There were several factors that led to Michigan’s 77-70 loss to MSU on Sunday, both on the offensive and defensive ends of the court.
The Wolverines shot just 39.7 percent for the game, while allowing the Spartans to connect on 50 percent of their attempts.
When asked what the main issues were that led to the loss, head coach John Beilein gave several reasons on his weekly radio show.
“Our ball screen defense was very sloppy,” he admitted. “It’s important to play it a certain way, and we need to repair it.
“Little details are everything when it comes to guarding it, and our principles slipped — MSU made them slip though.
“They showed us different looks and wound up getting layups out of those looks, and we fouled three-point shooters twice early on — that is No. 1 on our list of things to work on right now.
“You don’t want to have days like that, but sometimes you just have them — I hate it though. We have to make sure feeling sorry for ourselves doesn’t lead to more losses.
“We were just a step late in a number of other areas too. It’d be good if [junior center Jon] Teske didn’t have to play so many minutes, along with [sophomore guard Jordan] Poole and [sophomore forward Isaiah] Livers.
“For 32 minutes on Sunday, it was one heck of a game — but the difference was that MSU was really good for the final eight minutes.”
Michigan’s offense down the stretch was especially stagnant, with the Wolverines scoring just 19 points over the game’s final 16 minutes.
As a result, MSU outscored the Maize and Blue 32-19 during that span.
“There were times we could have had better shots,” Beilein lamented. “We had to hit the big man when he was open, especially when MSU was giving us the looks they were.
“We can’t resort to step-back threes. We so often take two steps forward and one step back, but that’s also a big reason why we’re 24-4 — we don’t like the steps back though.”
Redshirt junior guard Charles Matthews was nonexistent offensively for much of Sunday’s game, scoring just four points and failing to pull down a single rebound.
A rolled ankle in the first half likely contributed to his poor performance, though he did play the whole second half on it.
“He went to therapy [on Monday], and we don’t think it’s anything serious,” Beilein revealed. “He’s a tough kid, and is one of our brightest kids on and off the court.
“I will forever be indebted to the way his attitude has been, in terms of his growth, the way he buys into defense, and the way he holds his teammates accountable.”
The Wolverines now sit at 13-4 and third place in league play, but are still very much in the hunt for a potential Big Ten title.
Michigan next welcomes a struggling Nebraska club to Ann Arbor on Thursday night, though Beilein insists they’re not as bad as their 5-12 conference record indicates.
“They were a very good team until they lost one of their best players in [fifth-year senior forward] Isaac Copeland,” the U-M head man said.
“That’d be like us losing Matthews or Iggy [freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis].
“They’ve had some tough losses since Copeland went down, but they also did just play Purdue to the buzzer.
“This league is unforgiving, so you have to come to play every night. We still have a chance for a championship — a great chance.”
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