Michigan’s loss to Michigan State Sunday put the Wolverines a game behind MSU and Purdue in the Big Ten standings, but U-M head coach John Beilein wasn’t about to panic.
Neither was his team despite missing an opportunity at home against its rival, playing one of its worst defensive games of the year.
The Wolverines made a number of head scratching mistakes against the Spartans, and the short bench hurt them. They were gassed, and it led to a number of uncharacteristic mistakes.
“I just don’t want to blame my players,” Beilein said Wednesday. “Coaches get way too much credit for winning and way too much blame for losing.
“You just lose games. You miss shots. And I may be wrong, but they have never played that defense ever. Never, ever that particular brand and style. We weren’t ready for it. There was no scouting report. Now we’ve got to pick it up, and we have to have a really good game. When one player injured early doesn't have a game … you lose the game.”
Beilein made it clear after the game the Spartans were down two players of their own, but Michigan was playing four-on-five at times when redshirt junior wing Charles Matthews turned his ankle early coming down with a rebound.
Matthews returned, but he was out of sorts the rest of the game.
“It affected him a lot; it really did,” Beilein said. “He was never comfortable the whole time out there. He did a little yesterday, he’ll try to do more today and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
He hasn’t been running on it, and the rest is probably a good thing for him, Beilein added.
The loss itself was disappointing, but it wasn’t a season ender. They’ve responded with some very good practices, Beilein continued.
“Our kids have had a great attitude. We’re in a good place,” he said. “We learned a ton from the film; the coaches learned a ton from the film. It’s amazing. I’ve been coaching this thing for so long and every day there’s something … ‘wow, how come it took 40 years for me to realize that?’
“But we didn’t play ball screen defense very well. It wasn’t anything they did special, just a complete failure of us to execute the small things you have to do in a ball screen. I can’t tell you why it happened because we’ve been really, really good. We just happened to pick that day to do it against one of the premiere ball screen players in the country [in Cassius Winston].”
They also ran out of gas. Center Jon Teske and shooting guard Jordan Poole were two who were spent at the end of the game, and Beilein said he’d play freshman David DeJulius more at shooting guard to spell Poole. There will be more tweaking, too, at other positions.
But U-M is still only a game out with three games to go, and the Wolverines aren’t ready to concede anything.
“Absolutely [we can win the conference], but we’ve got to win games on the road,” Beilein said. “The odds have been against it, but we’ve had that before. Last year we had to go to Penn State and Maryland with two games to go, win to finish out then go to New York City and end up winning that damn thing. Who knows?
“Absolutely we believe we can win this thing. We’re a game out of first place. It’s February 27 and we are competing for a Big Ten Championship. That’s a big goal for us … not the only goal, but a big goal. If you’re competing for a Big Ten Championship and it’s almost March, you’re having a heck of a year.”
With the possibility for more given the program’s history of playing well in the postseason under Beilein.
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