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.