SAD NEWS: Seven-minute finishes Michigan in loss Michigan State Due To….
With 7:01 remaining in the second half, the game was knotted at 63 points each.
Redshirt sophomore forward Will Tschetter had just fought through contact, grabbed his own offensive rebound, and returned an easy layup to tie the score. On Saturday, the Michigan men’s basketball team battled back into a close game with Michigan State after losing by numerous possessions just a few minutes earlier.
But 7:01 later, the number next to the Wolverines’ name on the scoreboard remained 63.
During the seven-minute scoring slump, the Spartans increased their total to 73 points. With that last 10-0 run, Michigan State dominated the game by forcing turnovers and tightly contesting every shot as the Wolverines continued to commit mistakes.
“Offensively, some of it was turnovers, some of it was missed shots, and some of it was miscommunication,” graduate guard Nimari Burnett explained. “It’s just a matter of combining all of things and minimizing mistakes, especially when time is of the essence. Because that time era defined the game for us.”
The game-winning run began with turnovers, just as Burnett’s did.
After Tschetter tied the game, Michigan committed five turnovers on its following seven possessions. The Wolverines played disjointedly, hoping to create a big play rather than simply putting points on the board. And, while the Spartans did not make their life easy, they did most of the damage to themselves.
Three of those five turnovers resulted from traveling violations, which Michigan State could not have forced even if it had tried. The most egregious offender was graduate forward Olivier Nkamoua, who went on two consecutive possessions down eight points with three minutes left. When Michigan needed to start running, Nkamhoua walked instead.
“This is a time, as we discussed in timeouts, when you have to slow down, take a breather, and let the game come to you,” Wolverines coach Juwan Howard stated. “That’s something as a young man, you learn, you don’t just expect it to happen.”
Howard cited the fact that many of the Wolverines haven’t played together for very long, especially when compared to their opponents at Michigan State, as the reason they haven’t learned to slow the game down yet. But 26 games into the season, they’re still making the same blunders in clutch situations as they did in game four.
They are still failing to box out on free throws, enabling Spartans forward Malik Hall two second-chance attempts at the charity stripe, which he utilized to increase the margin to six points. They’re still missing crucial shots, going 0-for-5 from the field in the final seven minutes. Most significantly, they aren’t even giving themselves an opportunity to hit clutch shots, taking only five in seven minutes.
“Lack of stops and then timely stops,” Burnett said. “If we get stops and they don’t score, they don’t get a run.”
While Michigan did not get every stop in the final stretch, it did not play any worse defensively than the rest of the game, holding Michigan State without a field goal for the final 3:38.
However, because Michigan could not locate the basket, it had to make every stop.
Even while the defense kept it alive, the offense allowed the game to slip away. To match the Spartans, scoring 10 points in seven minutes is a totally doable goal, especially given that the Wolverines had averaged about two points per minute in the first 33.
So, when the Wolverines needed to slow the game down, it actually accelerated without them. They were left in the dust, strolling off the court with the same score after seven minutes.
