Ann Arbor, Michigan—— There’s an unfamiliar feeling returning to Ann Arbor – the feeling of a failed Michigan basketball team.
It’s been 10 months since the Wolverines last lost, in the Sweet 16 of last year’s NCAA tournament. However, after a 14-0 start to the season and No. 1 rankings in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, NET Rankings and KenPom (Michigan State remains No. 1), the Maize and Blue now know what it’s like to not be ranked.
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In some ways, that’s a good thing, head coach Dusty May said.
May met with the media after the 91-88 loss to Wisconsin at the Crisler Center and shared a lot about why things weren’t as good as they were early in the season, why a loss like this could be a positive, and what went wrong.
That’s all he had to say.
opening remarks
I want to thank our fans. They created a bad home environment today. They bring energy and enthusiasm and I want to give Wisconsin credit as well. They came in here, they got hit early, they responded and went into halftime with some positive momentum and came out in the second half and put us behind a little bit.
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They revealed some things about our program and our team that we thought were going to be issues this year. We just didn’t expect that we would see so many people on the same night. They put on a play. Our scheme, our coaching, our game wasn’t up to our standards, but really, we’ve gone four games without playing well. To be honest, my only disappointment is that when we start playing at a high level, the game looks different than the other 25 or 30 minutes. We can’t be a team with two different strengths and intensity and that’s what happened today.
I don’t want to take anything away from Wisconsin. They came here and they did it. They took it away.
When do you see changes in increased intensity? Can you talk about Roddy’s impact on the defensive end?
Yeah, I thought Roddy played inspired defensive basketball. In terms of momentum, we’re 14 points ahead. We went into a timeout and came out and they got the ball and hit a three-pointer. I don’t remember what happened on the other end. He made another clean three-pointer. I think that changed the complexity of the game and then from that point on, they controlled the tempo. I think they kind of gave up on continuity and shortened the clock, ran high ball screens or faceoffs and took advantage of that. When something doesn’t work, we have to find more solutions immediately. From my perspective, this is what happened.
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They scored 54 points in the second half. How much does it tip your hat? They were shooting everywhere. How much do you blame your defense for that?
This is our defense. It’s a combination of our planning and our execution. Again, they played well. I think they have the ability to achieve what they want in some games that we don’t normally get. This resulted in a change in our rotation. This resulted in changes to our coverage. That’s not to say they weren’t acting. The winner, especially Boyd Blackwell, hit a big ball or two. The thing that really jumped out at me, and I didn’t go back and watch the film, was that there seemed to be a few rebounds on offense. We fight for them. We work for them. We are ready to catch them.
I thought we had them and then they would come in with fingertips or just a way to loosen them and we couldn’t get the property out. I think in a game like this, when they’re scoring like they are, if we can get a few more offensive rebounds and let them defend, you might get a little bit of pace for them, but we can’t keep them safe. We needed some offensive rebounds that night, so we didn’t have a lot of time on the defensive end.
If we look back, I think the amount of time they had the ball was off the charts.
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Is three-point defense one of the things you’d call an early exposure?
Yes, absolutely.
Could this be a good thing? How could this be a good thing for your players?
Yes, this is a good thing. Whether we play poorly and win, whether we play poorly and lose, or whether we play well and win, our mentality is good. No matter what happens, we will respond in the right way. I do think, I heard a good friend say this the other day, it’s like your grass is growing. You don’t realize it needs mowing until you take a few days off and then you see it, it’s grown and you need to mow your grass. Our grass may have grown a little beneath our feet. We haven’t been that motivated or committed, and our processes haven’t been that good lately. Like I said, it’s been four games since we felt like we were playing well, and with that competitive spirit, we need to do what we want to do.
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Now how do we deal with this problem. It’s a great time for us to hit the road together, grow together, and be more accountable to each other as a team. Obviously, it’s a sting, but we’re excited to see if we can bounce back because our season is so long.
What’s going on with your outside shooting that you’re not getting as many open shots as people would expect? What steps are you taking to improve this? Is it just Wisconsin’s perimeter defense that’s fighting you and missing a few threes against them, or are you just not getting enough open looks?
Probably like everything else, it’s a combination of all of that. Some are open, some are contested, some are off the dribble, and some are after the catch. It’s hard to say all 17 people are under the same umbrella. I’ll have to take a look at them, but I do think they do a good job of taking away. When Reitz received the ball at the post, and when Addai received the ball at the post, there were three within one step. We have to find some solutions to get better shots. If we’re happy with our shooting, then we need to accept the results and continue to find ways to be better defensively and offensively rebound. I have no idea where they are opening up, where they are opening up, where they are competing. If they’re not on board, then we need to create a better look across the board.
You’re talking about intensity levels. Elliott spoke to us here and said he felt this week’s training wasn’t up to the standards of your guys. Is intensity level a factor? I guess after a week like this with two close games, how do you want to change the training?
Absolutely, that’s what I mean, our processes have to improve, our practice habits, our daily habits have to get to a championship level or else we’re just simply relying on other teams that aren’t up to their standards or talent, and that’s not a really healthy way to go through a Big Ten season. Yes, absolutely. Yesterday we didn’t live up to our standards the two days before and yesterday we finally did it again but like I told them in the dressing room, we can’t celebrate a third of a really good training session when you’ve had as many chances as we have.
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If it’s like both games this week, the five-man unit is indeed one of the Achilles’ heels. Defensively, I think not every player can do everything on the court, but how do you deal with that?
We changed coverage, we changed people, but we didn’t do a good enough job. We actually worked on this contingency for three days just because we knew it was coming, we knew it was coming, maybe because we didn’t take enough time, maybe for some reason, but when they made the first couple, overreacted, and then we changed our coverage, and then I felt like we overdid it on the paint contact, but when they were linebackers, I think we probably underestimated the speed of Boyd’s left hand. We say it ad nauseam, every coach says it.
I mean, I bet you go back to the games they won this year and say, probably most of them stood there and said we told him he was going to go left. Well, he still didn’t. He’s fast, he’s deceptive, he’s game-ready so he can get wherever he wants and then we got late and then he made good decisions most of the time and it fanned out for everybody, so all of the above. The first two were our coverage, the second was our lack of execution and discipline.
Elliott, he was great in the first half, he came in the second half and played an unbelievable nine minutes and then that was it. Let’s talk about his play today.
Yes, foul trouble. I need to go back. He had the rebound in his hands. I didn’t know it was him the second one. I just had a bad angle, but he played hard and was aggressive. It was difficult to have him play two games in the first half because he was so important to us, so we thought we could just get to halftime to be where we needed to be, and yeah, he ignited our offense in the second half. He was very, very effective, but during that stretch, he was in such good rhythm that our defense couldn’t stop it, so that’s when you lose. This is the timing of it all.
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Like I said, we know what our flaws are and some of those flaws were exposed in the same game and trust Wisconsin because they have the ability to do that. They have the ability to do this.
Can you talk about someone like Moretz? He found a solution today on offense and then probably gave up some threes on defense. How do you talk to the players after a game like this?
Yes, we talk to him about what we need to do to get better. These seasons are long. You’ll see a lot of different questions. Especially in our league now there are different styles. Each team has different strengths. There are different scenarios, so we just watch his work individually. We will collectively look at our work and figure out what we need to do better and why. That’s our problem-solving job as coaches. We have some issues that need to be addressed quickly, but we have the right people in the locker room to address them.
It’s losing your first game relatively late in the season. I guess your message to this group reflects that the overall situation on 14-1 is that there is no reason to panic?
We’re not talking about 14-1 or 1-14. It’s more that our process has slipped. We’re not doing it like we’ve been doing most of the year. Let’s fix those issues and feel like we did what we needed to do to deserve the win. I’m not sure we felt like we deserved it; a team that deservedly won this game. We don’t think that’s part of what makes it feel so different. It’s because you feel like you shouldn’t win this game because of the preparation we put into this game.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Everything Dusty May had to say after Michigan basketball lost to Wisconsin
