Michigan was up 17 and then JSU made 3 3s and got a putback shot off a badly missed 4th attempt and it got to 8-9.
Michigan wasn't good in this game but they also seem to get bit by random hot shooting spurts by their opponents in ways that somewhat feel defense-irrelevant.
November 24th, 2022 at 6:36 AM ^
We were much better defensively tonight, at least in the second half. I think we had 13 or 14 blocks (which is nuts). Jackson State is a high tempo team so it was a new challenge. Jett has shown he can play D, when he wants to. Bufkin is a plus defender. Dug is a plus defender. Dickinson’s size is a deterrent. There are some pieces to string together a competent defense and we have shown flashes, just not consistently. The poor starts/poor shooting is beyond annoying. A fast start would do wonders for this team’s confidence. Bufkin’s two threes may have been the most important thing to happen in this game. Hopefully Llewellyn has a similar game soon.
November 24th, 2022 at 7:28 AM ^
The defense was atrocious early on and then once they settled down it was mostly a double digit game for the rest of the way. I will say that the offensive rebounds JSU was picking up tended to be from huge carooms off the rim from badly missed shots, the type of thing that sometimes happens. Absolutely some of it is guys need to box out but I also saw a number of ORs coming from way off-the-mark 3s and crazy drives to the rim.
Anyway, this team is going to be in a slog to make the tourney at this rate. The talent is there but they really miss having a lead guard like Terrence Shannon to guide the offense.
November 24th, 2022 at 8:53 AM ^
This team is reminding me of a Rutgers of the last 2 years or maybe one of Pitinos best Minnesota teams. Just a team that can get into the tournament but it isn’t pretty. A bunch of chuckers that play d occasionally.
Maybe I’m way off here though.
November 24th, 2022 at 10:19 AM ^
Good news is there are some signs they are playing a little better together, and showed signs of life on defense. 4 new starters what did we expect? The substitution pattern of 5 in and 5 out might reflect Howard wanting them to get more time together as a unit.
My biggest concern is Llewelyn, the dude is a good scorer but does not have his shit together. Once that domino falls I'm hoping everything else comes together. It better be soon though because Dug looks like the real-deal 6 games into his career.
I do expect Virginia and Kentucky games might be brutal.
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