A look around the Internet after Michigan's loss to Penn State:
Orion Sang, Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball upset by last-place Penn State: 'They punked us'
Deep within the Bryce Jordan Center, Charles Matthews stood by himself, looking down at a postgame stat sheet he held in his hands.
Matthews barely looked up as he answered questions. His voice was quiet, but still held a measure of determination — along with plenty of frustration.
As Matthews' eyes scanned the page, he was asked about what happened in the first half of Michigan basketball's 75-69 loss to Penn State — and summed up his team's loss in three words.
"They punked us," Matthews said. "Simple as that. They outrebounded us by 10. You're not winning a game giving a team 12 offensive rebounds.
"All of y'all flattered by (who's) scoring points, that (expletive) don't matter. It's all about who's gonna rebound and who's gonna defend."
For Matthews and the Wolverines, Tuesday night was a low point in a season that hasn't had many.
The day began with Michigan atop the Big Ten standings. Penn State sat in last. Then the game was played, leaving the Wolverines with their worst loss of the season.
Michigan (22-3, 11-3 Big Ten) started lethargic on both ends in front of a sparse crowd and against a team that had one win in conference play.
Penn State knocked down a few early 3s. Then the Nittany Lions found success against the nation's second-best defense with a small-ball lineup featuring 6-foot-8 forward Lamar Stevens at center.
"Stopping Stevens one on one is really hard for us," said Michigan coach John Beilein. "And I thought when they went small, that was a big difference for us."
Chris Balas, The Wolverine.com: Michigan Wolverines Basketball: A Strange Night In Happy Valley
One, PSU played out of its mind. This is a team better than its record, one of the reasons Penn State head coach Pat Chambers is on the hot seat, and that has played some of the Big Ten’s better teams to standstills.
Only a horrible call down the stretch prevented the Nittany Lions from beating Purdue at home, and they were going to get someone. That someone happened to be Michigan, and while it wasn’t a devastating blow to U-M’s Big Ten Championship hopes, it certainly made the hill a tougher climb.
PSU was No. 62 in KenPom’s site, however, for a reason. They play almost everyone tough.
Two, Michigan played its worst defensive game in a couple years. The Wolverines were soft, gave up way too many open looks and offensive rebounds and played as though it were an afternoon at the YMCA in front of a few dozen people (in this case, it was actually several hundred, but the atmosphere was essentially the same).
Junior point guard Zavier Simpson was in a funk and turned it over six times, junior big man Jon Teske got beat regularly inside and Penn State won almost all the battles for the 50-50 balls.
And after a valiant effort to cut a 16-point lead to four in the second half, sophomore Jordan Poole started to play hero ball a bit and launched some bad shots.
As for No. 3 — and no, this is not a typo — John Beilein got ejected at halftime after two technical fouls for arguing officials’ calls, including a pick at the end of the half in which Simpson got laid out with an elbow.
The second one came when he was 30 feet away and walking away from the official, an absurd ejection in a league in which a few coaches act like raving lunatics on the sidelines each game with no repercussions.
James Hawkins, The Detroit News: 'They punked us': Michigan stumbles against last-place Penn State
Michigan entered Bryce Jordan Center with a chance to add some cushion atop the Big Ten standings.
Instead, what unfolded was one long, miserable night.
The No. 6 Wolverines were sloppy on offense, dominated on the glass and had their second-ranked defense picked apart by the last-place team in the conference.
On top of that, coach John Beilein was ejected for the first time in his Michigan career at the end of the first half for arguing a non-call involving junior guard Zavier Simpson.
It was all part of a disastrous first half the Wolverines were never able to recover from in a dismal 75-69 loss to Penn State on Tuesday.
"They punked us. Simple as that," said redshirt junior wing Charles Matthews, who finished with a team-high 24 points.
"They outrebounded us by 10, had 12 offensive rebounds. You're not winning a game giving a team 12 offensive rebounds. It's all about who's going to rebound and who's going to defend. And we didn't do that."
Sophomore guard Jordan Poole added 17 points but went 1-for-8 from 3-point range for Michigan (22-3, 11-3 Big Ten), which shot 51 percent (25-for-49) from the field yet still found itself playing catch-up after trailing by 13 at halftime.
Thanks to the two technical fouls Beilein picked up that led to his dismissal, Penn State made three of four free throws to push its lead to 43-27 before the second half even started.
With assistant coach Saddi Washington taking over the helm over the final 20 minutes, the Wolverines put the disastrous first half behind them and, slowly but surely, began mounting a comeback with a 16-5 run.
Andrew Kahn, MLive.com: Michigan stunned in upset loss at Penn State after rare Beilein ejection
John Beilein has just two losses against Penn State's Pat Chambers, and he'll surely remember them both for all the wrong reasons.
Michigan lost at Penn State on Tuesday, 75-69, for the first time since 2013. In both instances, Michigan had a top-10 team and the Nittany Lions were at the bottom of the Big Ten.
Making matters worse, Beilein was ejected on Tuesday and watched the second half from the locker room. It is believed to be only the second ejection of his 43-year coaching career and his first technical foul since the 2016-17 season.
As the first half buzzer sounded, Michigan trailed 40-27, and Beilein argued with the referees, presumably regarding a non-foul on the final possession. The 66-year-old coach was hit with successive technical fouls and, as a result, ejected from the game.
In turn, Penn State was awarded four free throws to start the second half, making three to push its lead to 16. Michigan's top assistant, Saddi Washington, replaced Beilein in the second half. Washington was the interim head coach during Michigan’s three games in Spain in August, when Beilein was sidelined after heart surgery.
Despite the adversity, Michigan hung around, getting as close as four points. Charles Matthews led the comeback effort with 24 points. Jordan Poole added 17. But Lamar Stevens' 26 points and 11 rebounds were too much to overcome. Myles Dread added 17 points, making five 3s, for the victors.
It was a stunning loss for the sixth-ranked Wolverines, who fell to 22-3 and 11-3 in the Big Ten. For Penn State (9-15), it was just its second conference win of the season. It was no surprise, then, that fans rushed the floor, just as had been the case in Michigan's previous two losses this season.
Michigan had won eight straight against the Nittany Lions, last losing in 2013 when the when the Wolverines brought their fourth-ranked squad to State College late in the season and handed Penn State its first Big Ten win. Michigan reached the national championship that season.
Ethan Sears, The Michigan Daily: At Penn State, the Wolverines get a wake-up call
The Wolverines’ defense — one Yaklich has helped build to the heights of a national title contender — came into State College ranked second in the country in adjusted efficiency. In the first half, it got rocked to the tune of 1.29 points per possession, and that wasn’t the biggest thing that went wrong in Michigan’s 75-69 loss to Penn State.
John Beilein got ejected for the first time in roughly 40 years. A second-half comeback fell short as the Wolverines couldn’t find a good shot after gaining control of the game. Poole’s shooting slump continued with a 1-of-8 performance from beyond the arc. The Nittany Lions took it to Michigan on the offensive boards. This against a team that earned its second Big Ten win on Tuesday, whose student section wasn’t big enough to cover the court when they stormed it.
It was, you might say, a wake-up call.
The Wolverines haven’t played with a deficit like the 16 points they were down after Rasir Bolton hit three technical free throws to start the second half. They haven’t faced adversity like Beilein watching the second half on TV from a room inside the bowels of Bryce Jordan Center. It showed.
“We have to have more discipline,” said assistant coach Saddi Washington, who replaced Beilein in the second half. “Defensive end, I think we gave up two — at least three, maybe even four fouls on 3-point shots. Which were big. I don’t know how many of them they converted from the free throw line, but just little things like that.”
This loss was about more than John Beilein getting ejected, and it was about more than a few calls going against the Wolverines. Michigan is at a crossroads in its season. No longer is it invincible — three court-stormings, one at the building of the league’s bottom-feeder, saw to that. Instead, it has lost two of four.
Its offense seems to have leveled out, and defense can’t win every game. Thus, days like Tuesday, where someone other than Charles Matthews needs to score in crunch-time and nobody can until it’s too late.
Some of that will get solved inherently — Jordan Poole won’t stay in a shooting slump forever. At times on Tuesday though, he tried to shoot himself out of it, jacking a pull-up two late in the first half. In his seat on the bench, Beilein leaned all the way
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