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.