Michigan’s NCAA tourney aspirations took another blow again after losing to the Northwestern Wildcats in a highly entertaining affair at Crisler Arena on Sunday. Coming off a scintillating come from behind win at Penn State just a couple days prior, you’d have thought there would be somewhat of a let down playing a decent but not overly menacing Northwestern team at home. Well…
It wasn’t like that most of the first half.
Michigan came out executing on all cylinders at both ends of the floor. Northwestern looked more deflated than a blow up doll Charles Barkley took a five iron to. But after a nice flurry of made baskets by highly touted freshman Drew Crawford, Michigan only had a 9 point half time lead to show for their solid first half.
Then the second half happened.
Michigan came out sleep walking. Northwestern came out getting shit done. They forced 12 second half Michigan turnovers, kept the ball out of DeShawn Sims’ hands, and essentially toyed around with the Maizen Blue.
Michigan’s lackluster perimeter defense didn’t help matters either. I know Michael “Juice” Thompson is a quick little whippersnapper, but for Christsakes he’s 5′ 9 and he had wiiiide open looks from downtown time after time. And Michigan’s porous rebounding and much to be desired interior defense made 6’11 sophomore center Luka Mirkovic look like Pau Gasol out there.
Oh well.
One thing that is a little easier to swallow about this loss is that these Northwestern Wildcats are not your father’s Northwestern Wildcats. Prior to their two game Big Ten skid to open the season they were in the Top 25. Even with their two best players out for the season with injuries (Coble & Ryan) Northwestern is still considered NCAA tourney caliber. And they sorta proved it on Sunday.
But still, Michigan had to take care of home court. They had to. NCAA tournament teams win that game.
I guess this all means that you can’t just depend on two players for the bulk of the scoring, and for the most part nobody has stepped up as that third scoring option.
The 2010 NIT looks to be the destination for this team unless the support players start to step up more consistently.
And the NIT is not anything to look forward to.
It’s so Tommy Amaker.
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