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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | January 30, 2017
Some time off
The Michigan hockey team
used its bye week to recover
both mentally and physically
before beginning the final
stretch of its season
» Page 3B
Stars aligned
What would happen if you
put Jim Harbaugh, the Pope
and John Cena together at
Hill Auditorium?
» SportsMonday Column,
Page 2B
EAST
LANSING
—
After a blistering offensive
performance against Indiana
on Thursday, the Michigan
men’s basketball team (4-5 Big
Ten, 14-8 overall) headed to the
Breslin Center, eager to bring its
hot shooting along with it. But
while the Wolverines’ offense
has carried them this season,
their defense, particularly from
the perimeter, has cost them
dearly.
It came back to bite them
once
again
Sunday
against
Michigan State (5-4, 13-9), as
the Spartans shot 45 percent
from three and opened up
a
nine-point
lead
midway
through the second half — a
deficit that Michigan could not
overcome in a 70-62 loss.
Though
Michigan
State
had been down by one with 15
minutes left in the game, the
Spartans went on a 12-5 run
in the span of five minutes —
bookended by 3-pointers from
guard Matt McQuaid — to take
a 54-45 lead. In a back-and-
forth bout between two evenly-
matched teams, the run turned
out to be the knockout blow,
and the Wolverines managed
just five points from the floor
the rest of the way.
“We just really couldn’t get
good looks,” said Michigan
coach John Beilein. “They just
shut down a lot of the things
that we do, they had a great
defensive plan, and it worked
really well.”
Michigan also scored six
free-throws down the stretch,
all courtesy of senior guard
Derrick Walton Jr., who had
come alive in the second half.
One of just four Wolverines
who hails from the state of
Michigan,
Walton
made
it
abundantly clear Friday that he
was eager to take on Michigan
State, and his efforts on the
floor Sunday showed it.
“I
think
he
understands
this rivalry probably as good
as anybody out there,” Beilein
said.
With Walton leading the
charge,
Michigan
turned
around its offensive fortunes.
He opened the stanza with
back-to-back 3-pointers to tie
the game at 34, and he pushed
the pace on offense in the hope
that his teammates would do
the same.
“I know this team looks at
me as a leader,” Walton said.
“When I play and show the face
that, ‘It’s time to win’ I think
they follow suit. ... I just try to
exude it by playing hard and
smart.”
While he finished with a
game-high 24 points and nearly
notched a double-double with
nine rebounds, the rest of the
Wolverines
couldn’t
seem
to shoot their way out of the
funk. They finished the game
shooting just 34 percent from
the floor and 27 percent from
beyond the arc — a dramatic
drop from their last game when
they shot 63 and 55 percent,
respectively.
If a single trend has emerged
from Michigan’s performances
this season, it’s that when
sophomore
forward
Moritz
Wagner finds himself in foul
trouble in the early stages of the
game, the Wolverines’ offense
struggles to find a groove.
That trend continued against
the Spartans, as Wagner played
just seven minutes of the first
half. He picked up a quick foul
just two minutes into the game,
and later picked up his second
with eight minutes left in the
half.
“He’s got a high skill level,
and it allows us to flow through
some things,” Beilein said. “But
he is also learning defensively,
so he’s still a work-in-progress.
… At times, he makes our
offense and our defense much
better.”
Wagner’s
replacement,
senior forward Mark Donnal,
managed to keep the Wolverines
in the game, though, scoring
a team-high seven points in
the first half to help Michigan
enter the halftime break facing
just a four-point deficit.
But while the Wolverines
held on in the early stages of
the second half, Michigan State
turned it on in a flash and never
looked back. The Spartans were
led by freshman forward Miles
Bridges, who notched a double-
double with 15 points and 13
rebounds. In reality, it was
more of the same from Bridges,
who already led the team in
both scoring and rebounding
with an average of 16.4 and 8.1
per game, respectively.
Though Michigan had begun
to turn its conference season
around with wins over Illinois
and Indiana this past week,
an entirely different challenge
awaited the Wolverines inside
the Breslin Center.
Michigan State may not have
been having the season that
many expected, not to mention
that it had just lost three
consecutive games to Ohio
State, Indiana and Purdue, but
the rivalry game brought out a
different energy altogether in
both the players and the fans.
Spartan coach Tom Izzo stated
after the game that the crowd
made a huge difference and
that his players fed off their
enthusiasm.
Midway through the second
half, the Spartans took their
big swing, and Michigan simply
couldn’t recover.
BETELHEM ASHAME
Managing Sports Editor
“I think he
understands this
rivalry ... as good as
anybody out there”
“They just shut
down a lot of the
things that we do,
they had a great
defensive plan, and
it worked really
well”
Michigan 62, Michigan State 70