After Michigan’s loss to Texas Tech in the Sweet 16, the Wolverines season ended with disappointment. Here’s a look around the Internet to see what they’re saying about U-M:
John Niyo, The Detroit News: Dreadful exit isn't how Wolverines want to frame 30-win season
hey looked dazed. They seemed dumbfounded. And without a doubt, they were defeated.
But after Michigan’s players filed off the court at the Honda Center, some of them with towels over their heads and others with tears in their eyes, including senior Charles Matthews making a somber final exit, the postgame message from their coach was more of a plea than anything else.
“This game,” John Beilein said, “shouldn’t define who you are.”
And yet it will for a while. Maybe a long while for some, like Matthews, who was sobbing at times as teammates came over to him one by one with words of thanks and apologies for how it all ended Thursday night, with a 63-44 drubbing at the hands — literally and figuratively — of third-seeded Texas Tech in a NCAA West Regional semifinal.
A year ago out here in southern California, Michigan put on an offensive clinic in its Sweet 16 matchup with Texas A&M, draining 10 3-pointers in a 52-point first half that prompted one of the Aggies' players to admit later, “I was just wondering when they were going to miss."
Thursday night, it was the polar opposite, as the Wolverines began by making some silly turnovers, then proceeded to dent the rims, going 7-for-25 from the field in the first half, including 0-for-9 from the 3-point line.
Michigan attempted 13 jump shots in the first 20 minutes and made not one of them. And if an eight-point halftime deficit felt like a chasm against a Texas Tech team that came into the game with the nation’s top-ranked defense, it wouldn’t take long for it to look like the Grand Canyon.
Charles Matthews watched his final free throw drop through the net toward the end of his team's worst night of the year before turning to the bench, probably for the final time.
Michigan's fourth-year junior captain walked off the floor, completely devastated, sinking deep into a chair on the bench before burying his head into a towel. He came back to school for a fourth year to win a national title.
It wasn't a fantasy or an out-of-reach goal. And as the final horn fired to close a 30-win season that featured the program's fifth Sweet 16 appearance in the last seven years, no one was interested in perspective.
That can wait.
Because this one hurt.
"I wanted a championship," Matthews said. "Every loss is difficult."
About 30 feet away, Zavier Simpson sat facing his locker — his head wrapped completely in a towel — with Michigan assistant DeAndre Haynes doing his best to offer words of encouragement. Haynes and Simpson have a great relationship. They talk about a lot of things. In that moment, Haynes' words might've been the only thing keeping Simpson upright.
In the hallway, John Beilein, true to form, did his best to stay positive. He was sure to point out the fact this team won 30 games for a second straight year despite losing huge contributors from last year's national runner-up. Michigan had young players all over this roster who were asked to fill larger roles this year.
But Beilein knows deep down that perspective, at least right now, does very little to help anyone. And it probably won't for a while.
Because this program is now at a level where dreaming of a national title isn't an absurd fairy tale. It's real.
And falling short hurts.
"For a few weeks after the season ends, it's a really empty place for me," Beilein said. "Try to figure out what to do with myself. We'll have one team meeting, but our school year's over in like two weeks.
The hardest part about raised expectations is how much more it hurts when goals aren’t met.
John Beilein and his team felt the pain in a big way after Thursday night’s stunning, 63-44 loss to Texas Tech in which the Wolverines played one of their worst games of the year — “a bad day for a bad day,” as Michigan’s head coach put it.
When those happen in the NCAA Tournament, especially in the Sweet 16, more often than not you’re going home. And make no mistake — the Red Raiders had plenty to do with that, their swarming defense throwing the Wolverines out of rhythm from the start, their athletes taking over in the second half. Texas Tech was probably the best team Michigan faced all year, Beilein said, and they looked it in the second half.
U-M wasn’t going to win this game without its stars bringing their ‘A’ games. This team had always had its deficiencies (especially on offense), but junior point guard Zavier Simpson has usually been able to find ways to win. It’s what he does, Beilein said earlier this year. He’s a pit bull who eventually beats his opponent against the odds. On Thursday, however, the house finally won. Simpson was held scoreless with four turnovers against only one assist, and he was flustered, something that doesn’t happen very often.
"That was the scouting report we heard from the different people that played them during this year, that you're going to be amazed at how quick they are, how good they are at staying in front of people and how they rally to the ball, which usually gives us open threes … and you still can't get open threes,” Beilein said of Tech’s defense. “They really have a great plan, which we don't see much … really pushing everything to the baseline. We just weren't good at that. We picked up our dribble. A lot of things we worked on in the two days that we practiced for this, and we couldn't get far enough against a team that has been practicing that defense for six months, really.”
It was stunning in that it’s usually Beilein's teams frustrating opponents in tournament play, not the other way around. Many expected the Wolverines, down eight at the break after an abysmal half, would have an answer, pull closer and play a neck-and-neck game with the Red Raiders to the finish.
Theo Mackie, The Michigan Daily: The night nothing went right for Michigan
Amid an eerie silence, bowed heads and tear-filled eyes, one telling phrase rang through the Michigan locker room:
“Bad day to have a bad day.”
It came from Jordan Poole. It came from Jon Teske. It came from Isaiah Livers.
Most of all, it came from Luke Yaklich, the Wolverines’ defensive mastermind of an assistant coach who watched his carefully curated pièce de résistance get shredded in a humiliating, 63-44, season-ending loss at the hands of Texas Tech.
Yaklich got the phrase from Dan Muller, the head coach at Illinois State during Yaklich’s four-year tenure with the Red Birds. Muller, though, never had to use it to explain the abrupt end of a season that had started 17-0 and nearly peaked in the nation’s top ranking.
Thursday night in Anaheim, Yaklich had to do exactly that. The explanation included crediting the Red Raiders — “Because Texas Tech’s really good,” he responded when asked why the Wolverines couldn’t climb back into the game. As well as a requisite dose of frustration: “The rubber ball didn’t hit the iron rim the right way for us tonight.”
But to those around Yaklich, the “why” didn’t matter. As Yaklich spoke, junior point guard Zavier Simpson vehemently did not.
The junior point guard sat in Yaklich’s shadow with his head buried deep in his hands, shrouded by a March Madness towel. He faced toward his locker but his head was fixated on the ground, leaving only his back visible to onlookers as his stifled tears spread through the room.
Back on the court, Simpson kept his poise for as long as possible, broadcasting the message of, “We’re gonna win this game” through every Wolverines’ huddle.
But every time Simpson’s message seemed ready to come to fruition, Michigan’s hole only worsened.
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