Michigan 58, Northwestern 47
After a slow start, Michigan eventually ran away from Northwestern. [Marc-Gregor Campredon]
In a game that will be memorable only for being forgettable, Michigan slowly pulled away from Northwestern after a close, repulsive first half.
The Wildcats inched their way out to an early nine-point lead by hitting the occasional shot while the Wolverines were completely befuddled by Northwestern's matchup zone, choosing mostly to shoot over it to no avail. Michigan scored only five points in the game's first ten minutes. They went 3-for-15 on three-pointers in the opening stanza with two of those makes coming in a late 10-0 run to close the half.
Northwestern couldn't capitalize, however, because Michigan's defense was every bit as stingy. After a quick start, they scored five points over the final 13 minutes of the half, including a seven-minute scoreless stretch to end it.
Given halftime to adjust, John Beilein's squad figured out the zone, scoring 1.19 point per possession in the second half. Charles Matthews repeatedly cut to wide open space on the baseline, finishing with a team-high 14 points on 11 shots with seven rebounds and three steals. Great ball movement led to 4-for-10 three-point shooting on a series of wide-open looks.
While Michigan warmed up, Northwestern struggled to get good looks. [Campredon]
Unlike their foe, Michigan held up on defense, keeping Northwestern well below a point per possession with turnovers on over a quarter of them for the second straight half. Over the whole game, they held the Wildcats to their third-worst offensive performance of the season.
Michigan won comfortably with a balanced attack. Five players finished with at least eight points, including the increasingly used backcourt duo of Muhammad-Ali Abdur Rahkman and Jordan Poole; both also dished out three assists apiece with no turnovers, and Poole whipped around some really impressive passes that didn't immediately lead to buckets. (Related: we'll see that backcourt more in certain late-game situations.) Moe Wagner scored all eight of points in the second half and did strong work on the boards all evening; Jon Teske, meanwhile, grabbed five rebounds in just 11 minutes.
After the initial zone adjustment period, there were only two major downsides. While Duncan Robinson managed to sneak into the gaps for eight points, he missed all six of his threes despite some really good looks. Then, in the game's final moments, Zavier Simpson took a hard shot to the back when Isaiah Livers failed to alert him to Dererk Pardon's oncoming screen. Simpson spent a possession down at midcourt before eventually walking off; he was in obvious pain on the bench, but hopefully it's not something that lingers.
At 7-4 in the Big Ten, Michigan moves into a tie for fourth place with Nebraska. They get the rest of the week to prepare for a plummeting Minnesota squad to come to Crisler on Saturday afternoon.
[Hit THE JUMP for a few more of MG's photos and the box score.]
January 30th, 2018 at 1:33 AM ^
There must be a bus that picks you up from the blue line that takes you up there. The walk is like 5 minutes I swear from where you can take public transportation to.
January 30th, 2018 at 9:33 AM ^
Except the blue doesn't go to Evanston. So you have to take the purple line probably all the way into the loop before being able to transfer to the blue line to get back out to Rosemont.
January 30th, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^
Northwestern runs buses for students to the game but for weeknight games it takes well over an hour to get there on those buses. It's like 45 minutes even in clear traffic.
January 29th, 2018 at 10:21 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 10:25 PM ^
Forgetable. Agree Ace.
Charles Mathews continues to get the cheapest fouls I've ever seen.
But a W.
Go Blue.
January 30th, 2018 at 12:10 AM ^
Wagner in that dept by a lot.
January 29th, 2018 at 10:39 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 10:39 PM ^
Some quick thoughts:
- I didn't think the zone "befuddled" Michigan, I think they missed a ton of open 3s when they were 1-for-12. I didn't think many were bad shots. Honestly I love when teams try to zone Michigan because they're asking for it to rain fire from 3...even this year when we aren't shooting as well.
- The other factor in the first half ugliness was that Matthews, a great zone buster with his ability to cut through he lane with those huge strides, got two fouls.
- What a zone is effective in doing is taking Wagner out of the action some. He turns into just a guy and isn't able to exploit match-ups.
- Robinson stunk from outside, but still played more because Livers was taking dumb fouls and Robinson was cutting to the hoop better. I thought Robinson played solid D and moved well without the ball. Shocking that 2-3 of those open shots didn't go in.
- Michigan's depth and willing to play so many freshmen won them the game tonight in some ways. Matthews got in foul trouble, so Poole played a lot. Z needed some breaks and either Brooks (who was more active than ever before) or Poole got his minutes. Beilein mixed Livers/Robinson well. Teske played quality minutes.
We are going to have to win these ugly games since every team is hunting for us and we're prone to shooting slumps. It is refreshing to know that our rebouding and D can keep us close while we wait for the shooting to catch up.
January 30th, 2018 at 11:19 AM ^
by Collins to try it.
The zone, exactly as you said, reduces Wagner to a high post guy, which takes away his ability to exploit mismatches and shoot threes (although he did step out a couple times) and his driving ability is minimized to an extent.
The zone mostly eliminates the backdoor cuts our normal offense gets and pretty much kills the pick and roll game.
It does allow us to bomb wide open threes, which we did. We just didn't make them. Not a bad gamble by Collins to take that chance in a game he probably wouldn't have had a chance any other way. Too bad they were terrible at offense.
January 30th, 2018 at 12:06 PM ^
Don't forget that Billy Donlon now coaches Northwestern's defense. He knows our personnel as well as anyone.
NW had a good gameplan. Passing the ball around the perimeter against the matchup zone doesn't do much, and that - plus waiting until the end of the shot clock to force up an out-of-range 3 or an awkward 2 - resulted in the poor offensive output at the beginning of the game.
I would've liked to have seen JB put Duncan and Poole in at the first TV time-out, rather than waiting an extra few minutes.
Duncan wasn't throwing up airballs or Tony Tolbert-esque bricks. He rimmed out at least 3 of the three-point attempts and had another rattle out.
More important, the presence of Duncan and Poole opened up the floor. Simpson and MAAR were able to drive to the hoop in the second half and Mathews was able to free himself along the baseline.
January 29th, 2018 at 10:40 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 10:41 PM ^
NW is pesky, wins are tough. We need to play better though, gotta do better on FT's.
I love using MAAR and Poole at the end of games along with DRob for FT shooting.
January 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
agreed, but my concern there is the ball-handling. Robinson had to call a time-out in the back-court, Poole still seems a little loose, and even MAAR who seems to have a good handle generally came pretty close to losing it a couple times but got bailed out by fouls. If they do actually start coughing it up, I'm not sure that's not worse than Simpson struggling at FTs
January 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
agreed, but my concern there is the ball-handling. Robinson had to call a time-out in the back-court, Poole still seems a little loose, and even MAAR who seems to have a good handle generally came pretty close to losing it a couple times but got bailed out by fouls. If they do actually start coughing it up, I'm not sure that's not worse than Simpson struggling at FTs
January 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
agreed, but my concern there is the ball-handling. Robinson had to call a time-out in the back-court, Poole still seems a little loose, and even MAAR who seems to have a good handle generally came pretty close to losing it a couple times but got bailed out by fouls. If they do actually start coughing it up, I'm not sure that's not worse than Simpson struggling at FTs
January 29th, 2018 at 11:08 PM ^
January 30th, 2018 at 1:18 AM ^
and I kind of loved it. We've been a pretty 3-dependent team for the past 4 seasons but tonight we shot 28 percent on miserable 7-25 shooting, missed the FE of two 1-and-1's to get just 9 points from 8 trips to the line, yet we won by double-digits and covered the Vegas line by 3.5?
I loved it because this team can win with defense. I thought this quote was interesting from MAAR, "That was a big emphasis my first couple years here -- shooting and scoring and just trying to score as much as the other team," said Abdur-Rahkman said. "I think coaching changes changed the mindset a little bit, and it seems to be working."
There has been a big shift in Beilein's emphasis: bringing in good defensive coaches and bringing in players that are good defenders and athletes, but that are just solid on offense with things to work on (Z. Teske, Livers, Matthews).
Nice win on an off night.
January 30th, 2018 at 2:29 AM ^
This was just an ugly basketball game, plain and simple. The post below says it best---it was a "W", just move on.
January 30th, 2018 at 2:28 AM ^
I will support him to the end, but I, for one, and growing weary of watching Duncan Robinson attempt to play basketball. His biggest weapon, his shot, has seemingly left the building. We need him to find it again, or we are toast.
January 30th, 2018 at 3:19 AM ^
He's currently the seventh-best in overall shooting % among the guys who get significant minutes, and sixth in 3-pt %. Not good for a guy who was supposed to be such a hot shooter.
January 30th, 2018 at 1:25 PM ^
shooting 45 percent but we aren't toast without it. We've mostly deleveraged his impact into the role that is right for him, thankfully.
He averaged 13 min a game in arguably our best three games (2 Purdue and 1 MSU game). He can't defend more athletic teams so it doesn't really matter if he's shooting well or not (as evidenced by the Purdue game last week in which he made both of his shots, yet the team was minus 16 in his 8 minutes or the other Purdue game in which he didn't shoot well but we still had the ball in a tie game with the shot clock off). We don't really need him to shoot well to beat good teams.
Much, MUCH more important that we get good Wagner, Matthews, Z and MAAR (or at least that we don't get bad versions of them) in the big games. Those are the guys that will play a lot and use a lot of possessions.
January 30th, 2018 at 5:21 AM ^
January 30th, 2018 at 5:51 AM ^
I didn't get a chance to watch this game, but I always look at the TO numbers in the boxscore with this team. They do a great job of taking care of the basketball. They won the turnover battle 16-5. Those 11 more scoring chances were likely the difference in this game where it looks like both teams struggled to score.
January 30th, 2018 at 6:48 AM ^
January 30th, 2018 at 8:50 AM ^
Its fun to watch Duncan, dunkin'.
January 30th, 2018 at 9:16 AM ^
Seeing him hit at least a couple threes would have been more fun.
January 30th, 2018 at 10:08 AM ^
Every shooter goes cold.... at least he found a way to put up some numbers when the three wasn't falling.
January 30th, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
January 30th, 2018 at 9:24 AM ^
I missed most of the first half and thus most of the ugliness. But it was nice to have a boring game for a change. NW hung around a little too long for my liking but never really threatened with a major run. Uneventful W, I'll take it.
Now let's kill all the gophers on the court.
January 30th, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
have become the norm with this team. Poor shooting and a struggle to reach 20 points has been going on since the non conference season. Any chance we could get a big picture view comparing 1st vs 2nd half performances this year? If my memory serves my correctly, the majority of these performances have occupied at home. Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm of a home crowd has contributed to these slow starts. I certainly would not blame beilein for not having the team ready, as they seem to execute a good offense, but just don't hit shots.
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