Michigan's three-game experience in the Bahamas at the Battle 4 Atlantis ended with a 1-2 record as the Wolverines fell to the Texas Tech Red Raiders on Friday night. It was a dreadful offensive performance from Juwan Howard's squad in the first half, and it culminated in an ejection of the Wolverines' head coach at the end of the first half.
Now at 4-3 on the season, Michigan will head back to Ann Arbor in hopes of patching up some mistakes before it heads to Eugene, Oregon to take on the Oregon Ducks.
After the game out west, Michigan will begin Big Ten play against Indiana at the Crisler Center on Dec. 5.
Here are three takeaways from Michigan's blowout loss to Texas Tech on Friday night.
Where did the offense go?
The first four games of the season featured Michigan scoring north of 85 points in every contest. Offense seemed to come rather easily for the Wolverines, which got out and scored in transition on a consistent basis.
In the last three games, though, Michigan has failed to reach the 85-point mark. It came close in an 83-78 win over Stanford on Thanksgiving, but in the two other Battle 4 Atlantis matchups, the Wolverines failed to reach 70 points.
The sudden, drastic change in offensive production oddly coincides with the return of Juwan Howard to the sideline, but the sample size remains rather small.
Perhaps the drop-off in offensive production could be chalked up to the odd environment that is the ballroom in the Bahamas, but either way, Michigan will need to figure some things out before Big Ten play starts.
With Michigan's defense clearly struggling the past few games, the offense needs to be playing its 'A' game to offset the subpar level of play on the other end of the floor. Unfortunately for Michigan, the offense hasn't been clicking, which, with the way the defense is currently playing, has resulted in losses.
Juwan Howard needs to self-assess his performance as coach
In just his third game back on the sidelines as an observer, Juwan Howard was ejected from the contest against Texas Tech on Friday night. He was assessed a double-technical foul right before halftime, and he was ejected from the game.
It was at least Howard's second ejection from a game during his time at Michigan — he was ejected once against Maryland for going after head coach Mark Turgeon. Howard also served a five-game suspension in 2022 for being the main instigator of a scuffle against Wisconsin.
On Friday night, Howard was merely an observer — he still has yet to coach a game this season as he recovers from heart surgery — and he still managed to get himself ejected.
It seems Howard has let his antics get the best of him too many times, and it happened yet again against Texas Tech.
At the end of the first half, the referees clearly wrongly ruled a made basket on a shot from the Red Raiders. The shot was clearly tipped in after the buzzer.
As the referees were making their way to the scorer's table to review the play, Howard had some ill-advised words for the crew of referees, and he was tossed.
Howard, as a leader of young men, needs to do a better job of keeping himself composed during potential emotional moments during his team's games.
Way too much inconsistency from Michigan's role players
One of Michigan's best attributes is the well-rounded nature of the offensive scoring. Unlike last season, when Hunter Dickinson, Kobe Bufkin and Jett Howard did much of the heavy lifting, the Wolverines have many more weapons that have scoring potential.
However, as diverse as Michigan's scoring attack is, it's far to inconsistent to hang with the better teams on the schedule.
In the 14 combined outings between Dug McDaniel and Olivier Nkamhoua, the duo has scored in double figures in 13 of the games — Nkamhoua scored nine in a win over St. John's.
But while players like Will Tschetter, Nimari Burnett, Terrance Williams and Tray Jackson have shown flashes at times this season, there's been far too much inconsistency from that quartet of players.
Those four players combined for just 22 points on Friday night. For comparison, Tschetter had 20 points on his own in a win over Youngstown State earlier this year, and Jackson had 20 points in the exhibition win over Northwood to start the year.
McDaniel and Nkamhoua appear to be the two heavy lifters on this year's team, but there needs to be much more consistency from the aforementioned quartet of players going forward.
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