One man beating the team

Submitted by michiganman01 on

I think Brian pointed this out, but in recent games against MSU, IU, Iowa, OSU, and now Wisconsin, there has been that one guy we cant stop.

MSU: Harris 27 points 36% of team's points (win)

Indiana: Ferrel 27 points 43% of team's points (loss)

Iowa: Marble 26 points 31% of team's points (loss)

OSU: Ross 24 points 40% of team's points (win)

Wisconsin: Kaminsky 25 points 33% of team's points (loss)

Our record is 2-3 on these 5 games, but that could also be attributed to the play of Nik Staukas. However we would have beaten IU if we could somehow contain Ferrel to a good but not great 15-17 points. If we could have cut Kaminsky's production by 10 points, we are in the game till the end. I dont know if this is a major problem or not, after all our offense made up for it vs MSU and OSU, but it's really frustraring seeing one guy seemingly effortlessly beating out team. 

TruBluMich

February 17th, 2014 at 8:04 PM ^

Understandable, but Im pretty sure Iowa was trying to stop Lavert too.  We've just been unlucky to catch a few guys who got hot and stayed hot.   It be nice to find a way to stop a good jump shooter but if they aren't missing, not much you can do (IF THEY ARE ALWAYS LEFT WIDE OPEN).   As for Kaadamfukmofosonofabinsky, if the refs would have remebered you can not hold the defender and hook around him, he might of had 10 - 15 points.

JimBobTressel

February 17th, 2014 at 8:12 PM ^

Wow, I don't think opposing players have ever reached the 25 point mark in the history of college basketball till this hoops season.

MGoGrendel

February 17th, 2014 at 8:16 PM ^

Michigan lost two players to the NBA and a third player - with NBA skillz - is out with an injury. The report also said we were in first place in a tough B1G conference. They attributed our success, in part, to winning three tough road games against top 5 & top 10 teams.

I think we have a very good team with a fan base still stung by our football teams follies.

jsquigg

February 17th, 2014 at 8:24 PM ^

Michigan is not good at defense.  I wish they had a more effective zone defense to fall back on.  The 1-3-1 is all or nothing and their version of the 2-3 is not intimidating.  Puts a lot of pressure on the team to shoot well offensively.

turd ferguson

February 17th, 2014 at 8:25 PM ^

It's amazing how much different this thread looks if you mistakenly swap the first and last letter in the title's last word. I agree with the OP that this has been frustrating. We don't seem to have a true lockdown defender, big or small. I always think there's a place on the roster for one of those guys, if you can find one.

Prince Lover

February 17th, 2014 at 11:39 PM ^

Which explains my upvote. But I also agree with the others who might have said it earlier, UM has not been stellar on the defensive end for a while. And by a while I mean even last year. I've kind of stopped getting mad at the defensive lapses, because for the most part, they've overcome that deficiency.

champswest

February 17th, 2014 at 8:52 PM ^

best scorer, but we can't seem to shut down theirs. Yogi and Marble started the game hitting 3 or 4 three pointers in a row and we couldn't stop it. It energizes the other team to play well just like our guys get fired up when Nik or Caris hit some early threes for us.

DemetriusBrown

February 17th, 2014 at 9:55 PM ^

Is tough. Tell me before the season no Mitch but road wins against ohio and sparty and 1st place at this point in the season and don't think that would seem possible. This team has a chance to be better than last years at the end of conference play. That's pretty cool and a credit to the coaching staff.

MichiganMan14

February 17th, 2014 at 9:56 PM ^

We don't play angry and take the paint personally. Our defense against points in the paint is bad. It's tough to be consistent as a basketball team when you a weak in the middle. Horford should be starting. Morgan seems to give good effort...He's just limited and a major downgrade from McGary. It's all house money folks. Our roster will be loaded next year and we will dominate college basketball. Let's just find a way to beat Sparty again and grab this B1G title. The tourney is pressure less for us this season!

allintime23

February 18th, 2014 at 10:27 AM ^

I noticed that myself. This run is as tough as any team has had to play in the NCAA this year. Playing teams that all could find themselves in the elite eight week in and week out is hard. If we win Saturday we have control again and the Iowa and Wisconsin games won't hurt so bad. Indiana was the hardest loss to swallow.

mGrowOld

February 17th, 2014 at 10:39 PM ^

I'm trying to follow the OP's point but failing.  Is he saying that if good players who score a lot of points scored less against us we'd do better?  If so I have to agree but.....um...ok.

Or is he saying that if Nik scored more than he did in those games we'd do better regardless of how many points their best player scored cause we'd have more?  And again if so yes but......um...like....yeah.

This reminds me of the ATT  "more is better than less" ad.  It's not complicated.

PizzaHaus

February 18th, 2014 at 2:26 AM ^

I'm pretty sure we'd be equally frustrated if 5 guys spread out their destruction of our defense equally. That's not usually how basketball works, though.

Find any decently high scoring basketball game, and the winning team is probably going to have a guy with a really impressive box score. 

TwoFiveAD

February 18th, 2014 at 8:57 AM ^

This is what happens when you switch everything. 

At this level, if you are switching everything, a good coach is going to run his offense until he gets the match up he wants, and then exploit it.

That is what's happening to us right now.

jmblue

February 18th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^

If you look at our own box scores, we've had a guy drop 20+ in a lot of games, too - usually Stauskas, but also LeVert in both Wisconsin games, GRIII against Arizona, and so on.

In some of the games cited, one guy really did take over the game (as in the case of Ferrell and Kaminsky) but in some the guy just happened to use a lot of possessions without really dominating.  I didn't feel like Ross or Harris took over the game against us.  Actually, we held both of them in check down the stretch, when those games were won.

 

93Grad

February 18th, 2014 at 11:21 AM ^

1) The B1G is a really good conference that in many years is won with 4 or 5 losses,

2) We are without our best interior defender and rebounder,

3) We still have a good chance to beat Sparty this Sunday and control our own destiny

4) JB's teams will probably always lack a little defensively and on the boards as he seems to prioritize players that can shoot, share the ball, not turn it over and not foul a bunch,

5) We have seen firsthand how successfull that strategy can be, especially in the NCAA tournament where more fouls are called and good guard play is rewarded at a greater rate.