2B — February 8, 2016
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan’s two problems

A

fter two embarrassing 
home defeats — Tuesday 
against Indiana, 80-67, 

Saturday 
against 
Michigan 
State, 89-73, 
neither of 
them even 
half as close 
as the score 
indicated — 
the Michigan 
men’s 
basketball 
team 
shouldn’t be worried about losing. 
It shouldn’t even be worried about 
being in a suddenly precarious 
NCAA Tournament position.

The bigger concern is that 

Michigan was run out of its own 
building twice in one week.

Two issues are in play here. 

One is that the Wolverines 
aren’t nearly good enough. Their 
coach, John Beilein, admitted 
that to begin his postgame press 
conference Saturday. Michigan 
has played without senior guard 
Caris LeVert for 10 games, and it 
survived for a while — escaping 
Minnesota by five, Rutgers by 11 
and Penn State by seven, and even 
upset then-No. 3 Maryland — but 
now the injury is starting to take 
its toll. Without their most prolific 
scorer, best individual defender 
and captain, the Wolverines had 
no answer for either Indiana or 
Michigan State.

In 14 games played this season, 

LeVert was the team-leading 
scorer in eight, the team-leading 
assist man in eight and the team-
leading rebounder in four. The 
Wolverines started 6-2 in his 
absence, but any notion that they 
are the same team with him that 
they are without him has been 
disproven.

This issue of not being good 

enough is the one Beilein blames 
for the past two losses. He shot 
down any notion of his team 
lacking leadership, mental 
toughness or any other intangible 

quality related to success.

“Our kids are trying 

everything that they got,” Beilein 
said. “Everything they got. 
Those are typical excuses. I told 
them the same thing at Indiana. 
They’re so much better than us. 
… We gotta get better. We just 
gotta get better.”

Moreover, Beilein thinks this 

problem is fixable.

“It’s not about leadership 

right now,” he said. “It’s about 
everybody just (continuing to 
work) and persistence. Time is a 
friend of truth. Just persistence at 
doing the right things. Just trying 
to get better.”

Beilein will help his team 

get better, as he has shown he 
can. Michigan has had more 
ground to make up with less time 
remaining, and has done it. That 
ability shouldn’t be questioned.

Michigan’s bigger problem 

right now, while Beilein may deny 
it, is that it didn’t just lose its past 
two games on its home court. It 
got embarrassed.

With 11 minutes to go in the 

second half Saturday — still a 
quarter of the game remained — 
Michigan State’s Matt McQuaid 
drilled an open 3-pointer from the 
corner. On the next possession, 
the Spartans’ big man, Matt 
Costello, jumped in front of a 
pass and took it the distance for 
a dunk, laughing deliriously into 
the TV camera on his way down.

“You’ve got them laughing 

at us on our home court,” said 
sophomore forward Zak Irvin. 
“In these past two games, teams 
have just punked us, and we can’t 
let that happen. We gotta learn 
from that.”

Michigan called timeout, and 

when it did, Costello ran toward 
Denzel Valentine and locked arms 
with him. Michigan fans started 
to file out of Crisler Center, a 
thousand or so every few minutes 
until the game ended.

Beilein can turn losses into 

wins, but he can’t keep things 
respectable when they’re about 
to get ugly. Saturday’s game 
was 69-42 at that point, and the 
Spartans kept the gas pedal down 
until a hard-earned “Go Green, 
Go White!” chant echoed from 
the rafters.

At one point in the second half, 

Irvin had finally seen enough. 
During a timeout, he lit into 
his team on the bench, with 
another double-digit blowout loss 
looming.

“Just upset,” Irvin said later. 

“Just frustrated with these past 
two games we’ve had. Just trying 

to fire up the guys and blowing off 
some steam. Obviously the game 
wasn’t going our way, but I didn’t 
want anyone to just lay down and 
let them walk all over us.”

Michigan State did. And that 

might be Michigan’s bigger 
problem. Because in a hundred 
matchups in East Lansing, no 
matter what happened, no matter 
who was on either team, the 
Spartans would never, ever, ever 
let the Wolverines do the same 
thing.

So Michigan has to fix that, too. 

And there, Zak Irvin is going to 
need some help.

With 14:02 left in the game 

and the score already out of 
hand, Irvin drove to the hoop, 
drew a foul on Michigan State’s 
Gavin Schilling and scored the 
basket. He pumped his fists 
and roared, begging his team 

to follow his lead and make it a 
game again.

“We were getting our butt 

kicked the whole game, and I just 
didn’t want anyone to give up, 
because this is Michigan State,” 
Irvin said. “They were laughing 
at us. (Indiana) was laughing at 
us. We’re at home. We gotta be 
able to protect home court. For us 
not to care, that’s something that 
can’t happen. We’re Michigan. 
We gotta take pride in that.”

Instead, the Spartans scored 

13 of the next 15, culminating in 
Costello’s dunk.

Irvin made a similar play at 

the 6:48 mark, driving around 
a defender, eluding another and 
floating a hook shot into the hoop. 
Again, he tried to fire up his team.

Instead, the Spartans scored 

six straight points, inching 
toward their largest lead of the 
game.

Irvin cannot win games like 

Saturday’s by himself, but he did 
everything he could to at least 
make it respectable. He needs 
some help, though. Maybe from 
LeVert, when he comes back. 
Maybe from Walton, who carried 
the team for a couple of games in 
January but struggled last week. 
Maybe from another player. 
From someone.

“We really just need to do some 

soul-searching,” Irvin said. “We 
gotta get back on track. It’s been 
a tough week for us, like I’ve said, 
and no one’s going to feel sorry 
for us.”

The Wolverines themselves 

refuse to make excuses such as 
LeVert’s injury. Beilein blames the 
talent gap. Irvin blames the lack 
of toughness. In reality, a little of 
both probably went into the two 
losses this week.

Michigan can fix the first 

problem, little by little. But the 
second, as Irvin knows, needs 
some attention.

Lourim can be reached 

at jlourim@umich.edu and 

on Twitter @jakelourim.

JAKE 
LOURIM

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily

Michigan State forward Matt Costello punctuated the Spartans’ 89-73 win with a steal and an uncontested dunk in the second half Saturday.

MSU’s Forbes outduels Walton

Forbes scores 
29 on 8-for-10 

3-point shooting in 
Spartans’ blowout

By KELLY HALL 

Daily Sports Editor

With the the Michigan State 

basketball team up by 11 on 
Michigan, junior guard Derrick 
Walton Jr. ran a full-out, stride-
by-stride 
sprint 
with 
guard 

Bryn Forbes after a ball that 
broke lose on the block ‘M’ at 
centercourt rolled toward the 
baseline. Walton dived onto the 
hardwood, getting to the ball 
before Forbes, but knocked it out 
of bounds. 

Ball to Michigan State. 
He rested on his back and 

looked up at Crisler Center’s 
rafters as “Eye of the Tiger” 
pumped out of the speakers. 
This would be the Wolverines’ 
biggest chance at swinging the 
game in their favor and getting 
within 10 points of the Spartans. 
After allowing Michigan State 
(7-4 Big Ten, 20-4 overall) to get 
to an 18-point lead in the first 13 
minutes, mostly due to Forbes’ 
8-for-10 half that included seven 
makes from beyond the arc for 
23 points, it looked like this 
could be Michigan’s chance at 
getting a solid footing. 

It wasn’t, and the game 

continued to escalate in the 
Spartans’ favor. By halftime, 
Michigan State was up big, 
44-28. By the end of the game, 
Michigan (7-4, 17-7) was barely 
breathing, with the Spartans 
working 
their 
lead 
up 
to 

28 
points 
before 
ultimately 

winning, 89-73. 

Walton, 
the 
only 
active 

member on Michigan’s roster 
from the state of Michigan, 
mentioned that missing last 
year’s game against Michigan 
State was painful and that this 
season, he was going to make 
sure his presence was felt. And it 
was, at times, but his highs and 
lows were always highlighted by 
his matchup with Forbes. 

The game started out with a 

Forbes 3-pointer — just a small 

hint of the onslaught to come — 
but Walton responded on the next 
play with a triple of his own. It 
happened again later, with a little 
over a minute until halftime, but 
this time, Walton struck first. He 
sunk a 3-pointer, and 20 seconds 
later, Forbes responded. 

Then Forbes, a Lansing native, 

attacked again, hitting another 
3-pointer 
to 
close 
out 

the 
half 
on 

back-to-
back 
scoring 

possessions. 
That 
was 

Michigan’s 
biggest 
problem: 
For 

every 
basket 

it made, the 
Spartans had 
more than just a counter-attack 
ready.

“Once (Forbes) got real hot, 

they moved Walton, who’s a 
phenomenal defender, on him, 
and we didn’t get as many 
(shots) the second half,” Izzo 
said. “Trying to get those three 
perimeter guys to guard is very 

important, and Walton can’t 
guard all three. I thought he 
shut him down pretty good the 
second half.” 

Junior forward Zak Irvin, 

who 
led 
the 
Wolverines 

with 19 points, thinks that 
the Wolverines had a bigger 
problem, one involving mental 
toughness and a lack of a 

personal stake 
in the game. 

“I was just 

fed up with 
the way we’ve 
been 
playing 

the past two 
games,” Irvin 
said. 
“I 
feel 

like we need 
to take it more 
personally, 
especially this 

game against Michigan State, I 
mean this is a huge game against 
the best team in the state, and 
I just feel like we weren’t there 
today.”

Though his some of his 

teammates may not have “taken 
it personally,” it was obvious 
who had. 

Walton played a physical game 

up against Forbes, who led the 
Spartans on 10-for-13 shooting 
for 29 points, but Forbes still 
made nearly every shot he took, 
whether it was an open look or a 
contested layup.

Walton didn’t fare as well, 

shooting 3-for-10 for 11 points, 
but helped slow down Forbes in 
the second half. 

“As a kid out of Michigan, you 

definitely want to beat Michigan 
State,” Irvin said of Walton. 
“I felt the same way when we 
played Indiana. Out of Indiana, 
you really wanna beat that team 
and you want to play well. 

“(Walton) fought hard. Some 

of those, he just had to tip his 
hat. (Forbes) made some tough 
shots, but other ones, he had 
wide-open looks.”

Saturday’s 
rivalry 
game 

wasn’t anywhere near being 
a close contest — from tip-off 
until the final buzzer — and it 
was obvious that the Wolverines 
needed a boost, or at least to feel 
a stronger connection to what 
was supposed to be the biggest 
contest of the year. 

LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily

Michigan’s Derrick Walton Jr. and Michigan State’s Bryn Forbes matched up all afternoon Saturday at Crisler Center.

“(Walton) fought 

hard. Some of 

those, he just had 

to tip his hat.”

MEN’S LACROSSE
Michigan falls at 
North Carolina

By KIT MAHER

For the Daily

Lacrosse 
is 
a 
game 
of 

possession, and success starts 
with the basics. Fundamentals 
beat flash.

The Michigan men’s lacrosse 

team 
was 
reminded 
of 
the 

importance 
of 
fundamentals 

Saturday after traveling to Chapel 
Hill, N.C., for the second time 
in program history. Heading 
home with a 20-10 loss against 
No. 6 North Carolina left the 
Wolverines looking at one specific 
area in need of improvement.

“Ground balls,” said Michigan 

coach John Paul. “If I were to 
pick out one thing that we need 
to work on this week, that’s it. 
We really dominated the draw, 
we just couldn’t pick up ground 
balls. That was true all over the 
field today.”

Though 
Michigan 
played 

the majority of the game in its 
defensive end, co-captain and 
senior attackman Kyle Jackson 
led the offense with four goals. 
His offensive surge began within 
minutes of the game’s start.

With the Wolverines down, 

7-3, at the start of the second 
period, Jackson turned up the 
heat with two goals within the 
first three minutes to cut the Tar 
Heels’ lead in half. But Michigan 
was unable to keep the margin 
close, as the Tar Heels answered 
with three consecutive goals.

Jackson scored again with 

5:52 left in the second period, 
but once again, North Carolina 
responded with a goal to make 
it 10-6 with three minutes left in 
the half.

Jackson was a force on the 

field and played a major role in 
keeping Michigan’s momentum 
up throughout the first half, 
and the Wolverines trailed by 
just four at the halftime break. 
Another offensive leader was Ian 
King, who racked up 2 goals and 
3 assists throughout the game.

While Michigan kept it close 

for most of the first half, North 
Carolina started to pull away in 

the third period. The Tar Heels 
dominated ground balls, 13-1, 
added three goals and shut out 
the Wolverines in the period.

“A lot of the third quarter, we 

really didn’t have the ball, so we 
weren’t getting as much of a flow 
offensively,” Jackson said.

In 
the 
fourth 
period, 

North Carolina continued its 
offensive surge with four more 
unanswered goals. Freshman 
midfielder Decker Curran ended 
North 
Carolina’s 
run 
with 

his first career goal, assisted 
by 
junior 
midfielder 
Mikie 

Schlosser. With 9:14 left in the 
game, the two teams traded 
goals until the game ended with 
a final score of 20-10.

Even though the outcome 

was not ideal, the team is using 
Saturday’s loss as a way to gauge 
which aspects of the game they 
need to work on.

“There were some things 

that we need to take a hard look 
at that were apparent in this 
game,” Paul said. “Hopefully, we 
can use this as a tool to continue 
to get better.”

Mental toughness is one thing 

Paul believes his team needs to 
develop more as they head into 
rest of the season.

On the technical side, the 

Wolverines will go back to the 
basics with ground ball practice 
as they prepare to meet Colgate 
next Sunday.

“Ground balls are a pretty 

good measure of toughness,” 
Paul said. “I think all our guys 
would agree that was something 
we had to be better at.”

Playing an elite program, 

such as North Carolina, was an 
opportunity for the Wolverines 
to test their abilities, and though 
the loss wasn’t pretty, the team 
is still looking positively at its 
prospects this season.

“I 
know 
that 
everyone 

worked as hard as they could, 
but obviously we can improve 
in a couple aspects of the game. 
The guys worked hard, and we 
can only move on from here,” 
Jackson said.

