Iowa 82, Michigan 71

Submitted by Alex Cook on

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File: Upchurch

After Iowa had four scores on its first four possessions, Beilein took a timeout to stem the bleeding: Michigan trailed 9-0 just a minute and a half into the game and conceded a basket on the next possession. On the road, against one of the hottest teams in the country (arguably one of the nation's ten best teams), Michigan was off to the worst possible start.

The Wolverines eventually strung together some stops and started getting open looks on offense; a quintessential "weird guys" lineup (Walton / Abdur-Rahkman / Aubrey Dawkins / D.J. Wilson / Moritz Wagner) sparked a 13-0 run midway through the half and Michigan actually pulled into the lead by the eight-minute mark in the first half. Early on, Michigan found success inside with some nifty cuts as Iowa overplayed the three (2-9 shooting from deep in the half), but Iowa led at halftime after some back-and-forth play to close the half.

Michigan hit three three-point attempts before the first TV timeout in the second half and took the lead with a banked-in Zak Irvin and-one. Over the next eight minutes, Michigan's offense stagnated with turnovers (the Wolverines finished with an atypical 13 turnovers, while Iowa had just 4) and missed jumpers; Iowa went on a 16-3 run to open up a double-digit lead. Ultimately, U-M wasn't able to keep up with the Hawkeyes' shot-making down the stretch, particularly from Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok, and wound up hitting the Kenpom spread on the nose with an 11-point defeat.

Iowa's potent offense resembles Michigan's high-powered attacks of the recent past: the Hawkeyes don't get to the free throw line too often, but make up for it with an extremely low turnover rate and great shooting from pretty much everywhere on the floor. Unlike those Michigan teams, the Hawkeyes boast size and depth; they overwhelmed Michigan on the offensive end (1.29 points per possession, per Kenpom, tying U-M's worst defensive effort of the season against Purdue).

National Player of the Year candidate Jarrod Uthoff was bothered into missing 11 shots, but still finished with a game-high 23 points. It was a group effort from Iowa though: their starting backcourt combined for 13 assists and the Hawkeyes put up shooting splits of 51% (2P) / 45% (3P) / 90% (FT). U-M's poor defensive habits were exposed by a pretty-close-to-elite offense, too frequently Iowa took wide-open, high-percentage shots with a defender a step or two away.

Michigan's offense hit 1.12 points per possession -- which is one of the best performances against Iowa's defense this year -- but some inefficient shooting from key players doomed Michigan. Duncan Robinson and Derrick Walton came into the game shooting more than 50% from three; the two totaled 5-19 from deep against Iowa today. Zak Irvin struggled against Iowa's length, shooting 33% total from the field. Aubrey Dawkins was a notable exception, hitting three three's. Impressively, Walton, Irvin, and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman combined for 16 rebounds and 15 assists, but the lack of efficient scoring from Michigan's three biggest scorers was critical.

In the front-court, Mark Donnal remained the most consistent option, though he was sometimes overwhelmed by Iowa's size (Donnal's four offensive boards were a nice bonus, however). Moritz Wagner was the second big off the bench and showed skill around the basket on offense. D.J. Wilson might have played his best minutes of the season, but they came in relief of Irvin at the four -- he looks to be a more valuable asset there than at the five.

Now that Michigan's toughest three-game stretch of the season (@ Purdue, Maryland, @ Iowa) is over, the schedule gets easier. Even with LeVert's availability still in question, Michigan should be expected to win its next four games, though a road trip to Nebraska might be tricky. Still, as the team continues to develop, it's hard not to be optimistic about the return of a player of LeVert's caliber. It wasn't a surprise to see Michigan's second- and third-options to create on offense struggle against Iowa, who looks very much like the best team in the Big Ten.

Comments

jdon

January 17th, 2016 at 9:18 PM ^

You may not be mad, and I'm not exactly irate... But the acceptance of moral victories by a fan base of a team that was in the national championship game three years ago depresses me... I am irate about that.
Mgoblog loves rationalizing loses and there may be some merit in that but at some point, after a double digit loss, it becomes a little absurd




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SHub'68

January 18th, 2016 at 1:29 AM ^

Two ways to look at this.  1) We should be one of the elite teams in the Big Ten most years, if not the country; the fact we're not is bothersome.  2) We can see that we are not elite, making a win over Maryland something to celebrate and a decent showing against Iowa acceptable; hopefully we can get better and make a nice tourney run.  Maybe become elite in the next couple years.  Trouble is, hoping for a tourney run and expecting one are not the same thing.  Plus, we lost significant recruiting battles for elite prospects which put a dampener on future seasons some.  Which takes us back to being perturbed that we are not elite.

Our choice as fans is to either spend the season being annoyed that we are not elite, or to see what we are and cheer for it.  Neither is wrong, really.  It just depends upon what you want to dwell on.

True Blue Grit

January 18th, 2016 at 6:32 AM ^

And we won't be until we start bringing in at least a few elite players to go with Beilein's coaching.  I feel like we're playing every game with one hand tied behind our back.  And I'm not talking about Caris being out.  It's our laughing stock inside game.  That's cost us every loss this year either directly or indirectly.  

kman23

January 17th, 2016 at 8:09 PM ^

That's just unacceptable in a big game. I don't know how a team can come out so flat so often. After that though, the game looked good. I liked all the back door cutting. We need to do that more often if teams are going to extend their defense to the 3 point line.

blue90

January 17th, 2016 at 8:19 PM ^

Our defense didn't come to play very well but this game shows you what happens if our offense does its usual thing and even then, we didn't play our best game on offense.  I think we should all be happy with this given that we were without Levert and on the road, against a potential Elite Eight/Final Four team.   Uthoff is unstoppable, he doesn't even jump when he takes threes, wtf?

After watching this I cannot believe how odd our team is.  We can beat anyone any day and lose to anyone on any day.  I am confident we'll make the big dance and either lose our first game to a bad team by 10 or come out of nowhere and make it to the Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight.  

More specific to this game are mostly good things.  Donnal is making his presence felt which is a big relief, I'm totally fine with him averaging around 8pts and 8reb, we can't ask for much more and the other bigs add in a bit.  All together our bigs probably average 10 and 10 or a bit more which is just fine.  Walton had one of his best games of the year I thought and still shot poorly.   What an odd dude. If he can figure out his consistnecy in points and assists he is an incredible player.  Irvin filled the stat sheet in other ways with rebounds and assists.  I was a bit disappointed with his second half play (I think he only had three points) but he contributed in other ways.  Aubrey had a nice game and it was great to see Duncan drive to the basket, he is turning out great. Once again, Beilein does his job.  It is amazing to literally see these players develop from game to game during the season.  Hopefully we can put together a nice run and win these next four games we're suppose to and get to Indiana at 17-5.

ypsituckyboy

January 17th, 2016 at 8:21 PM ^

Statistics be damned, there's no way that was UM's worst defensive effort of the season. In fact, I thought they played pretty good D during a number of stretches. It seemed like Iowa kept hitting tough, late-clock shots that were well contested. I was pretty happy with the defense. Sometimes teams are just on (usually happens at home) and there's not a ton you can do about it.

Also, in feelings ball news - I feel like Zak and Derrick really led the team well during this game. It would've been easy to mail it in, but instead they turned their defensive and offensive effort up a notch and clawed back in it. If we make a good run in the tourney, I'm definitely going to look back on this game as a turning point in them finding their resolve/identity/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

TrueBlue2003

January 18th, 2016 at 1:09 AM ^

but there were some really badly communicated plays, several in the first have that come to mind, that left guys head scratchingly wide open underneath. Iowa is a very good offensive team but they also missed several gimmes that I thought we were fortunate they missed.

Totally agree that it wasn't our worst defensive performance, since we just aren't very good on that end of the floor, but it's another reminder that against good teams, since we don't turn teams over, have a tough time staying in front of slashers and don't protect the rim well, our best hope on defense is that the opponent just has a really off day shooting from the outside like Maryland did.

Jonesy

January 19th, 2016 at 3:27 PM ^

We had a handful of terrible miscommunications that led to wide open baskets, but besides that our defense was indeed pretty good.  Iowa just made a lot of long two's and not so open three's (as well as all the open ones).

jonesie022

January 17th, 2016 at 8:42 PM ^

Hate the term moral victory but it fits here...

On the road against the best team in the conference (who starts 4 seniors) without your best player...you go down 11-0 and could have easily folded but fought back and made this a contest until 3 to go even taking a brief lead.

We are going to struggle inside against most teams so I'm over that. But here's the thing: Iowa hit some DAMN tough contested shots. We played great D on many of them.

This team will be able to slowly work Levert back into the rotation and be sitting 7-2 (6-3 at worst as Nebraska makes me a bit nervous) in two weeks at the halfway mark.

It's a tourney team and a scary one with a healthy Caris. Not sure we could have said that a month ago...




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maineandblue

January 18th, 2016 at 3:24 AM ^

I think Iowa is the real deal this year, and I'm glad we at least hung in there and made it a game after getting punched in the nose early.

Still gonna blame the ugly ass shorts for the loss, as well as all previous and future losses. We've had some ugly alternate football uniforms, but I could at least understand what they were going for. I've never seen us wear something this pointlessly ugly. Given how much attention the football clownifomz received, I'm surprised these shorts have been mostly an afterthought on here. 

Stu Daco

January 17th, 2016 at 8:52 PM ^

I know it's extremely lazy to blame trainers and/or pratice habits for injuries, but at some point do we at least raise an eyebrow?  Every significant player has had a prolonged lower body injury over the last 2+ years.

champswest

January 17th, 2016 at 10:14 PM ^

a very good team and continued improvement on both offense and defense. As long as they continue to work hard and keep improving, I think most of us will be happy with the way this season turns out.

Wolvie3758

January 18th, 2016 at 10:33 AM ^

when moral victories are celebrated?  not for me..I thought yesterdays performance was poor and very disappointing...We cant win on the road and thats very troubling

smwilliams

January 18th, 2016 at 2:03 PM ^

Somebody mentioned it above, but Michigan's 5 losses are to teams ranked 5, 8, 9, 22, and UConn. 3 of those are on the road.

They also took down the #7 team in the country at home.

Basically, they've lost to the teams they should've lost to (minus UConn) and beat the teams they should've beaten (with the addition of Maryland).

If you look at Kenpom it's even better. They lost to 4, 8, 11, and 12 and beat #14 Maryland. They aren't one of the best 10 teams in the country, but they are a tournament team.

heidikhummel

January 18th, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^

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