Ryan Pravato, a student at the University of Michigan and blogger of Life on Dumars, breaks down Michigan’s performance in the Old Spice Classic. Michigan finished in a disappointing fourth place in the tournament after defeating Creighton, but losing to Marquette and Alabama. Ryan’s break down of each game is after the jump. Check it out.
Game 1 Michigan 83 Creighton 76
- Had the flavor of a NCAA tournament game. Frenetic end to end action throughout—game took a lot out of each team.
- Creighton had a little more depth than Michigan but didn’t have the fire power of Manny Harris on their side. Manny played the full 45 minutes and didn’t seem to be fazed one bit. During one drive to the basket in overtime Manny decided rather than laying the ball in the hoop he would throw it down instead.
- Novak was active as usual and even got out on the break and had himself a couple easy layups. Always a good thing when the guys gets out on transition and have chances for easy baskets. Getting easy buckets is usually not a strong suit for this team.
- Darius Morris played like a freshman, some indecisiveness to go along with some headiness. He did hit a nifty turn around jumper early in the game, but mostly was a not a threat on offense.
- Laval Lucas-Perry continued to be aggressive and when he gets his feet set and balances himself while rising he may be the team’s best three point shooter. Sometimes still is wild with the ball and makes the head scratching turnover, but I like where he’s at right now.
- Interior defense left a lot to be desired. Help defense was slow or just non-existent.
Game 2 Marquette 79 Michigan 65
- 1-3-1 zone was just unremarkable to say the least. Not as active as usual. Alabama was probably too athletic for it, and seemed well prepared to boot.
- Marquette was quicker with the ball, quicker jumping to rebound the ball, quicker on defensive rotations, quicker at basically everything. Michigan just seemed gassed, everyone except Manny Harris that is.
- Zack Novak played 31 minutes and only took 2 shots. It was apparent Marquette was making extra certain to crowd Novak whenever he caught the ball. Novak’s lack of a dribble drive really hurts.
- Zack Gibson had yet another decent effort in limited minutes. Don’t know if Beilein doesn’t think Gibson can produce in more minutes or if Gibson just doesn’t have the stamina to handle the extra time, either way all Gibson seems to be good for is one 3-5 minute stint in each half.
- DeShawn never got the touches in the post, partly due to Marquette’s pesty defensive effort.
- Did I mention Marquette was quicker in just about every facet imaginable? Marquette really has no choice considering their tallest rotational player is 6’7.
Game 3 Alabama 68 Michigan 66
- It’s become more and more obvious that Manny Harris tends to stray away from team basketball when the offense stalls or isn’t going smoothly. Instead of saving the team from its own temporary shortcomings, usually Manny’s one on five mentality just compounds the problem.
- Concern: Manny has tendency to fade/lean back on almost every three pointer he attempts (3-23 this season). No surprise that most hit front iron. This phenomenon has been going on for some time now, it’s not just new this season.
- Speaking of problems, Novak got hung out to dry against taller more athletic players a lot while at the bottom of the zone. Zack’s tenacity often makes up for his vertical shortcomings, but Alabama was in the right places at the right times and it didn’t matter. I wonder if Zack will ever have the opportunity to not have to play out of position in his Michigan career?
- DeShawn’s head is in the clouds more than it should be, and it shows. Missed dunk, failure in help defense multiple times. When’s the last time you saw DeShawn come out of nowhere and block a shot? Hell, Zack Gibson in about a fourth of the minutes does it at least every other game.
- Stu Douglass is doing a fine job of organizing the offense right now. However his shooting is suffering as a result. I think Stu is having a hard time knowing when he should make the extra pass and when to just fire it up himself. Give him more time and I think he will get the hang of this point guard thing. Beilein trusts him, yet sooner or later Douglass better make a habit of hitting more than just one shot per game.
- If Beilein didn’t have this team’s attention after the Marquette game, he sure the hell has it now. Better that these kind of performances come now than in the middle of Big Ten play.
- Leadership is a problem area right now. I talked about it in my season preview and it still remains to be seen who will step up as the vocal leader. Manny and DeShawn have not yet shown the commitment to the little things to warrant their word going very far with their teammates. Manny doesn’t get his 8 rebounds a game or whatever because he boxes out, it’s because he can out leap everybody else instead ( it can backfire as it did on the Alabama put back dunk to win the game, no one got a body on Green–Manny was closest). Manny yelling at a teammate to rebound better just won’t fly. DeShawn can’t tell the guys he’s the anchor of the defense, because his defense is nothing to write home about right now.. He doesn’t challenge shots or take charges as much as he should. He has little room to talk.
- Manny and DeShawn know they will be playing in the NBA soon, but the college game is no place to drift off and play that brand of sometimes I feel like it ball, and that’s exactly what both are doing too often. The rest of the team isn’t good enough right now to make up for their lackadaisical lapses.
- I would talk about Beilein’s odd decision to have the ball in Darius Morris’ hands during the last possession, but since I wasn’t in the huddle I don’t know if something else was supposed to develop during that 5 second stretch or what, so I’ll just assume things didn’t go as planned… but wait, I was right, putting the ball in Morris’ hands was Beilein’s idea.
- “Darius Morris drove the lane and got to the basket. So did Alabama’s JaMychal Green, who batted Morris’ runner into the stands at the buzzer, which preserved the Crimson Tide’s upset of No. 15 Michigan, 68-66, at the Milk House.
This was the play Beilein wanted out of the huddle. Never mind that Morris hit one shot from the field all game and that he hadn’t made more than two shots in a single game throughout the entire tournament.
Beilein liked the freshman’s ability to get by people. Looking back, though, he wasn’t happy with his last-second decision. Especially when he had another player with a similar ability and more experience – Manny Harris.
“We have another player we probably should have run, we still got to the rim,” Beilein said. “If Manny gets to the rim, something else may happen. They put two guys on Manny, couldn’t get there, but if I had to do it over again, I’d probably put Manny, make sure Manny got the ball somehow or call another timeout. Don’t like what I did. Didn’t like that finish.
At least Beilein can admit his mistake. I’m still having a hard time admitting that this Michigan team is nowhere near top 15 worthy even though the results of the weekend say I’m utterly crazy for thinking so. Hopefully the shots from the supporting cast start falling and the defense can find some new life. Because Michigan at its best is a top 15 team in the nation….
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