Michigan State 80, Michigan 67
Bryan Fuller/MGoBlog
It could've gone either way. Alvin Ellis drove baseline, Muhammad-Ali Adbur-Rahkman squared up, the two collided, then Ted Valentine hopped three times and called a block.
With 13:11 left in the first half, Adbur-Rahkman exited with two fouls. Michigan State led 11-8. When John Beilein reinserted him a little over eight minutes later, the Spartans held a commanding 33-14 lead.
It'd be too easy to point to that 16-point swing and say auto-benching MAAR proved the difference in the game. Michigan's problems tonight went far beyond early foul trouble for their freshman guard. No matter the defensive strategy, the Wolverines couldn't defend the paint. The Spartans finished an astonishing 25/32 on two-pointers, rebounded nine of their 19 missed shots, and turned the ball over just eight times. That's a far bigger issue than who's playing at one spot on the floor.
On this Michigan team, though, the dropoff is so severe that ceding points in the name of caution isn't an option—and, let's face it, playing Andrew Dakich instead of MAAR is handing over points to the opposition. That's twice now Beilein has benched MAAR for extended time while the Spartans pulled away. While it's unlikely Michigan would've forced overtime in this one, seeing MAAR score 12 points on seven shots in the second half—after Dakich went 0/1 with a foul in eight minutes—made it hard to imagine the strategy gave them the best shot at winning.
The story of the game on the other side was the dominance of Branden Dawson, who finished with 23 points (10/12 FG) and 13 boards. Michigan's wings couldn't handle Dawson one-on-one, but when the Wolverines went zone, Travis Trice served up lob after lob for the athletic forward to finish. Trice had an excellent night himself, scoring 22 points and dishing out seven assists; his two early threes from nearly the same spot above the break helped ignite MSU's early run. From start to finish, the Spartan offense ran smoothly and effectively.
The Wolverines, on the other hand, couldn't consistently hang. Zak Irvin needed 15 shot equivalents to score 16 points; Aubrey Dawkins needed 12 for his 12; Spike Albrecht ten for his 12. The big men were all but nonexistent; the bench, of course, depleted. On a night when Michigan's defense needed the offense to wring out every bit of talent, strategy, and luck available, they couldn't maintain that for 40 minutes.
Sometimes it's not your night. Lowrawls Nairn hit just his second three-pointer of the season early on, when Michigan sagged off of him, and it felt then like it'd be a long game. What's equally frustrating as the loss, though, is the overwhelming feeling that it could've—should've—been closer, if only Michigan approached the first half with the same urgency as the second.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:00 AM ^
Come on now, benching MAAR doesn't equal a 22-6 run..
I agree the foul policy is frustrating. But remember we're talking about a largely untouted freshman here. If being without him for a totally reasonable amount of time results in your team getting run out of your own building -- well it doesn't.
It's easy to complain with those results, I get it. But every coach in the universe benches MAAR there. And, against tendencies, Beilin did actually bring him back before halftime. Progress!
February 18th, 2015 at 12:17 AM ^
Ace didn't say benching MAAR equals a 22-6 run. In fact, he went out of his way to not say that:
"It'd be too easy to point to that 16-point swing and say auto-benching MAAR proved the difference in the game. Michigan's problems tonight went far beyond early foul trouble for their freshman guard."
February 18th, 2015 at 12:18 AM ^
And then spends the following paragraph explaining why it was, in his estimation, so costly to remove MAAR. He also tagged the post as "john beilein has a rigid foul policy that i dislike"
February 18th, 2015 at 7:36 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 12:48 AM ^
dakich gave up at least 3 three-pointers in a 5 minute stretch...and I wasn't even watching that closely.
February 18th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^
Not sure how touted or untouted any player was has anything to with anything now, esp on a JB roster. I like MAAR's play and, in that game in this season, there's nothing to keep your powder dry for.
February 18th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 12:01 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
February 18th, 2015 at 12:13 AM ^
Can someone who follows bball recruiting very closely share which targets are most like a Gavin Schilling. A very limited offensively guy who has a NBA body as a sophomore and does nothig but scrap, jump high, box out, and provide an interior presence on defense? UM needs a guy like that - we have enough shooters at the other 4 spots we can put 1 guy out there at all times who does nothing but be Dennis Rodman. Are we going for any guy like that in 2016 with our targets? I remember Schilling from last year and while he added muscle this year he looked pretty much the same (maybe 8-10 lbs less as a freshman) but you compare his build to a guy like DJ Wilson and it loks like a 10th grader vs a 20 year old man.
And no I dont mean Teske who basically looks like DJ Wilson's build but 2 inches taller. Those guys (Teske Wilson) are going to be fine physically as JRs and SRs but we need guys who can bang in the paint the next 2 years. Donnal is not it - he is a 4 trying to play 5. Doyle maybe. And that's it. Otherwise its just 2 more years of chucking it out from outside, almost never getting an offensive rebound, and relying on wings exclusively and going into every game knowing if our shot is off we have a 7 minute stretch where we visit the desert because we can never ever ever pound the ball inside and our defensive lane is an all you can eat buffet .
February 18th, 2015 at 12:15 AM ^
We just had 4 years of Jordan Morgan.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:41 AM ^
I have no idea what that has to do with my post.
Morgan had a very nice RS FR season - far superior to what Donnal is providing with similar experience. Also I beieve it was his JR year he was benched and barely played for long stretches. He was far and away our best big man the 2nd half of his SR year but in Dec was part of Morford ... and Horford was starting the SR year. If we had the Morgan of the final 20 games of his career the whole time or at least his whole JR and SR years it would be one thing - but it was basically the back half of his SR year and then his RS FR year and then there were a lot of struggles in between.
Also Jordan is not a jump out of the gym type - we dont seem to want to recruit a guy like that. I can't think of one at the 5 we've had in a decade+. It boggles my mind to see them on Illinois or Purdue level teams and we can't find one.
Is there not a Ekpe Udoh type in this country who wants to play for us? Or would be worthy of a scholarship? Udoh had 67 blocks as a freshman. Our entire team has 46 - the ENTIRE team. He had 92 as a sophomore and 133 as a JR. We can't find room for one athletic guy like that who would make average Big 10 big men actually have to sweat when thinking about taking a shot inside the paint?
February 18th, 2015 at 12:54 AM ^
You have no idea what it has to do with your post? You said you wanted a big who was offensively limited (check), can scrap (check), jump out of the gym (nope), box out (check), and provide an interior presence on defense (check). Morgan satisifes 4/5 yet you find my mentioning him to be irrelevant?
He was solid his RS FR and SO years and battled an injury and the emergence of McGary his JR year but played his best when the team needed him most both his JR and SR years. The majority of his "struggles" were on the offensive end where people complained about his inconsistency finishing.
I don't disagree that this team could use a shotblocker or some sort of defensive gamechanger, but they've also experienced a lot of success without one.
February 18th, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^
Schilling does remind me of J Mo
February 18th, 2015 at 1:06 AM ^
just floating around in the recruiting abyss, but i agree with the sentiment. give me a guy like shevon thompson--3rd leading rebounder in ncaa as a freshman. unranked 7ft tall dude out of jamaica. yes please find someone like that.
February 18th, 2015 at 4:40 PM ^
He's immediately noticable at 6' 11" and in an athlete's body, and of course can play above George Mason's competition (Richmond, Iona, Cornell), but he doesn't dominate consistently to the degree one would expect given his physical attributes, at least in the games I attended.
But yeah, if you were to look at the missing puzzle pieces at Michigan, he'd fill a glaring one.
BTW, on their website George Mason lists him as a junior having transfered from Harcum college where he led the National Junior College Athletic Association last year in rebounding. If memory serves, at the game he was announced as a sophomore, so my best guess is that he has sophomore eligibility.
http://www.gomason.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=25200&ATCLID=209704219
Chose Mason over Old Dominion, Wichita State, Butler University and Detroit University.
Guh!
February 18th, 2015 at 9:25 AM ^
With all due respect that is like saying there are not many Caris Leverts out there. Udoh was raw and I dont think a very high level recruit - maybe I am wrong but he certainily was not a 1 and done or 2 and done going to the lottery type that Kansas Kentucky Duke were after hot and heavy.
What he developed into and what he was out of HS are 2 different things - just like Caris.
I just googled Shevon Thompson and yes he looks like he actually has the body of a guy who could play in the Big 10 right away. With all due respect to Donnal and Wilson (when we saw him early) they both look physically overwhelmed. Not sure how we end up with so many developmental bigs in terms of body type (at least with Doyle you can see the body type, he just needs a year to put on real muscle). Again a guy like Schilling - who is NOT a good offensive player - had the body type as a freshman last year you see on our guys as SRs.
February 18th, 2015 at 11:56 AM ^
that being said, you aren't really asking to get a bunch of leverts, just a big body who can be aggressive and rebound.
imagine if this team had some of the nameless big dudes of michigan teams past: graham brown, chris young. just a big body out there would do wonders.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:26 AM ^
That guy is a level below Jordan Morgan. Plus he fouls at will, something Morgan avoided his last few years. Aside from getting no respect from the refs in Kentucky game, Morgan pretty much mastered the ability to play tough, hard defense, draw charges and keep his foul count below 5. Schilling does none of that.
FWIW, last year with guys like Walton and Levert on the court, he was pretty much helpless.
February 18th, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 2:29 PM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 10:52 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 2:48 PM ^
Bielfeldt (minus the jump high) is the current guy on the team. And begining next year, Doyle will be that guy on the team.
In the bigger scheme of things, Izzo and Beilein are simply two different coaches. Each has their belief in what works. They have both proven that their beliefs work at the highest level. Trying to make a hybrid of the two sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't really work except for those every-once-in-a-while players they recruit who can pull it off. An example for Beilein was Mitch McGary, he was a very skilled big who also had the body and mentality to bang at an early stage. An example for Izzo was Draymond Green, He was a big banger who developed a fairly skilled offensive game.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:15 AM ^
I don't understand why Beilein rotates three players for one position, and then gives Dakich 8 minutes. In Dakich's 8 minutes, he had 1 PF and 1 missed shots. In Donnal's 9 minutes, he contributed 4 pts, 2 rebs and a block. In Bielfeldt's 9 minutes, he contributed 5 points and 6 rebounds. I understand that he didn't want to upset the rotations, but when it became apparent that Walton was going to be out for awhile, he has to move Irvin and or Dawkins down to the 2 position which isn't that much different than the 3 and figure out how to get 2 of Doyle/Bielfeldt/Donnal to play together.
I also don't understand how we let a 44% FT shooter have his way underneath. If you have 3 guys for one position (and I'd argue Chatman and Dawkins could have also guarded Dawson) foul trouble is not a problem. Hack him anytime he touches the ball. Do not let him have any space inside. Yet, we play gentlemanly basketball and let him go 10-12, while our three "bigs" only committed 6 fouls total. Guys, you had 15 fouls to give to the worst FT shooting team in the big 10. Schilling and Costello were a combined 8 for 8 and only shot 3 FTs.
February 18th, 2015 at 7:35 AM ^
Irvin and especially Dawkins can't play the 2 in Beilein's offense because offense because they're not good enough ball handlers for that to work.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
February 18th, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^
It's a trade-off. You either take Dakich's good ballhandling and ability to run the offense, with his lack of scoring, rebounding, and defense, or Dawkins/Irvin's lack of ballhandling with more size up front for rebounding and post defense. We got killed inside. And it's not like MSU is some super sized team. Schilling is 6' 9", Dawson is 6' 6" and Valentine is 6' 5". There's no reason we should have been dominated that badly. How about playing Donnal and Doyle together and force Izzo to put Valentine on one of those two, because Dawson was sticking with Irvin all night. There was a four minute stretch where Wollenman came in and we never went down to Doyle to attack that mismatch. It gets back to this team being so young that Beilein doesn't have time in practice to tweak things to attack the opponent's weakness, because he's still working so hard trying to get them to understand the basic concepts. Next year will be better.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:25 AM ^
"What's equally frustrating as the loss, though, is the overwhelming feeling that it could've—should've—been closer, if only Michigan approached the first half with the same urgency as the second."
Just disagree with this so much. When you are up 15-20 all half your intensity wanes. MSU was playing at 80% that 2nd half - Valentine was barely involved and he is their 2nd best player. They were having a field day in the 2nd playing half ass because they didnt need to try 100%. It was a laugher inside, they could score at will and outrebound us at will - even on their FTs. Every time UM got to about 10 they turned it on and pulled right away. It was total domination and only the FT discrepency made this close. And the reason MSU had so little FTs is they got inside at will - they had no midrange game- they either took 3s or Trice dribble drove (or Tum Tum) and passded it off to Dawson or Dawson/Costello/Schilling grabbed a rare miss and dunked it. I'd love to see one of those graphics on where MSU shot the ball from - I would be shocked if more than 8 shots were between the 10 foot line and the 3 pt line.
Izzo had the walk on friggin Wollerman or whatever his name in at the end of the first half for 3 minutes... for no reason other than because he could. He could have put Schilling or Costello in - but put in Wollerman. For the hell of it. That is not a game you are in danger of losing at any point.
This was a cat playing with a piece of yarn. We were the yarn.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:34 AM ^
We had to have IT right from the tip. Doyle wins the tip, he gets a nice pass on a cut and what does he do - he loses the ball and doesn't get an easy dunk.
Next possession, we get it to him again, he misses both free throws.
The game needed to start fast. Play off the enviroment - we did none of that.
Trice travels with no call, makes a three and you pretty much see thats how things are going to go.
Also if there was one player that had to start fast, it was MAAR. Neither Trice or Forbes or whoever was guarding are both terrible defenders.
There was enough WIDE open threes to get the crowd going early, but we missed them.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:36 AM ^
Double post.
February 19th, 2015 at 9:13 PM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 12:51 AM ^
Just looking at our rebounding stats.
- Caris LeVert leads this team in defensive rebounds at 83. He has not played the past 7 games
- Derrick Walton JR is our 2nd leading rebounder. at 81 He has not played the past 6 games.
Let that marinate. Our starting PG and SG are our 2 leading defensive rebounders for the year. That alone would be a bit mind boggling. But extend it to the fact they have now missed about 27-30% of the season and they still lead in the category is mind blowing. Yes I get the big men box out and hence some rebounds go to the guards but that's not all of it.
- Doyle leads our 5s at 41 defensive rebounds.... all year. And it goes downhill fast from there with our other 5. (For perspective Costello has 89, Schilling 63)
Offensive rebounding is not worth even comparing - when I look at the #s its like MSU big men play a different sport.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:10 PM ^
part of the problem with the bigs rebounding numbers is that they don't stay on the court long enough to tally any stats. Walton was playing ~33 MPG. Doyle's at 18. Bielfeldt and Donnal are at 13 and 12 MPG, respectively. It's really hard to get in the flow of a game when you are only playing in 3-4 minute stretches and don't know if you are going to get 25 minutes or 5. The rotation of the bigs has me vexed.
February 18th, 2015 at 2:54 PM ^
Doyle - true freshman
Donnal - red-shirt freshman who is still learning how tough you have to play night to night
Bielfeldt - a lot of heart and calf
I'm not sure why you are vexed at the variance in playing time.
February 18th, 2015 at 12:52 AM ^
as our second biggest guy is asking for trouble. there's gotta be some way to get more size on the court in games where we are getting obliterated on the boards.
February 18th, 2015 at 1:27 AM ^
Quite a few times, we didn't get the rebound simply because we did not box out.
Bielfeldt was guilty of this quite a bit, especially durint the stretch where we cut it to 10.
Kills momentum quite a bit.
February 18th, 2015 at 1:50 AM ^
that we have only one guy who can do anything that resembles contesting a shot down-low, which takes a body away from boxing out. and when that person is the only guy with any size on the floor, you set yourself up for complete domination on the boards.
February 18th, 2015 at 4:54 AM ^
Yep very true and very frustrating.
February 18th, 2015 at 9:24 AM ^
Yes it is frustrating to hear all night "Matt Costello over Irvin for the board". You sit there and say why is Irvin on Costello. But that's your 2nd biggest guy out there giving 4-5 inches up. I guess they had our 5 on Dawson, or the rotations were off or whatever.
Again this was supposed to be Chatman's role - he is 6'8 and unless we get a 6'8 type guy at our 4 we will always be physically overmatched up front - unless you get a 6'6 Dawson type who lives in the rafters. Which is the antithesis of what Beilein apparently is after at the 4.
February 19th, 2015 at 2:21 PM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 1:40 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 4:58 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^
Edit....Strange, earlier I replied to a post that showed working online making enough to buy a BMW is 6 weeks. Now the post I was responding to has completely changed.
February 18th, 2015 at 6:22 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 6:52 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 8:17 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
February 18th, 2015 at 9:26 AM ^
A long BigTen season of playing with a short bench has caught up to them. Too many OT games without a W. They all look exhausted. Last year the majority of these kids where still dominating inferior HS talent and thinking about who to take to the prom.
NIT seems more of a reach every day and that's fine. More games with a short bench full of tired underclassmen probably isn't going to help.
February 18th, 2015 at 10:38 AM ^
February 18th, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^
I noticed numerous times last night situations where if our defender had his hands up, he could have deflected or denied a pass or he would have had a better chance at getting a rebound. When you get tired, it's harder to keep the hands up on defense and MSU really exploited our - pardon the criticism of guys that are trying really hard and are in a bad situation - apparent lack of effort.
February 18th, 2015 at 9:43 AM ^
2016 looks to be a good year.
February 18th, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
I love having beilein as the coach of UM--i think his offense, when its clicking with players who have a grasp of it, is as fun any in the college ranks. as a strategist (halftime adjustments included) he is excellent. however, i'm growing frustrated with what is happening in real-time.
A) The Illinois game had examples of Beilein seemingly freezing on obvious momentum-stemming timeouts while the crowd was raging. Couple that with the fact beilein tends to draw up great timeout plays, I couldn't believe UM ultimately sat on a timeout in that game.
B) The auto-benching is absurd especially when you consider he will have players intentionally foul at the end of the first half. In that illinois game, dawkins at least intentionally picked up one of the fouls, thus landing him at two for the half. if that number is so taboo for beilein, why on earth would you intentionally call for that when you have such a limited bench and to my eye, it offers limited strategic advantage. theyre just gonna hold the ball for twenty seconds, and often, jack a three anyway, for pete's sake.
and to the state game, i missed the first half but checking the box score, i saw that bielfeldt tallied the most rebounds of anyone yet i didnt see him at all in the second half. the team seemed to be needing rebounds desperately. where was bielfeldt? IMO, he's the best big of the bunch.
February 18th, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
On that Dawkins foul in the Illinois game - I think that was a mental mistake by Dawkins. I think they wanted the foul earlier, but the ball got into the corner near Dawkins man and he ended up just fouling. Wasn't a smart move and I think he knew it right after he did it.
Also on your Bielfeldt comment - I actually saw Bielfeldt lose his guy on consecutive possessions when we started to trim the margin to ten. He definitely was in at some point in the half. I guess he ended up with the most rebounds, but I felt he lost some pretty key ones.
Walton was one of our better rebounder. As was Levert.
We need Walton back.
Comments