Michigan head coach John Beilein doesn’t demand perfection from his team. He does, however, require a better effort in some areas than his Wolverines gave in a 64-54 loss to Wisconsin.
The Badgers beat U-M the way they have many times before in Madison. They took care of the ball, didn’t beat themselves with careless turnovers, won the majority of the 50-50 balls and played like their season was on the line.
In some ways, it was. They’d already lost two home games, one to Purdue and another to Minnesota, and needed a signature win to get their NCAA Tournament hopes back on track.
U-M didn’t exactly go through the motions, but they didn’t do a lot of the little things that had gotten them to 17-0.
“The Wisconsin loss was tough for us because it had been a long time since we lost,” Beilein said. “I didn’t even know how to feel after it. If it wasn’t the National Championship game, it had been a long time.
“We got through it. The sun’s coming up. We talked about it yesterday; we’ll try to grow in the areas we need to grow the most. There are a lot of areas … yesterday’s film session, I think people understand as we get into this part of the season, including coaches, how important each possession is. If we control the things we can control, we’ll be a much better team.
“That was the message.”
Beilein wouldn’t bite when asked what his team’s weaknesses were. That’s for opponents to figure out, he said with a grin, and some of them have.
His team was never one without flaws, regardless, but they were able to overcome them by playing to their strengths, protecting the basketball and winning the effort areas.
“We were sloppy not just on the offensive end; we were also sloppy on the defensive end with some things,” Beilein said. “Wisconsin, again, great game plan defensively, really just made us score over them like Wisconsin teams always do.
“We’ve got to make shots. We didn’t get many open shots, didn’t make some of open ones we got. Just a typical loss to Wisconsin is what it is. They don’t beat themselves; they hope you’re going to miss more. What was unusual was our sloppiness on defense, probably carryover from turnovers we had on offense.”
There were 16 of them, including five offensive fouls, a few that could have gone either way. There were double teams in the post in which the angles weren’t played correctly, allowing decent looks on passes out of the post, and big man Ethan Happ had seven assists.
“It wasn’t his 26 points that beat us. It was the seven assists,” Beilein said. “Five threes and one drop-off. We were real sloppy in our double teams.
“When you don’t get a shot off 16 times down the court, you lose shots there. We took some ones we could get better shots on, without question, and we have a lot of guys with courage and confidence, but what they think might be a great shot might not be a great team shot for us. We’ve got to continue to work and educate them on what a Michigan shot looks like. It’d different for every guy on the team.”
It’s generally one they make in practice repeatedly, Beilein said.
There are some who refused to take them Saturday, and Beilein said the spent several minutes in practice Sunday reiterating that they needed to trust in their shots. Frosh Ignas Brazdeikis and redshirt junior Charles Matthews were on fire, Beilein said … they need to continue to play with that kind of confidence in games.
But this is still the No. 5 team in the country, and any criticism, Beilein said, is probably too harsh.
“You can be a victim of your own success. Any losses are magnified,” he said. “It’s really not the truth. The truth is the schedule is much different in the first 18 games than the last 13; much different, especially with us starting with four home games and two away. You try to explain that to your team without taking away confidence.
“You try to let them know the scale … a loss is a loss, and move on.”
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