From essentially the opening tip in Lincoln, Nebraska on Saturday night, Michigan was thoroughly outmatched by the Nebraska Cornhuskers, a team that is squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Looking at Saturday's game from a macro perspective, the blowout makes sense. Michigan hasn't sniffed the bubble all season, and Nebraska is busy fighting for its dancing hopes.
Here are three takeaways from the 79-59 defeat.
There is no cohesion when Michigan is without Dug McDaniel
This was the fourth game that Michigan has been without Dug McDaniel, who is serving his road game suspension due to academic reasons. The sample size is large enough now that a trend is starting to form.
Michigan, a team that is already incredibly inconsistent on offense, is consistently poor when McDaniel, its floor general, is not with the team.
The Wolverines mustered just 25 points in the first half, eight of which came with less than a minute to go. It's the fourth time all season that Michigan has failed to reach 60 points, and it's the second-lowest point total of the season for the Wolverines.
In the four games that McDaniel has missed due to the academic suspension, Michigan has averaged 61.3 points. Jaelin Llewellyn has been serviceable as the fill-in starting point guard, but the Wolverine offense is lacking severely when McDaniel is not available.
According to Juwan Howard, the suspension is indefinite, so it's unknown how much longer McDaniel will be out, but with four road games remaining in the regular season and Michigan's season already lost, does it really matter if Michigan ever gets its offense to click without McDaniel?
Worst half of basketball since?
There have been a few bad halves of basketball from the Wolverines this season, but what transpired in the first half at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Saturday night must be the worst half of basketball in recent program history.
Michigan shot just 32.1 percent from the floor in the first half, and the Cornhuskers built a 30-point lead at one point.
To no one's surprise, the Wolverines didn't get any production from its bench in the first half, something that has haunted the team throughout the entirety of the season.
Meanwhile, Nebraska got 10 points from its bench and shot 48.6 percent from the floor and 42.9 percent from distance in the first half. Keisei Tominaga led all scorers with 15 points in the first half, and Michigan had essentially lost the game by the 10-minute mark in the first half.
The first half of the Purdue game in January was the only half this season that rivaled the breakdown and ineptitude that occurred on Saturday night. Purdue led Michigan by 24 points at the break, whereas the Cornhuskers led by 20 on Saturday.
Regardless, if Michigan has many more halves like those this season, it won't help Juwan Howard's case as he fights for his job.
Still no walk-ons until garbage time
After the loss to Rutgers on Saturday, Feb. 3, Howard half-jokingly said that he was considering playing his walk-ons in the second half, because he knows they care. Of course, playing the walk-ons in the middle of Big Ten play wouldn't give the team its best chance of winning games, but Howard was embarrassed to the point that he considered bringing in the non-scholarship guys.
With Michigan down by more than 20 points for most of Saturday's game, many suspected that Howard might follow through on last week's remark to play the walk-ons.
However, Howard didn't show any atypical behavior as it relates to his rotations in the loss to Nebraska. Still down by about 20 points with less than two minutes to go, Howard opted to bring in walk-ons Cooper Smith, Harrison Hochberg, Jackson Selvala, as well as scholarship players Youssef Khayat and George Washington III.
If things continue trending downward for the Wolverines as the regular season nears its end, it will be interesting to see if Howard opts to sub in his walk-ons in favor of the scholarship players.
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