It would have been a bit premature, but you could be forgiven if you watched Moussa Diabate rise up, knock down a three-point attempt, and think that Michigan was going to coast to a smooth second half and a victory over Central Florida. You'd be wrong, of course, but you'd be forgiven.

Michigan dropped their final nonconference game of 2021 against UCF Thursday night, 85-71. The aforementioned three left Diabate's hand at the 16:47 mark of the second half, but it stretched Michigan's lead to 12. Plus, it came from one of Michigan's bigs; they were firing on all cylinders to open the half, taking and making open looks and getting to the basket and converting easy attempts. Then Michigan's offense ran dry, with their next bucket coming four minutes later to make it a 51-50 game. For more on the number after the dash in the sentence prior, let's move to the first takeaway of the night.

Bad habits reared their ugly heads (yes, that's plural, there are multiple) tonight

Instead of using their defense to jumpstart a stagnant offense in the middle of the second half, Michigan rested on its laurels (and what started as a 12-point lead) and allowed it to be chipped away at. Eventually the fissures caused by the chipping gave way, and the floodgates opened.

Defenders routinely lost their assignment and allowed open looks from deep despite UCF's offense coming almost exclusively from two sharp-shooting three-point threats. UCF's Darin Green Jr. shot 7-of-9 from deep, while Brandon Mahan shot 5-of-7 from behind the arc. Green Jr. finished with 27 points and Mahan finished with 26, yet defenders often failed to close on the two.

To be fair, some of tonight's offensive explosion was UCF shooting an unsustainably well. The Golden Knights shot 72% from the floor in the second half and hit all eight of their three-point attempts.

In addition to their defensive issues, Michigan routinely attempted riskier passes than necessary, forcing the ball into traffic and showing a general nonchalance toward ball protection against a team that likes to pressure and gets hands in passing lanes. Michigan only had nine turnovers tonight, so though they didn't pay for it on the score sheet and kept it under Juwan Howard's stated goal of 11 or less turnovers each game it speaks to a larger issue: this team seems to lose focus for stretches, and those stretches have led to runs for opponents.

Michigan's offense is still struggling to find a way to play complementary basketball

Juwan Howard continues to tinker with lineups, and for good reason: he doesn't have one that can consistently score. The Wolverines endured two four-minute droughts and one three-and-a-half-minute drought tonight. They spent 28.75% of the game completely unable to score, and is there an end in sight to that?

Michigan shot 38.8% on two-point attempts and 40.7% on three-point attempts; for the season were averaging 53.8% on twos and 34.8% on threes. Below average on twos to be sure, but is there a lineup that can consistently get to the basket and score? Not that we've seen so far. The one bit of forward progress on offense is three-point shooting, which brings up to our next point...

DeVante' Jones showed that he can punish opponents if they don't defend him

Jones doesn't have elite athleticism and therefore doesn't have a tendency to turn the corner on an opposing guard and get to the basket, and tonight he showed that he can work around that to be an effective starter.

UCF sagged off Jones on ball screens, and when Jones had an open look from three he took it tonight. He converted four of his five three-point attempts and finished with 17 points. Jones also followed his shot well, pulling down two offensive rebounds to go with five defensive rebounds. Overall, tonight was a good first step toward making life tougher on opponents if they can no longer disregard him as a shooter.

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