The Michigan Wolverines suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday, 91-88, to the Wisconsin Badgers at home. It was a shocking loss on multiple fronts — Michigan was not only beating its opponents,
but it was dominating them. But Michigan was met with one of the best shooting performances in some time and ultimately fell short to the Badgers.
Losing is a normalcy in college basketball. The last undefeated team to win the National Championship was the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers. The odds are every team will lose at least once en route to a championship, but how you handle the loss(es) is what differentiates the best from the rest.
Michigan head coach Dusty May met with the media after the loss and had a lot to share about where things took a bad turn leading up to the matchup, why having a loss like this could be a positive, and what his team needs to do to make this a good loss and not a bad one.
“I want to give Wisconsin credit,” May said. “They came in here and they took a punch early, they responded, and went in at halftime with some positive momentum and came out in the second half and knocked us on our heels a little bit. They exposed some things with our plan, with our team, that we thought were going to be issues this year — just didn’t think we would see so many of them on the same night.
“Our plan, our coaching, our playing wasn’t up to our standards, but in reality, it’s been four games since we’ve played really well. To be honest, the only thing I’m disappointed in was when we started competing at a high level, it looked different than the other 25 or 30 minutes of the game. We can’t be a team — with what we’re playing for — that has two different levels of intensity, of relentlessness, and that’s what happened today.”
The sample size of Michigan’s last two games have shown a lot about the trajectory of where the team is currently heading. After defeating their last 10 opponents by an average margin of 34.5 points, the Wolverines survived a two-point game at Penn State last Tuesday before losing by three to Wisconsin.
What makes the two losses different is the level of offense and defense shown. Against the Nittany Lions, Michigan made 45 percent of its shots while going 73 percent from the free throw line. However, its defense held Penn State to 34 percent from the field and 8-of-30 from three.
Against the Badgers, the Wolverines had a similar shooting percentage (46 percent) and were 91 percent from the free throw line, but their defense allowed Wisconsin to convert 50 percent of its shots, including 15 three-pointers. While Michigan has proven it can shoot with any team in the country, a difference of one defensive stop was the deciding factor.
“It’s our defense. It’s a combination of our plan and our execution,” May said. “Once again, they played well. I thought their ability to get where they wanted off the bounce in some matchups that we usually don’t have that happen against. It caused us to change our rotations. It caused us to change our coverages. It wasn’t as if they weren’t making plays.
“I thought in a game like this, when they were scoring like they were, if we could have gotten a few more offensive rebounds and made them play defense, then possibly you take a little bit of the rhythm out of the game for them. But we weren’t able to secure them — it was a night we needed some offensive rebounds so we weren’t on the defensive end so long.”
The Wolverines will have a quick turnaround, as they head west for road games at Washington (Wednesday, 10:30 p.m. ET) and Oregon (Saturday, 4 p.m. ET). While time changes and new environments can throw a team off, May and his players are hoping this loss can be a good thing to learn from.
“(This loss) is a good thing,” May said. “Whether we played poorly and won, whether we played poorly and lost, whether we played great and won, our mindset is good. Whatever happens, we’re going to respond to it in the right way. I heard a good friend say this the other day — it’s like your grass growing. You don’t realize it needs to be cut until you take a couple days off, and then you see it, and it’s grown, and you need to cut your grass. Our grass was probably growing a little bit under our feet. We weren’t quite as active or determined, and our processes haven’t been as good lately.
“Now it’ll be how we respond to this. It’s a great time for us to go on the road and grow together and become more accountable to each other as a group. Obviously, this one stings, but we’re excited to see if we can bounce back because our season’s so long.”
Senior guard Nimari Burnett echoed his coach’s statements.
“Internally, we’re committed to the process every single day, getting better in practice, film sessions, and even when we were winning, we were like we could be better, we can be even better, we can be so much better than what we’re playing,” he said. “So at the same time, this is a lesson — it’s like a smack in the face. We have the chance to grow from it, and I think this group will. We have tons of great people, leaders, etc., and I’m excited to go to war with them. And no team is gonna go undefeated, obviously we hope to do it, but like I said, we just learned from it.”
The rest of the regular season will not be easy for the Wolverines, but they have the right pieces on their roster and coaching staff to get to the finish line. The response to Saturday’s loss will be a defining moment in Michigan’s season.
