Zavier playing 14 minutes in the second half when Michigan needed offense was embarrassing.
Jordan Poole and Brooks playing 6 second half minutes when Michigan needed offense was embarrassing.
Brooks-MAAR-Poole-Matthews-Wagner with Duncan, Livers, Teske and Simmons/Simpson off the bench should be the lineup going forward.
The loss to Tommy Amaker’s kenpom #280, 8-22 Harvard team a year after firing him was probably worse.
NJIT?
Losing to EMU like a week after beating a better version of EMU (Syracuse)?
Oh and losing to 0-14 in the Big Ten Penn State in 2013.
Eastern Michigan or NJIT by far…but his stubborness play a bigger rotation is killing this team this year and may cost them a tournament bid. Wayyy too early to think about losing a bid but if you lose to both UCLA and Texas, it’s going to take a very good Big Ten record.
I have no idea why you can’t limit the rotation for big games and go back to a bigger one for the cupcakes after Texas.
This reminds me of the Charlotte loss, though, where the team is just suddenly seized by an inability to do anything right and just gets so out-dogged it defies description. I have some issues with some of his substitutions tonight, but this is on the players. Make a damn layup. Make your free throws. Run the offense. Stop stopping the offense by just turning into utter cowards mid possession. I really put this on the players. None of the non-freshman with an ounce of poise tonight, except MAAR, who was bad, but not cowardly.
The loss to Ohio State last year at home was worse. They didn’t even show up that game. The 2nd half today was as bad as it gets though.
Rahk, Matthews, Moe and Duncan went a combined 1/20 in the 2nd half and the one FG was a late dunk by Matthews which OSU conceded. It’s hard to be that bad. Those guys are the ones who need to step it up when adversity hits. They did the exact opposite.
Maybe JB’s worst half? The first half was designed beautifully and executed well. The second half was a strategic nightmare, but 4 of our starters also rolled-over and/or struggled greatly.
I’ll rephrase to in game coaching. A 26-3 run to a bad OSU team should never happen especially coming out of halftime.
He should have put Livers in and essentially given him dispensation to kill somebody. That might have stopped the momentum. We might as well have just inserted him like just dropping a tasmanian devil into a crowded village to spice things up. Yes, he would have made a few mistakes on defense. But he would have matched the athleticism and passion of the other team.
It’s so sad, though. OSU got told, hey, you really gonna get punked like that on your home court? And our guys couldn’t match that desire and heart at all. Very sad.
The gameplan at halftime switched to isolated one on ones. The passing completely stopped. Moe played a terrible half but I would expect typical Beilein set plays for open shots.
I noticed this too. We did this last year, before the proverbial Walton “light-switch.” Against UNC, we were at least still running the offense and creating looks, they just didn’t fall.
So many of our sets revolve around the CM-Moe PNR. CM was off, and it shook the chemistry for the most important action in our offense.
Passing stopped because guys lost poise. They accepted defeat regularly with like 15-16 seconds on the clock. An action would be denied and even if they didn’t explicitly panic, I could see the panic going on in their heads. And the offense came to a dead halt because they lost all belief in what they were executing once the first action was denied. And because guys started turning down shots. The gameplan wasn’t iso one on one’s for goodness’ sake! The team just allowed themselves to be pushed, dared, taunted out of what they were supposed to run. Maybe Coach B should have told Matthews to just go for it, maybe that would have helped. Someone needed to breath courage into him at halftime, because he just lost all confidence.
Funny, I just wandered back to my desk to ask this question. Someone at mgoblog said the last week and a half featured the two biggest deficits–in football and basketball–ever overcome by OSU against us. Wonder if that’s true. At any rate that second half featured a passivity that beggared belief. And I look forward to the interview, and John’s explanation about why Z and Robinson were in down the stretch.
I still say, in addition to the awful substitutions, tonight was more on the two Seniors. There was no taking charge to command the team.
MAAR has been Mr. Big Buckets when other teams make their run, that wasn’t there tonight. Duncan is in a funk right now. We know Matthews is still learning to play in his role and unfortunately Moe is still streaky. That’s why they needed Big Buckets MAAR in a bad way during that run or some Robinson 3s. Neither happened.
JB deserves most of the blame for that turd. Horrible personnel decisions throughout the second half.
Maybe JB couldve schemed around 4 starters playing a worst-case 2nd half, but that’s a tall ask. Yeah, JB messed up some decisions, but saying it’s all his fault requires projecting that Poole, Brooks, Livers, Simmons, or whoever would’ve been able to compensate for the veteran’s awful play.
JB doesnt want to play Poole because he doesn’t trust him to take good shots yet. But his lineup down the stretch couldn’t even get any clean look off for the better part of 10 minutes. Poole’s aggressive shotmaking deserved a chance in my opinion. Or at the very least Brooks back in instead of Simpson.
I actually liked Simpson’s overall game. And that might be the most production we get out of the point guard spot all year (19 points, 5 assists and 6 rebounds combined) but man Matthews Simpson and the two slumping seniors had no ability to create a shot or confidently make an open one and at some point he’s got to try some other combo when it matters
I might be remembering incorrectly, but I believe this happened because OSU began switching everything. And when teams are switching everything, you have to find favorable matchups and win those one on one. So, a lot of it felt like a failure of Matthews, Mo and Rahk to take advantage of matchups.
@ReegsShannon: That’s 100% correct. Switching every screen means that you have to attack the one on one matchups and Michigan obviously struggled to do that.