2B — Monday, February 5, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
Poor free-throw shooting nearly dooms Michigan in win over Minnesota
When his team isn’t hitting
free throws, John Beilein has
simple advice: picture your loved
ones.
“I usually tell them to think
about their mother … relax them
a bit.”
Beilein admitted he didn’t
relay the message to his team
on Saturday against Minnesota,
only one miscue of many that
contributed to the Michigan
men’s
basketball
teams
foul
shooting woes. Despite a 76-73
overtime victory over the Golden
Gophers, the stench of a 12-for-
28 performance from the charity
stripe reeked and lingered.
“I didn’t look at the box score
because I’m just very happy we
won,” said junior forward Moritz
Wagner. “Obviously we weren’t
shooting well (from the line), but
the good thing is we can learn
from victory now and not from
defeat.”
At many times throughout
the game, the misses seemed
unfortunate, but non-essential.
The Wolverines, victims of a two-
point halftime deficit thanks to
tactical scoring by Minnesota’s
backcourt, shot 5-for-6 from the
line in the first half. Redshirt
sophomore
guard
Charles
Matthews missed six consecutive
free throws in the first six
minutes of the second half, and
Michigan was still within three
points.
The
moans
and
muddled
chatter of fans at Crisler Center
longing for a made free throw
were audible, but hope still
didn’t waver. Then sophomore
center Jon Teske bricked the
front end of a one-and-one, the
Golden Gophers’ lead ballooned
to ten the next possession and the
restlessness escalated.
“It’s basically like a turnover
when you miss two free throws,”
said senior guard Muhammad-
Ali
Abdur-Rahkman.
“You’re
turning the ball over, you don’t
get that possession. And then it’s
tough, you gotta make at least
one.”
Down only one point with four
minutes remaining in the second
half, Abdur-Rahkman — a 91
percent free throw shooter before
Saturday’s contest — drew a foul,
and the arena exhaled in relief.
But the senior promptly bounced
the ball off the iron and out. Both
times.
A 6-0 Michigan run gave it a
five-point lead with 18 seconds to
go, Abdur-Rahkman went to the
line again to put the game to bed.
Once again, two misses for the
typically rock-solid foul shooter.
Abdur-Rahkman called it a
rare “mental block.” Minnesota
charged down the court with a
layup, forced a turnover on the
inbounds pass and hit a three to
tie the game. One more made free
throw amongst a 5-for-17 second-
half showing would have made
the Golden Gophers’ comeback
efforts obsolete — no overtime
and a quicker win. But that wasn’t
the case.
In the extra period, free throws
once again almost doomed the
Wolverines. With 1:45 remaining,
sophomore point guard Zavier
Simpson — a 50 percent free
throw shooter — clinked two
off the rim with only a one point
advantage. After a Minnesota
bucket, Matthews hit only one of
two free throws to tie the game
at 71.
For Beilein, the free throw
issues facing his team had him
digging 35 years into the archives
of his coaching career.
“I think of my Le Moyne team,”
Beilein said, reflecting on his
nine-year stint with the school.
“We had a bunch of big guys in
1983 or ‘84 that was the same
thing. It’s been a good 30 some
years since then we’ve had this
issue. … If you hear frustration
from me it’s because I can’t find
the answer yet. And I don’t recall
having it except for 30 years ago.”
With four seconds on the clock
in a tied contest, Abdur-Rahkman
drove to the hoop, pirouetted
around his defender while getting
fouled and converted a layup.
Fittingly, after facing palpable
uncertainty at the line, Abdur-
Rahkman dribbled, relaxed his
shoulders and calmly sunk the
and-one foul shot, leaving the
Golden Gophers to chuck up a
deep prayer that wouldn’t fall.
In
the
post-game
press
conference, Beilein praised the
Michigan’s defense and showed
gratitude that his team could
somehow pull out the win. The
free throw woes, on the other
hand, are something he would
like some help with.
“We’re ready for anything right
now,” Beilein said. “A hypnotist? I
wanna find out everything we can
do right now.”
ETHAN WOLFE
Daily Sports Editor
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Redshirt sophomore wing Charles Matthews and Michigan struggled at the line in a 76-73 overtime win over Minnesota.
Hanging on
I
t’s not too often that a vic-
tory prompts cautionary
words.
But Friday
night, Mel
Pearson
proved to be
an exception
to the rule.
His Michigan
hockey team
(8-10-2 Big
Ten, 13-13-2
overall) came
away with
a 5-3 win
against No. 18 Wisconsin (8-9-
2-1, 14-13-3), but after taking
a three-goal lead into the
third period, the 20th-ranked
Wolverines let their foot off
the pedal.
The Badgers lit the lamp
twice in the final frame and
pulled their goaltender early in
an attempt to turn what looked
like a blowout into a far more
competitive contest. And yet,
Dakota Raabe’s open-netter
proved to be Michigan’s saving
grace.
Wisconsin’s resurgence,
though, left something to be
desired from Pearson.
“Discipline was not good,”
he said after the game. “You
could see right at the start of
the second period after we got
the lead that they were gonna
come out and play physical
and try to get us off our game
a little bit. And they did a good
job, and we fell right into it.
“… We’ve gotta understand
that we have to stick to our
game plan, we have to play
with that poise and that
patience. We have to learn how
to play with a lead and do the
things that got us that lead,
and I thought we got away
from that.”
The Wolverines, however,
never got the chance to play
with a lead again on the
weekend. The Badgers buried
Michigan with a four-goal
deficit in the second period
Saturday night and never
looked back.
The loss, perhaps, made
Pearson’s comments from
Friday night even more
illuminating.
Pearson said
Friday night’s
victory gave
Michigan a
chance to have
a “heck of a
weekend.” It
would have
been a heck of a
weekend indeed
— one that could
have marked the
Wolverines’ third sweep over
a ranked opponent in their last
four series. Instead, they were
forced to settle for a split.
It was Friday night, too,
that Pearson was asked about
Raabe’s progress, only to shift
his answer toward a more
holistic evaluation of this
Michigan hockey team.
“Our team has tremendous
room for growth, I talk about
that all the
time,” he said
then. “And you
can see it in
little doses. Now
we’ve gotta just
continue to do
that all the time,
and continue to
come out of our
comfort zone.”
That same
optimistic
outlook for the Wolverines’
progress, however, was
measured with a dose of
reality.
“We’re running out of time,”
Pearson said. “Our seniors are
running out of games. We’ve
gotta grab it and run with it.
We grabbed it and started
to run a little bit, and then
decided we were gonna slow
down.”
Such is the
reality for
Michigan.
On Jan. 12,
the Wolverines
began a four-
game unbeaten
streak —
sweeping then-
No. 9 Minnesota
at Mariucci
Arena before
sweeping then-
No. 12 Penn State at home, too.
Since then, as Pearson
put it, Michigan has slowed
down. The Wolverines went
to Columbus only to be
unceremoniously swept by the
sixth-ranked Buckeyes.
This weekend, at least in
part, was another hiccup.
Make no mistake; with six
teams — including Michigan
— ranked in the top-20
nationally,
sweeps are
hard to come
by in this year’s
iteration of the
Big Ten. But
at this point,
they may be
necessary.
The
Wolverines
currently sit
16th in the
Pairwise rankings. Taken
at face value, that would
put Michigan in the NCAA
Tournament for the first time
since the 2015-16 season.
But the Pairwise rankings
are not an exact science, and
with three Big Ten programs
ranked higher, it’d be more
accurate to say the Wolverines’
aspirations of joining the
16-team field are sitting on the
bubble.
That bubble very well may
pop, which leaves little room
for error in the coming weeks.
Michigan will close out its
regular season slate with a
series against Michigan State,
No. 2 Notre Dame and Arizona
State.
It’s a six-game stretch that
is simultaneously dangerous
and enticing. Losses to the
Spartans or Sun Devils could
jeopardize a season-long
resume. A win, or two, against
the Fighting Irish could make
the postseason selection much
easier.
But as the Wolverines found
out both Friday and Saturday
— and have found out plenty
of times this season — if they
stray from the system Pearson
is so desperate to implement
for good, they could very well
end up on the wrong side of
that hypothetical.
“We’ve got to understand
that, and until we do we’re
gonna hold on for our dear
lives in games like this against
good teams,” Pearson said
Friday. “They’re all good
teams, and you give them a
little momentum, a little bit of
spark, (and) it’s like that dry
kindling. You pour some gas
on it, all of sudden you decide
you’re gonna put one match on
it and boom, and now you’re
just holding on.”
And as the season continues
to wane, one thing is clear: In
its next six contests, Michigan
won’t just be holding on to
games. The Wolverines will
be holding on to an ending —
and beginning — to Pearson’s
inaugural season.
Santo can be reached at
kmsanto@umich.edu or on
Twitter @Kevin_M_Santo
EVAN AARON/Daily
The Michigan hockey team soiled an opportunity to have what Mel Pearson said would have been a “heck of a weekend” when it lost to Wisconsin on Saturday.
KEVIN
SANTO
“We have to
learn how to
play with a
lead.”
“Our team has
tremendous
room for
growth.”