After Michigan’s loss to Michigan State Saturday afternoon, here’s what’s being said about the Wolverines:
The Big Ten title race isn’t over. Not yet.
Though losing at home to Michigan State hurt.
Michigan basketball still has three games left. One of them is in East Lansing. The Wolverines will get another chance. They’re just a game back in the standings.
And yet …?
Sunday afternoon's 77-70 loss at the Crisler Center was a gut punch. Here was a Spartans team (23-5, 14-3 Big Ten) missing two of its top three players. And here was the moment: Some three minutes into the second half, the fans roaring from their feet, when freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis ripped down the baseline, leapt and threw down a dunk with two hands to give U-M a six-point lead.
MSU's Kyle Ahrens blocks a shot by Michigan's Jordan Poole during the first half Sunday at the
It was there to take. Then it wasn’t.
After the early, second-half run to grab the lead and momentum, forcing MSU to take a timeout, the Wolverines (24-4, 13-4) responded with a travel, a foul, a missed 3-pointer, two more turnovers and a miss on the front end of a 1-and-1.
A flurry of mistakes and poor shots when the game was there to grab. For most of the Big Ten season, U-M has suffered through similar droughts. But its defense has been so good they could afford to go scoreless for a while.
Not against these Spartans. Not Sunday.
Not with Jordan Poole missing seven of his first eight shots and Charles Matthews missing seven of his first eight, too.
Michigan State beat Michigan, 77-70, for the first time in four tries, and the hot takes were out in full force.
“Michigan hadn't been tested.”
“The Wolverines will get bounced early in the tournament.”
“MSU is head and shoulders the better team.”
For one day, the latter was true … for a good 10 minutes. Unfortunately, it was the 10 that mattered — the final 10, when the Spartans pulled away for a 77-70 win behind an outstanding performance from Cassius Winston.
But better team is the key vernacular here. Much has been made of Nick Ward and Josh Langford’s absence, but the Spartans play great team basketball without them, and they did it again Saturday behind junior point guard Cassius Winston’s outstanding day.
Winston never panicked when the Wolverines threw a couple of defenders at him and hedged, holding it a bit longer and finding open teammates. His teammates knocked down shots early to give them some confidence (though they’d finish only 5-for-20 from three-point range, 0-for-8 in the second half).
Michigan, meanwhile, seemed to get caught up in the pageantry of the 1989 reunion, the hype and everything that went with it, making too many uncharacteristic mistakes. They turned it over five times early and took bad shots.
The ball stuck on offense when the Spartans threw some wrinkles at them U-M didn’t expect, and there were uncharacteristic defensive lapses, too many misses at the rim and a 1-for-8, four-point showing from redshirt junior Charles Matthews.
Michigan brought its ‘C’ game in the biggest game of the year, and it wasn’t good enough.
In previous iterations of the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry, the Wolverines could outscore the Spartans. It's no secret that this Michigan team relies on its defense.
On Sunday, Michigan had its worst defensive performance of the season. The Wolverines’ second-half scoring drought didn’t help, but an inability to stop Spartan point guard Cassius Winston was the difference in a 77-70 defeat at Crisler Center.
Winston, a junior, finished with 27 points on 7-of-13 shooting and added eight assists.
"We've had a lot of point guards come into this building," Michigan head coach John Beilein said. "I've coached some great ones. That was as good a performance as you're going to see."
Winston did it without making a 3, instead scoring on a variety of layups, floaters, and pull-up jumpers. He played all 40 minutes and had the ball in his hands for large stretches of Michigan State’s possessions. His teammates were constantly setting ball screens for him.
Typically, Michigan has exceled against this strategy. Michigan has a point guard, Zavier Simpson, who is among the 10 players in the country nominated for Defensive Player of the Year. It has an assistant coach, Luke Yaklich, dedicated to defense, and the personnel to stifle ball-screen action. Junior center Jon Teske has been praised by opposing coaches all season for his work in that area.
"Our ball-screen defense has been terrific all year," Beilein said. "Cassius Winston was terrific. He destroyed our ball-screen defense."
Michigan entered the game limiting opponents to a shade under 40 percent shooting. Michigan State hit 50 percent. The Spartans hit five 3-pointers in the first half to take a 39-37 lead into the break. Michigan took away the outside shot in the second half but Winston's buckets -- and the easy baskets he created for his teammates -- kept coming.
James Hawkins, The Detroit News: Beilein: Winston 'destroyed' Michigan's ball-screen defense
While Michigan coach John Beilein was speaking during his postgame presser, he wanted to hand out an assignment to anyone who was willing to do some research.
How many times was Michigan State guard Cassius Winston put in a ball screen? How many times did Michigan junior guard Zavier Simpson get hit with a ball screen while defending Winston?
For Michigan team that has been effective in ball-screen defense all season, it was rendered ineffective in Sunday’s 77-70 loss at Crisler Center for one reason: Winston.
“Our ball screen has been terrific all year,” Beilein said. “Cassius Winston was terrific. He destroyed our ball-screen defense.
“He was absolutely tremendous. We've had a lot of point guards come into this building. I've coached some great ones. That was as good a performance as you would've seen.”
Winston played the entire game and led a short-handed Michigan State squad with 27 points on 7-for-13 shooting, eight assists and three turnovers. He also drew eight fouls and finished 13-for-14 from the free-throw line.
According to Beilein, there were a couple looks Michigan State’s offense gave that he wasn’t expecting but noted most of the problems stemmed from Winston’s knack for getting into “the nooks and crannies.”
“His mid-range game is one of the very tops in the country,” Beilein said. “At the rim, not so. His 3-point game and his mid-range game are one of the top, like elite. He got to his mid-range, and those runners and those floaters there's not a lot of defense for those things.
Ethan Sears, The Michigan Daily: Michigan State beats Michigan 77-70, takes control of Big Ten
The game, and control of the Big Ten, teetered as the ball found Matt McQuaid. Michigan’s defense had lost the Spartans’ shooting guard. The senior made the Wolverines pay.
His jumper from the right block found bottom, and Michigan State’s lead grew to eight. With just under four minutes to go in the game, it was all the Spartans needed.
When the buzzer sounded, No. 10 Michigan State (23-5 overall, 14-3 Big Ten) walked off Crisler Center’s court as the first visiting team to win on it since last January. And, with a 77-70 win over No. 7 Michigan (24-4, 13-4), the Spartans gained sole possession of first place in the Big Ten to boot.
After a single-handed try at a comeback by Jordan Poole fell short, with guard Cassius Winston hitting six straight free throws in the last 40 seconds, Michigan’s players walked back to their bench with their heads hung low. The buzzer sounded and they filed through a handshake line replete with disappointment on one side, joy on the other.
The game was chippy. The game was close. The game was everything you’d want from a top-10 matchup of in-state rivals, living up to its billing and then some. And the Wolverines, ultimately, fell short. When freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis arrived in Crisler’s media room afterward, he let out an audible groan.
“It definitely hurts,” Brazdeikis would go on to say. “It felt weird, cause we had the lead. We were up six with like 13 minutes left. And then all of the sudden, we’re down and it didn’t feel right.”
And, for a brief moment, the game was Michigan’s to win.
When McQuaid got called for a personal foul early in the second half with which he disagreed, Michigan State’s shooting guard turned to Tom Izzo in fury. Brazdeikis, who finished with 16 points, turned to a sellout crowd and raised his hands.
Two minutes later, he drove baseline, dunked with two hands and let out a yell as Michigan’s lead extended to six, Izzo called timeout and the crowd roared alongside him.
The game and all that went with it might have tipped there. Instead, it turned.
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