I have two thoughts, neither of which excuse the turnovers, which would have lead to a blowout defeat against a more talented team.

1. Michigan had extraordinarily bad puck luck in this game 

2.  I have never seen a game in which it was clearer that the refs decided to give the less talented team a friendlier whistle.  Tom Izzo would have assaulted a ref if they tried to call that Diabate tech or blocking foul on one of his players and I wouldn’t blame him

This is one of the worst and discombobulated teams I have seen at Michigan since the early Beilein days. They desperately need a point guard to take charge of this offense. I am pretty sure they went several minutes tonight without Dickinson even touching the ball against players 5 inches shorter then him. That starts with a point guard getting the offense going and not turning the ball over. It was a frustrating watch and Juwan has his work cut out for him. This is not even close to a tournament team right now. 

Collins needs be running the point and leave Jones at the two and let him score. He is not a point guard. He doesn’t play smart and is not a good ball handler or passer. Kind of essentials for a PG. Collins has another gear than most people on the court. 
John’s is about to fold. His confidence, intelligence, and turnovers are hard to watch. Diabate needs to start. Maybe John’s can come off the bench like previous years. 

This was a rough game to watch, and it looked like Brooks tweaked his ankle in the second half and there went his shooting.  I will say a small amount of optimism can come from the fact that they played better on both ends with about 5 minutes to go.  All that said, this team looks like a talented one but Houstan is decidedly not a one-and-done talent and Jones is a massive TO machine right now to a degree I didn't expect.  I will say that this game felt not unlike Oakland last year when they had 20 TOs and went to OT despite dominating by most metrics.  They've struggled all year holding onto the ball but the optimist in me says this is still a team that shouldn't turn the ball over THIS much and a week prepping might help iron out the lineups and get some heads on straight.

Still, teams feels like one that'll be okay in conference but will struggle against teams that can defend Dickinson and Diabate because they don't have shooters AT ALL outside.  Houstan hitting a couple helps but he also had trouble on defense again and this team is going to need to see him shoot lights-out for that trade-off to work.

EDIT:  One final thing I'd add is that the last time a high-usage transfer from a smaller school showed up to be PG and struggled we got the emergence of Xavier Simpson (as a true SO but close enough) and they went to the title game, so #FreeFrankie isn't necessarily a bad idea. 

Woof.  This team needs some serious work with their spacing and passing.

Jones is a liability bringing the ball down the court. He can’t beat his defender 1-on-1 80 feet from the hoop. I would help him out by having Johns set a screen for him. The alternative is wasting 7-8 seconds of the shot clock just getting the ball past half court. If the refs were paying attention, Jones would pick up another 1-2 fouls per game pushing off. 
I have to believe Johns is going through something that is taking his mind off of basketball. I’m not going to speculate, but he’s just unplayable right now. Being a fellow ELHS alum, I’m rooting for him. But he appears to be going through the motions while his head is 1000 miles away. 

Tarleton figured out that all you have to is double our PG as soon as they cross half court so we pass it to the center above the circle 25 feet from the basket and then our offense is immediately lost. 

check out the +/- in the box score. it's pretty obvious what the lineup should be for most of the game.

If the last three games don't serve as a wake up call for this team then we are completely boned this season.  Second half against Seton Hall until now is by far the worst stretch of Michigan basketball that I have witnessed since early Beilein.  If Juwan turns this team back into a top 10 squad then he will have earned his salary and then some.

ugh... that was a win that felt kinda like a loss?

Just seemed like Michigan is too sloppy, not disciplined, too static... Just a lot of problems right now... Feels like Howard needs to bring back passing drills and basic skill drills...like catching rebounds securely instead of giving them back to the opposition for easy scores...

there were 2 or 3 TOs from stepping out of bounds?! that's really crazy too me... I don't want to be 'that' guy, but Jones' 2 early fouls were just bad, especially the second one - totally undisciplined.

Going to take a while to sort this out I'm afraid.

It feels like this team is less than the sum of its parts. The individuals look pretty good, it just isn't working yet. I still hopeful they'll get it together.

I'm still hopeful about Jones, and (to a lesser extent) Johns, and I think these are the kinds of games you give them opportunities to work out their problems. It's painful to watch, but benching them could really kill their confidence, and I think it's way too early to give up on them for the rest of the year. In fact, I'll say it: I like that Juwon shows confidence in his players, and I'm fine with them being in there. As for Jones, hell, if he fouls out, then he's on the bench the way people want anyway. What's the problem?

But it's shocking to me how bad Michigan is at getting the ball to Dickinson down low. And has been all year. (And frankly was for much of the second half of last year). He's 7 foot 1! I understand they'll double him, but that should open people up for his passing. Part of the problem is him not working hard enough to post up, part of the problem is our guards and wings not doing a good job of feeding it to him, and maybe part of it is bad scheming to figure out ways to get the ball to him, but damn, he's the bell cow! How in the world does he not -- against a team THAT small, despite the TV guy repeatedly insisting that it's somehow harder for bigs to play against smaller players (as if height is a disadvantage in basketball) -- get more touches!? It's ... it's bizarre!

I don't care about anything else right now. Player substitutions and rotations, lack of coordination, whatever. You've got a potential All-American center. He should be the rock of your team -- it should be a no-brainer to get the ball to him, and if they double, let him find the open guy. I have no idea what's going on, but every possession should be about getting the ball to him, until the defense is so distracted that it completely opens other people up.

If that's not possible, than Dickinson really simply isn't that good a player, and we'll need to acknowledge that.

Someone remind me why Mike Smith left? Didn't he still have a year of eligibility? We miss him desperately. 

We need two more guards even if Jones improves, the young guys being cheerleaders isn't going to help accomplish that. If we had another perimeter wing, Caleb wouldn't have to play so many minutes. If you see him, give him a hug and tell him he's doing great, maybe it will boost his confidence. 

Meh.  I've watched enough college basketball to know this: Talented teams are talented and they figure it out more often than not.  Every year, college hoops teams are a new chemistry experiment.  Sometimes they click right out of the gate; sometimes, the replacement pieces from last year don't fit exactly, and it takes some tinkering and some gelling to get it right.  You give it til about a month after Christmas.  If January 25 rolls around and you've got Northwestern giving you the business, you might have trouble.  It's tempting to get nervous when your team is threatening to lose to D-II transplants while others are cruising, but it tends to be less meaningful than it appears.

That was reminiscent of a Tommy Amaker team on a bad night, a godawful mess. The team has three D-1 basketball players at the moment: Brooks, Diabate, and Dickinson. The maturity of last year's team makes the shambolic quality of this unit appear all the worse. Fortunately, there's a lot of season left.

I mean, what else needs to be said:

DeVante' Jones playing the entire second half, despite never attempting a single shot of any kind and turning it over five times is ugly. Refusing to play Collins in that latter 20 minutes when Jones was giving you nothing offensively was the most befuddling decision Juwan Howard made tonight.

How do you shoot 100% from the field for the first 8 minutes of the game, against the number 205 team in the nation...and trail?  Because you turned it over 9 times!

Jones has to go to the bench.  Frankie looked much better, at least he can get to the rim, and we can be developing him for the future.  Johns is a hot mess, also has to go to the bench.  And your All-America center has a 7 inch height advantage on the tallest opposing starter...and gets up six shots the entire game??  That is an indictment of either Hunter, the point guard, the coach, or all of the above! Play the freshmen, all of them, more, except for Houstan who should play less.  Play Zeb also when he gets healthy.  Juwan looks like he whiffed on Jones, big-time.

So Brandon John’s and Terrence Williams were both negative in +/- against a team that played only guards. I feel like that tells us something…

My overall thoughts: Ugly, ugly game for Michigan. 
Collins should be starting right now over Jones. Let Jones come in off the bench and get a feel for the program with less pressure. Frankie is an energizer bunny. He will have his moments where you have to pull him too. 

Brooks should obviously be where he is at but because of the poor rotation he’s playing way to many minutes and trying to be offense and defense specialist. Brooks played 40 minutes ffs, no reason for that unless it’s a huge ass game. 

Houstan should be at the four right now or on the bench and coming in with the reserves. Either we need to go with Diabate at the four with Hunter or play Houstan there. Johns should be coming off the bench for a spark as well. 
 

Covered the four above. Dickinson is struggling to gel with this new team but he has had some stretches with Diabate that look like this will be a good tandem  

If you aren’t gonna start Bufkin, at least give him some good minutes. The under classmen will have to lead this team this year.

The team really lacks serious fundamentals. More worrisome than that is the overall team body language. They look like they are just out  there most of the time. Right now there is no Chaundee or Franz to pump people up other than Moussa. T Will looks like he’s going through the motions. The most animated I’ve seen Houstan so far was over a few calls. Hell, he barely walks off the free throw lane when another player hits a free throw to congratulate them.  The bench looks lethargic. The coaches just sit there all game long.
 

The more these upper classmen struggle and if the record gets worse, the talented freshmen will start to grumble. That is your bench this year.  They didn’t sign here to wait until year three to play. 
 

Did the team and staff star gaze and look at their preseason projections and half ass through October practices? We really need to see what Zeb can bring to the table, it’s unfortunate he has been hurt, perfect opportunities wasted so far. Nunez shouldn’t step on the floor until garbage time. We have plenty of bricklayers. 
 

With the current rotation the way it is, i see us at 17-14 this year. If he makes corrections and let’s the young ones step up and makes the upper classmen more role players for calming influence, the team will be much better than that. I think we will know more by the time we get to the bigten, perhaps sooner. If NC and SDSU mop the floor with us, it may force a change. 

What was with the early part of season contract extension for Howard? I thought we always wait until after the season? It had some real MSU Mel Tucker vibe to it (speaking of timing only). Hell, Harbaugh always has to wait until the end of the season. It’s not like in 2016 they came in after a 6-0 start and was like Jim you are getting an extension. 
 

Im in for the long haul but as stated throughout this post, there are serious issues and I have some serious concerns they’ll be addressed by the current lineups. Free the young guns!!!

The team looked like a Brian Ellerbee coached team. Hate to say this, but absolutely clueless on the floor.

One of those non-helpful, accusatory, angry fan tweets. In the tradition, but at a bit of a remove from thoughtful journalism. Let Alex and other real men get 'em into the gym, though. . . they'd have some TOUGH practices, not the pansy stuff they've been pushing to date. 

Do you even lift, bro? 

Tarleton scored 22 points off of turnovers. Which also, obviously, means we lost scoring opportunities on those possessions. Sloppy. Or to steal an adjective from above, discombobulated. 

Playing too fast, to the point of out of control. Slow down a bit.