Michigan was up 28 in the second half against Michigan State and might have won by 40 had head coach Juwan Howard kept his foot on the gas. As it was, the Wolverines captured the Big Ten title with a 69-50 blowout of the Spartans, a game in which MSU coach Tom Izzo was ‘disappointed’ not only with his team, but with the lack of flow.

He was especially perturbed about a flagrant foul call on leading scorer Aaron Henry in the first half. The Spartans were down 30-26 at the time, but U-M went on a run with Henry on the bench with his second foul. It was 39-28 at the break despite several whistles, stoppages in play and very little continuity.

“I’m very disappointed in the way we played,” Izzo said. “I thought our guard play was very poor early, got in a little bit of foul trouble with Malik Hall, were playing okay when Aaron [was in] … I didn’t see these flagrant fouls. There’s more stoppage right now in a game, it’s no fun to even pay the games. It’s hook and holds, it’s stoppage. I’m not saying right, wrong or indifferent.

“There was a lot on Aaron’s call when he’s going up for a shot and he gets hit, and I didn’t see it. But that changed the game, too. We were going to the free throw line, three minutes left, all of a sudden a couple baskets and then you’re down 11.”

Henry did go to the line and made one, while Michigan sophomore Franz Wagner made one on the other end. Wagner got a rebound of his own miss on the next possession and pushed the lead to seven, and though MSU cut it back to seven early in the second half, they wouldn’t get closer.

"They played pretty good; we did not play very good,” Izzo said. “We’ve got some work to do. I’m looking forward to Sunday.”

He was asked later if the Henry play was a turning point.

“I’ll be honest, it shouldn’t have been. It was a big call because it put him on the bench,” he said. “I did not see it, so I have no idea. You all say it replayed. I did not see it. Was it a right call, wrong call? I don’t know. Was it a turning point? It was a big play. Let’s just say that. And if it was the right call, it's still a big play.”

Later, he talked about the ‘charge circle’ and its impact on the game and other issues he had with the way games are called.

“You jump up and it’s this, you’ve got hook and holds. There’s no flow to any game,” he said. “Maybe it’s not the officials’ fault; maybe it’s the rules committee. There’s no flow to anything.”

But besides all that, he admitted U-M played well and beat his team “fair and square,” adding he was interested in getting another shot at U-M Sunday. He thought his team was well-prepared, but 'didn’t do some of the things they said they were going to do on ball screens' and let it get away from them.

“That was individual players not getting enough reps at it, so we’ll try to fix those things and do a little better job,” he said. “I think we felt good that we played good enough in stretches, and we think we know why things went awry. I’ll keep that between me and my team and then we’ll go from there.

“I thought it was a strange game, a lot of weird calls, lot of hook and holds. Until I see the film, I don’t know what’s right or wrong. Some changing plays we didn’t make I thought made a difference, but give them credit — they played well.”

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