Kornacki: Wolverines Unable to Match Buckeyes Energy in Defeat
1/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 14, 2015
By Steve Kornacki
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- This time, the hole was just too deep to dig out of for the Michigan men's basketball team.
The Wolverines had overcome a 13-point deficit to beat Illinois (Dec. 30) and were down by nine points before rallying to take Minnesota (Jan. 10) over the last two weeks. But Michigan trailed by 28 points with 13:51 remaining to play, and there was no chance at a second-half comeback this time.
Ohio State (14-4, 3-2 Big Ten) put a 71-52 thumping on the Wolverines (10-7, 3-2) on Tuesday night (Jan. 13) at the Value City Arena, breaking Michigan's three-game winning streak in the series.
It was a hard game to watch because, as Wolverines captains Spike Albrecht and Caris LeVert agreed, they couldn't match the energy of the Buckeyes.
It was a hard game to swallow for head coach John Beilein, who said he would watch videotape of the matchup on his laptop during the late-night bus ride back to Ann Arbor.
"I have to watch this game now or I won't be able to sleep tonight," said Beilein, after completing his press conference. "It's really tough to wake up and watch the videotape the next day. It's not a good thing. So, you do it now.
"I'll have it cut up (into various viewing segments by video aides) on the way home, and we'll have answers, and we'll grow from it. I'll actually feel better after I watch the video because I'll know some things that I could learn as a coach."
During the press conference, Beilein told reporters, "We're a better team than that. But at the same time, we'll learn a lot from it and get better. Our guys will come out of this a better team somehow; we'll make sure of it."
The one thing Beilein pointed to as a definite difference-maker was point guard Derrick Walton Jr. coming out because of foul trouble.
It was 18-14 for Ohio State when Walton committed his second foul and exited with 10:04 remaining in the first half. He sat out for 6:32 and the Wolverines were down, 34-20, when Walton returned.
I asked Beilein if he'd considered bringing Walton back as the deficit grew and Michigan scored a scant six points with him out.
"Yeah, we did (consider it), and we almost never do that," said Beilein. "Sometimes we've just got to continue to grow the bench so we can take guys out and not drop off that much."
Freshman point guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman had a season-high 15 minutes but made only one of six shots for three points with one rebound, one assist and one turnover.
Beilein said Abdur-Rahkman has been coming on strong in practices and finally got an extended shot of playing time. But this wasn't his breakout game.
Still, even when Walton was in the game he didn't make much of a difference. Walton hit one of seven shots for two points with two assists and one turnover. He did rebound well, though, with five in 27 minutes. And he didn't foul out after picking up his fourth.
LeVert had a team-high 14 points but had three turnovers. He said he and the other wings had to find ways to get open, make better cuts to the basket and set more effective screens, admitting that the offense gets "stagnant" without that.
Zak Irvin, the other starting wing, was held to 11 points and had five rebounds. He lost four turnovers.
Freshman wing Kameron Chatman, who was starting until the last three games, didn't score on three shots in 14 minutes.
Post player Ricky Doyle and starting guard Albrecht were non-factors with a combined six points, three rebounds, two assists and two turnovers.
Only post player Mark Donnal (eight points and four rebounds) and wing Aubrey Dawkins (six points and three rebounds) performed as expected off the bench.
Ohio State forward Sam Thompson said, "We were trying to win by 50 points, but it didn't happen. We wanted to send a message. We wanted to control the game defensively."
Michigan backed down from a challenge. Why?
"The energy was kind of weird out there," said LeVert. "We didn't come out with the necessary energy to win -- which is why they went on that run before halftime. We just didn't do what was necessary to win that game."
Albrecht said, "We didn't match their intensity from the start. And you are not going to win in the Big Ten on the road if you don't play harder than the other team."
Was that a surprise?
"Definitely a surprise and even disappointed," said Albrecht. "Guys like Caris and myself are veterans, and when the energy level is low we have to say something. We didn't do that tonight.
"Usually Ohio State, with the big rivalry, they jump into us and climb into us with the rah-rah and all that stuff. But they didn't do that, and we were kind of coasting with them. And we just kind of stayed in that coast mode the rest of the half, and they picked it up. And we didn't match it."
The Wolverines often stood around too much on offense, and the crisp ball movement on the perimeter was lacking. It was rare that a cutter to the basket got a good pass.
The Wolverines are 1-3 on the road. They've lost by 27 points at Arizona, 13 points at Purdue and now 19 points at Ohio State. Their only road win was 73-64 at Penn State, where only 5,342 were in attendance, and it felt more like a study hall than a road dungeon.
The recent comeback wins over Illinois and Minnesota came at home, and the Wolverines are a young team that hasn't been able to find the toughness and focus required to make road comebacks. That's tough for a young team to do, but that's their challenge the rest of the way.
And so Beilein's video session on the bus trailing through the snow-covered farm land of central and northern Ohio had to be a challenge. But dissecting what went wrong and correcting it is what great coaches do, and the next practice will be demanding because that's what's required after a 19-point loss that made little sense.
