8 — Friday, March 29, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ANAHEIM, Calif. — For all the 

highs of this season, the end wasn’t 
especially hard to see coming.

Back in January, Michigan sat on 

top of the world. Undefeated. The 
best start in program history. The 
driver’s seat in the Big Ten. The 
driver’s seat for a No. 1 seed in the 
NCAA Tournament. Maybe the No. 
1 overall ranking. Maybe a return 
trip to the Final Four. Maybe more.

But despite a top-ranked defense, 

despite a coach on par with any and 
despite an identity that made losing 
seem like an incomprehensible 
option, there were the Wolverines, 
playing out the season’s last minutes 
as a formality in a blowout loss. The 
reserves came on with 1:17 to go as 
redshirt junior wing 
Charles 
Matthews 

stood 
at 
the 
free 

throw line wearing 
the expression of a 
man at the end of the 
road.

Michigan’s season 

ended on Thursday 
night with a 63-44 
loss to Texas Tech 
and, while the Red 
Raiders looked ahead 
to the Elite Eight 
on Saturday, the Wolverines sat 
on their bench, heads covered in 
towels so TV cameras might not 
catch the tears.

Afterwards, 
his 
eyes 
still 

wet and his towel still adorned, 
sophomore guard Jordan Poole 
could only offer platitudes at a 1-of-
19 3-point shooting performance 
that punctuated the Wolverines’ 
offensive struggles.

“We had a lot of open looks,” 

Poole said. “Lot of them didn’t go 
in. It happens.”

Against a Texas Tech defense as 

good as their own, the Wolverines 
had to score some points to win. 
They struggled to consistently meet 
that goal all year and on Thursday, 
failed to do so again. Michigan 

coach John Beilein estimated his 
team had six or eight good looks 
from outside, “and we didn’t make 
any of them.”

Initially, 
it 
seemed 
the 

Wolverines may not 
have needed to.

Eight minutes into 

the game, the two 
teams had five made 
field goals and six 
turnovers 
between 

them. If you are some 
kind 
of 
basketball 

sadist, 
the 
Honda 

Center might have felt 
like a five-star resort. 
For everyone else, it 
was a crucible.

Texas Tech led by eight at the 

half, enough that the Wolverines 
went into the locker room feeling 

like they just needed 
a couple shots to go 
down.

They 
never 
did. 

And, when the dam 
finally 
opened 
for 

the Red Raiders, it 
opened for good.

Davide 
Moretti 

keyed a 10-2 Red 
Raider run in the 
opening minutes of 
the second half, and 
with it, the end of 

the Wolverines’ season. The Red 
Raider guard hit Matt Mooney 
with a behind the 
back pass for three. 
Then he found Tariq 
Owens 
for 
a 
two-

hand jam on a lob. To 
cap it off, he nailed a 
transition 
3-pointer 

of his own, extending 
the lead to 18 points 
which, coincidentally, 
was as many as the 
Wolverines 
had 

scored by that point.

“I think we had a positive mindset 

coming out of (the half) and they hit 
us with a 7-0 run out of the half,” 
said assistant coach Luke Yaklich. 
“It got up to 13, 15 real quick. The 

amount of pressure that you put 
on your offensive possessions from 
that point forward, for the rest of 
the game, it was big. We did not 
make shots.”

Out of the ensuing 

timeout, 
Michigan 

left Owens off a pick-
and-roll and, again, 
the big man threw 
down a dunk worthy 
of his size. On the 
bench, John Beilein 
sat, helpless, the heel 
of his palm resting 
on his chin.

For the remainder, 

the 
Wolverines 

helplessly waited for 

the clock to run out on a season 
that once held endless potential. 
All season, Michigan looked for a 
bucket-getter who could save it in 
just that situation. On Thursday, 
Ignas Brazdeikis led the team in 
scoring with 17 points, most of 
them after the game was out of 
hand. Matched up against a defense 
equal to its own, the Wolverines 
fell into the same listless offensive 
basketball that defined much of 
their struggles this season.

“We tried our best to get ready in 

two days for, even a different type 
of switching defense,” Beilein said. 
“But it wasn’t enough to get ready 
for a team that’s been doing that for 
100 practices and 36 games. They 

were just better at 
it.”

Michigan took 19 

3-pointers and the 
only make came with 
22 seconds to go — far 
too little and far too 
late. It never found 
a way to get to the 
basket against the 
Red Raiders’ defense 
and, to boot, turned 
it over 14 times.

“We were really good,” Beilein 

said of the season. “Tonight was, 
we were not.”

And now, the Wolverines have 

six months to think about it.

ETHAN SEARS

Managing Sports Editor

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily

The night nothing 

went right

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Amid an eerie 

silence, bowed heads and tear-filled 
eyes, one telling phrase rung through 
the Michigan locker room:

“Bad day to have a bad day.”
It came from Jordan Poole. It came 

from Jon Teske. It came from Isaiah 
Livers.

But most of all, it came from Luke 

Yaklich, the Wolverines’ defensive 
mastermind of an assistant coach who 
watched his carefully curated pièce de 
résistance get shredded in a humiliating, 
63-44, season-ending loss at the hands 
of Texas Tech.

The phrase came from Dan Muller, 

the head coach at Illinois State during 
Yaklich’s four-year tenure in Normal, 
Ill. Muller, though, never had to use 
it to explain the sudden end of a team 
that had started its season 17-0, nearly 
ascended to the nation’s top ranking 
and then spent the rest of the year in the 
top-10.

Late Thursday night in Anaheim, 

Yaklich had to do exactly that. The 
explanation included crediting the Red 
Raiders — “Because Texas Tech’s really 
good,” he responded when asked why 
the Wolverines couldn’t climb back into 
the game — as well as a requisite dose 
of frustration: “The rubber ball didn’t 
hit the iron rim the right way for us 
tonight.”

But to those around Yaklich, the 

“why” doesn’t matter. As he spoke, 
Zavier Simpson aggressively did not. 
The junior point guard sat in Yaklich’s 
shadow with his head buried in the 
same March Madness towel that was 
broadcast to the nation moments earlier 
as he rested on the Michigan bench, 
tears forming in his eyes.

This time, his face was buried deep in 

his hands, facing his locker but looking 
straight into the ground, only his back 
visible to the room. No matter his 
attempts to hide them, his stifled tears 
spread through the room.

Back on the court, Simpson kept 

his poise for as long as possible, 
broadcasting the message of “We’re 
gonna win this game” through every 

Wolverines’ huddle.

On this night, though, that was 

wishful thinking.

“It was a little helpless at times,” said 

head coach John Beilein.

As Michigan charged out of the 

halftime tunnel, mired in a precarious 
24-16 hole, the Wolverines took their 
spots for their midgame shootaround. 
Moments later, they fired five balls up 
in unison. All five clanged harmlessly to 
the ground.

For Michigan, it was just that kind of 

night.

After the buzzer sounded to signal 

the resumption of play, the night only 
worsened. Junior center Jon Teske went 
to the line with a chance to start the half 
on the right foot and cut into the deficit.

An hour later, he sat emotionless in 

the Wolverines’ locker room, reflecting 
on a first-half shot that would have tied 
the game.

Only it hadn’t. For a split second, 

the ball was down and the score was 
knotted at 13. Then, it flew out of the 
cylinder, just like each of Michigan’s 
first 18 3-point attempts.

“Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of great 

looks. Mine was three-quarters of the 
way down, not even halfway down,” 
Teske said. “... Their defense bothered 
us a little bit, but our shots weren’t 
falling.

“As coach Yak said, ‘It was a bad day 

to have a bad day.’ ”

The rebound, though, landed in 

freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis’ 
hands. The Wolverines wouldn’t tie the 
game, but they would cut it to one on a 
putback that Brazdeikis could hit in his 
sleep.

But not on this night. On this night, 

that putback rimmed out, just as Teske’s 
three had. On this night, the ensuing 
loose ball caromed off Brazdeikis’ 
arms and out of bounds. On this night, 
Texas Tech’s Matt Mooney fired off a 
turnaround three two possessions later, 
striking the backboard just as the shot-
clock turned to 1 and dropping through 
the net a split-second later.

“We had a lot of open looks,” Poole 

said. “A lot of them didn’t go in. That 
happens. I’m just gonna use the quote, 
‘It was a bad day to have a bad day.’ “

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer

Suffocated.

Season comes to abrupt end in 63-44 loss to 
Red Raiders, scoring season-low in points

Offense sputters in season-ending 

Sweet Sixteen loss to Texas Tech

1 GONZAGA

4 FSU

2 MICHIGAN

3 TTU

1 GONZAGA

3 TTU

We had a lot of 
open looks. Lot 
of them didn’t 
go. It happens.

We tried our 

best to get 
ready in two 

days...

We were really 
good. Tonight 
was, we were 

not.

