Wisconsin 81, Michigan 74
Juwan Howard learned from his first encounter with Wisconsin, just not quite fast enough for Michigan to pull off a double-digit comeback as the Wolverines fell, 81-74, in their lone regular-season meeting with the Badgers.
Michigan went into the game shorthanded; Eli Brooks sat out with the broken nose suffered in Saturday's win at Purdue, Wisconsin held a ten-point halftime lead as point guard D'Mitrik Trice (13 first-half points on 5/7 FG) and backup center Micah Potter (11, 4/6) exploited Michigan's big men with their pick-and-pop offense. On the other end, the Badgers stuck tight to shooters, limiting M to three attempts from beyond the arc. That forced Zavier Simpson to be the primary scoring threat; he entered the break with 18 points and no assists—no other Wolverine had more than five points. Adrien Nunez played a stint that went as you'd expect.
you can see Howard thinking "never again" [Campredon]
The approach to Wisconsin's swing offense, no-help defense, and lineups all had to change. To Howard's great credit, he made the proper adjustments. Michigan used more off-ball motion, leading to a Jon Teske layup, an Isaiah Livers three-pointer, a Franz Wagner layup, and three quick assists for Simpson. Instead of playing drop pick-and-roll coverage or switching as they did in the first half, Michigan hedged hard against the pick-and-roll. They cut the deficit to two points.
The Badgers countered with a 14-2 run sparked by Potter taking advantage of Austin Davis's limited defensive mobility. Teske returned to the court but picked up his third foul not long thereafter. Instead of going back to Davis, Howard fielded a wings-and-X lineup with Brandon Johns at center and had the team switch on every screen on defense. This slowed the Wisconsin attack while Simpson continued picking apart their defense. The margin dwindled to three.
all six of Simpson's assists came in the second half [Campredon]
It wasn't quite enough. Simpson was masterful, posting a career-high 32 points, shooting 14/22 from the field, pulling down five rebounds, and dishing out six assists to one turnover; unfortunately, he went 3/7 at the free-throw line, missing the front end of a one-and-one and another FT in the game's waning moments. After Brandon Johns rebounded that second miss, he too missed the front end with Michigan still in the single bonus, and his wayward three-pointer with 12 seconds to play effectively ended the game. Grotesquely, Brad Davison got to hit the final free throws and grab the last, meaningless rebound.
Trice also missed a couple critical free throws down the stretch to keep the door ajar, but his ice cold three over Wagner with 2:30 to play gave some needed cushion. Trice finished with 28 points on 19 shooting possessions, while Potter and Aleem Ford added 18 apiece.
While Michigan found a secondary scorer in the second half in Franz Wagner, who poured in 15 of his 17 points after the break, a third option never emerged. Livers scraped to nine points on 11 shooting possessions. Teske had seven on 3/5 shooting but only played 23 minutes because of the success of the smaller lineup. Johns, DeJulius, Nunez, and Davis went a combined 4/14 from the field.
dagger [Campredon]
While the loss won't hurt Michigan's NCAA Tournament standing too much, it comes close to eliminating their chance at a double-bye in the Big Ten Tournament. At 9-8, the Wolverines rank seventh in the conference, and they're two games out of the fourth spot with three games to play and two teams ahead of them (Wisconsin and PSU) that hold head-to-head tiebreakers. In what should be a wildly unpredictable tournament, they'll have to hope for a good draw.
The good news is that, should Michigan see Wisconsin again, Howard appears ready to push the requisite buttons to beat them. As a first-year head coach, he continues to impress, even in defeat.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]
February 27th, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^
Agreed. Outside of all the missed layups, the no-so-great defense on 3s, the lack of 3s on UM's part, the loss of Brooks, etc., I feel that this is a game where, if UM was to meet Wisconsin in the BTT, Juwan would watch the tape, have them downloaded and would run them out of the building the second time around.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:10 PM ^
A hugely disappointing loss at home. It feels like we got out-coached by not doing more to get open looks on 3's. Trading two pointers for three pointers by the Cheeseheads was not going go well. Yeah, give Trice credit for hitting a lot of big shots on the road. But dang, Michigan needs to defend its home court a lot more aggressively than this.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:19 PM ^
Some of it is on the shit crowd but yeah the first half effort and emotion was pretty disappointing. The second half was a lot of trice just having a good game. Which is why the best players win championships, at the end of the day basketball is a star driven league because good offense beats good defense
February 27th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
Dude, anytime an opponent hits 48% from 3 you’re gonna have a tough time in that game. Trice reminded me of Winston when he’s hot. That’s tough to beat. This team played well, but got beat. Still feel great about our chances to make noise in March.
February 28th, 2020 at 1:37 AM ^
Michigan didn't play well. One guy did. One played ok. They were bad on defense and aside from Simpson and Wagner, they were bad on offense.
February 28th, 2020 at 6:10 AM ^
Sad to see we didn't have one guy register above zero in the +/- column - and several nearly at negative double digits.
February 28th, 2020 at 9:41 AM ^
If anyone still doubted Eli's value to the team, this game should dispel those notions. With Eli, I'm confident we win the game.
February 28th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
withdrawn
February 28th, 2020 at 11:20 AM ^
I was very impressed with Trice, he is quick. Actually, the whole team athleticism was better than I expected.
The Big Ten is going to have a solid final four tourney. Depending on seeding we could have several teams in the sweet sixteen
February 27th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
Bit of a disappointing defensive performance at 1.23 PPP. They hit shots but we gave up too many good looks in the first half. And just needed a few more shots to fall either at the end or there were a fair number of layups like the two DDJ layups and Davis had a bunny etc that they should've converted. Oh well. Trice played really well for them offensively. Liked Franz being so aggressive about taking his man to the rim in 2nd half and active cutting off the ball. Five home losses seems like too many wasted opportunities.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
The missed FTs loom large, but credit to Wisconsin for hitting nearly 50% of their 3s and throwing weird defensive formations at Michigan. Sometimes you just run into a team that has your number that day, and this felt like one of those evenings. Also, the last couple of minutes featured just a gargantuan number of WTF shots by Wisconsin; banks of backboards, late-clock 3s with a guy in Trice's face, Trice just sorta flicking the ball in behind him on the other side of the rim. It's sort of amazing that it got as close as it was in the end.
I saw people grousing about Simpson scoring as much as he did and how that slowed down the offense, but honestly he was exploiting a weakness and this game would have gotten ugly had he not.
Michigan will make the tourney and that's a pretty good accomplishment by Howard in his first year - he's proven to be really good at actually preparing teams and responding to on-the-court changes, something a lot of former players struggle with when they coach.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:14 PM ^
Well this game exposed all the takes in the off-season that Brooks should transfer and Franz was plug and play at the 2. Similarly, hope this was a wake up call for people who have been commenting about next years lineups that go something like Christopher Franz Livers Todd Dickenson. I get everyone wants to be “positionless” but you just need 2 guards on the floor who can handle the ball effectively.
Defense just wasn’t there tonight. Way to many wide open 3s. The 4 home losses are what cost Michigan a top 2 seed in the B1G. Let’s rank them in terms of most disappointing
1. OSU
2. Wisconsin
3. Illinois
4. PSU
Illinois and Wisconsin are the 2 worst teams but the OSU game just felt like they were getting screwed.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:16 PM ^
Man, mentally this team has got to put it together in these games. I was excited about that ugly-ass Rutgers game last week because they found a way to scrape their way to a tough win. I was hoping they might've learned something about winning ugly but they couldn't replicate that tonight.
Overall this wasn't as ugly or painful a loss as the nightmares that were the Illinois and Ohio State games but it still hurts. A little more focus and effort (and holy f***, free throws) would've gone a long way in this game. Those are mental things this team has to learn.
ALso, Brooks is a more important player than we realized. He can hit shots and is an excellent defender. I really think his absence was the difference tonight. Hopefully they get him back soon and they can pull off an upset at Ohio STate on Sunday.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:56 PM ^
Not to pick on your one phrase, but most of us have realized for quite some time that Brooks is a key player on this team as a defender, ballhandler, distributor, and sometimes shooter.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:19 PM ^
It’s crazy how snake bitten this season seems to be. Brooks would get clocked in the face right before Wisconsin, the one team he would be so helpful for. SMFH
February 27th, 2020 at 10:28 PM ^
Probably the last team that made 11 threes against Michigan was the everything’s-on-fire game from 2 years ago against Purdue when they made 11 of 20 (Michigan went 13/23 from 3 in that game!).
Meanwhile, Michigan only attempted 10 threes tonight, including heaves, and made only 3 of them. Yes, Simpson was getting into the lane at will and Wisconsin never/hardly ever helped off, but when the other team is making 3 after 3 on the other end, you have to be able to generate open looks for yourself.
The defense looked bad w/o Brooks. Many of Wisconsin’s threes were uncontested and they routinely had easy layups. Meanwhile, Michigan missed a bunch of layups and went 9/15 from the line (9/17 if you include FTAs lost due to missed front-ends).
Yet, despite it feeling like Michigan was perpetually down by 10+ all 2nd half after the beginning, they had a guy at the line down 3 w/ 23 seconds left. Make a few more free throws and/or layups and/or threes—or prevent Wisconsin from shooting almost 50% from deep—or if Brooks has played, this would/could have been a win.
Just a completely frustrating game just a few days before March after they had played so well as of late. Just like against OSU, every time Wisconsin needed an answer, they got it. 2-4 last 6 at home. A buzzkill for postseason expectations. Bye bye, Michigan’s double bye. Drove my Chevy to the levy,
February 28th, 2020 at 1:42 AM ^
23 is the most threes Michigan has allowed this season, despite only playing 66 possessions (and many of those came late on fouls so it was more like 23 threes on 60ish regular possessions which is way, way too many to allow Wisconsin.
And then they allowed 18-31 from two. Mostly just a really bad defensive performance, from the game plan to the lineups to the effort.
Learn from it and turn the page is all you can do.
February 27th, 2020 at 10:38 PM ^
This team just has no margin for error roster wise. If everyone is on the floor, they can play with anyone, but if a key piece is out against good competition, it's going to get dicey very quickly.
February 27th, 2020 at 11:06 PM ^
feels like a night where castleton could have been a better option than davis
February 27th, 2020 at 11:19 PM ^
Bottom Line: Make free throws down the stretch.
Having a senior point guard that shoots 60 or whatever percent will bite you in the ass... eventually.
February 27th, 2020 at 11:23 PM ^
And please make some layups. Gave away at least 6 to 8 points on point blank misses and/or rim outs.
February 28th, 2020 at 1:36 AM ^
Likely 10+ missed layups. Granted some were contested. But still. DDJ had 2 biffs in like one minute
February 27th, 2020 at 11:23 PM ^
And please make some layups. Gave away at least 6 to 8 points on point blank misses and/or rim outs.
February 27th, 2020 at 11:26 PM ^
Or Bajema over Nunez
February 27th, 2020 at 11:49 PM ^
If Nebraska is the only team they beat from here on out, they’ll miss the tournament.
for shame
February 28th, 2020 at 12:08 AM ^
You think that’s a realistic possibility with as well as they have played lately? For one, that’s wrong. If they only beat Nebraska and lose to OSU, MD and in the first game of the BTT, they still make the NCAA. But I don’t think that happens. They could easily win out, or worst case will lose both games on the road and then win one or two in the BTT.
C’mong man! I hope you’re joking. Russian humor goes over my head.
February 28th, 2020 at 8:19 AM ^
What’chu talking bout Willis?!?
February 28th, 2020 at 12:02 AM ^
Both teams shot about the same, but Wisconsin was trading their 3s for our 2s, and was better from the line. And then, there were all the missed lay-ups and other shots looking like they were down, but rimming out. Brooks could have put the clamps on Trice.
A frustrating loss, but just one of those games?
Hate to let the Nutcracker celebrate on our home court. Also, got tired of Dakich going on about what a great guy Greg Gard is. That is not the picture that was being presented after King transferred.
Hope we get to play them again in the BTT.
February 28th, 2020 at 12:20 AM ^
Maybe I didn’t hear him clearly, but I didn’t like how Dakich framed King’s departure. He said something to the extent of: “he quit,” as if nothing had happened leading up to him “quit[ting].”
February 28th, 2020 at 1:48 AM ^
He did quit though. What happened to him leading up to it was that he didn't feel like Gard cared about him beyond basketball, which like, dude, he's your basketball coach and that's his profession. He's helping you get better and win basketball games. If you also need hugs, that's your prerogative, I guess, but you still quit on your team.
February 28th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
Our defense left A LOT to be desired tonight. It was a real shame given how Simpson put us on his back and tried to will us to victory. We switched every damn action all night. We could not play one on one defense. You can’t win like that if everything is switched and mismatches occur almost every possession
February 28th, 2020 at 12:40 AM ^
I’ve never seen a team contest so many layups (successfully) and not get called for a foul. On the flip side, I’d honestly guess that 80% of the time we contest a layup we get called for a foul. We have the worst home whistle in the B1G. Are we just stuck with the Beilein label of a jump shooting team that doesn’t draw fouls, even when we do drive?
February 28th, 2020 at 1:01 AM ^
It’s because our home crowd fucking blows. The refs aren’t intimidated at all.
Neutral site games have more atmosphere than Crisler. Tonight was a fucking embarrassment.
February 28th, 2020 at 12:46 AM ^
I've been impressed with Juwan, but this was a bad game for him. He'd probably be the first to admit it.
It's not impressive to make adjustments when you're adjusting from a terrible game plan to one that was glaringly obvious from the start. You can't just give away a half of basketball.
Wisconsin is pretty much the one team on the schedule that you actually want to limit threes at all costs and yet, Michigan was showing half-assed hedges on non-threatening cuts while leaving Micah Potter - who is shooting nearly 50% on the year - wide open. Jon Teske is backing off Trice to give him a three. Why?! Why would you do that? You are 7 feet tall and he's a great shooter, you have to make him drive because he has to beat you by three steps to get a layup.
It's insane that DeJulius played only 20 minutes in a game in which Eli Brooks was hurt. I was like, ok, Simpson and DeJulius will have to play almost the whole game but they should be able to weather Brooks' absence.
DeJulius wasn't even the first off the bench! Who was it? Austin Davis. A guy very ill-suited to playing Wisconsin's stretch bigs. I wrote a couple weeks ago that Michigan should be playing Johns more at the five when they're playing teams that have stretch fives instead of bruising post players and said Wisconsin would be ideal for Johns to play backup five instead of Davis. C'mon Juwan.
This is not a game to write off as eh, the other team shot well. 47% isn't crazy for Wisconsin when over half of their threes were shot by their two best shooters.
Allowing them to take 23 total was bad, though. And what killed Michigan is that they allowed Wisconsin to shoot 12-16 from two in the first half. It did look like the team was generally lethargic. Crowd was terrible, might have played a part. It looks like Livers is not 100% because he was getting beat on plays he doesn't normally. Johns was getting beat by guys that should not be beating him (was out of position on Wahl who then drove and dunked on him, got bodied by Brad Davison for a layup, etc).
February 28th, 2020 at 1:32 AM ^
Totally disagree. It was the 30+ layups that cost the game. Stop trice and the 3s are mediocre. Do not give up layups!!!
February 28th, 2020 at 1:55 AM ^
Do you mean you totally agree? I said allowing them to go 12-16 in the first half from two is what killed Michigan. Gave up way too many dunks and layups and that's because they played too many guys that are uncomfortable/unable to play up on guys on the perimeter (which was imperative) without getting beat.
So you ended up with guys in no man's land. Too far off their two shooters to prevent threes because they're worried about getting beat and then guys getting beat anyway because they're not equipped to prevent drives (although again, I think Livers is less than 100%).
February 28th, 2020 at 2:22 AM ^
Idk. In short I say get in trices face and deny him the ball, game over. When I saw brooks was out, I thought oh no. 30 pts for trice, and it was close.
February 28th, 2020 at 1:25 AM ^
Imo, a coaching loss. Deny Trice the ball the last 10 min + and they win. Shocked they let him keep getting the ball.
February 28th, 2020 at 2:18 AM ^
This game sucked balls.
February 28th, 2020 at 6:30 AM ^
Layups and free throws. Ugh.
February 28th, 2020 at 6:51 AM ^
Trice just killed us. 5 for 6 on mostly contested 3s. 10 for 16 overall. He was the difference and had an unconscious shooting night at 80% / 63%.
Overall we were out scored 33 to 9 from beyond the arc, otherwise we owned them.
February 28th, 2020 at 7:18 AM ^
Often the difference between winning and losing is very small. This is a game of inches like no other. In this game Wisconsin shot the lights out-the inches feel in their favor...that's all.
February 28th, 2020 at 8:18 AM ^
High ceiling, low floor, wide variant team.
February 28th, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
A lot of the variance has occurred when we aren't healthy.
February 28th, 2020 at 8:21 AM ^
Frustrating loss. Kept erasing 10 point leads over good stretches, then would let Wisconsin blow it wide open again in less than a 90 second stretch. Defense was crippled without Brooks on the floor...
February 28th, 2020 at 8:55 AM ^
Words I never thought I'd say: the team really missed Brooks today. His outside shooting and pushing everyone down a slot and his D were sorely missed. I love this team, just like I love most of our teams, but it's pretty crazy to see how when everyone's healthy they're very very good but you lose any one of the top 6-7 rotation guys and it's not nearly as good of a TEAM. Hope to have everyone healthy down the stretch. I'm absolutely ready for the Eli "Rip" Brooks experience!!
February 28th, 2020 at 8:55 AM ^
Words I never thought I'd say: the team really missed Brooks today. His outside shooting and pushing everyone down a slot and his D were sorely missed. I love this team, just like I love most of our teams, but it's pretty crazy to see how when everyone's healthy they're very very good but you lose any one of the top 6-7 rotation guys and it's not nearly as good of a TEAM. Hope to have everyone healthy down the stretch. I'm absolutely ready for the Eli "Rip" Brooks experience!!
February 28th, 2020 at 9:25 AM ^
Ace mentions the double bye, but we are now closer to playing on Wednesday. We really need to finish 2-1 down the stretch. 0-3 puts us on Wednesday (probably won't happen with a Nebraska home game). 1-2 puts us in a tiebreaker situation which we actually lose and would have to play on Wednesday if Purdue wins their last 2.
Bottom line, win on Sunday and root against Purdue.
February 28th, 2020 at 9:33 AM ^
I wasn't a fan of Johns starting over DeJulius. That meant 2 other starters were playing a different starting position than what they're used to. Made them out of sync.
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