Michigan Struggles Again in 68-66 Loss to Alabama

By Sean · Monday, November 30, 2009 · 5:50 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Michigan was the favorite to win the Old Spice Classic before the tournament started, and even though it barely escaped an upset and beat Creighton in overtime, the hope was to at least make it to the championship game.  Marquette quickly eliminated any thought of that happening, but Michigan still had a chance to save face and finish 2-1 if it beat Alabama on Sunday.  Well, that turned out to be another expectation that wasn’t lived up to, because Alabama shook off a slow start and ended up winning 68-66 after Darius Morris had a last-second shot blocked.  The loss means that Michigan went 1-2 in Florida, which is very disappointing.  In the grand scheme of things it is a great learning opportunity for the team and evidence that fans’ expectations need to be lowered a bit, but there’s no doubt that 1-2 was not the anticipated outcome of the Old Spice Classic.

Sunday’s game actually got off to a great start for Michigan.  Alabama was turning the ball over like crazy, allowing Michigan to jump out to a double-digit lead.  Once ‘Bama started making shots instead of turning the ball over, however, things evened up quite a bit.  Michigan went cold, especially from three-point land, and by halftime Michigan’s lead had been cut to only 5 points.

The start of the second half was similar to the start of the first, as Michigan went on a bit of a run on a couple occasions and led by as many as 8 points.  Just like the first half, though, Alabama came back, and with around 7:30 left in the game, the Crimson Tide took their first lead of the game.  For the next few minutes Michigan and Alabama traded the lead.  Alabama then jumped out to a lead of as many as 5 points before Michigan made a comeback of its own and went up by 1 with around one minute left.  ‘Bama tied the game at 66 thanks to a free throw, and following an awful, forced three-pointer by Manny Harris, the Crimson Tide took the lead on a put-back dunk.  With only 5 seconds left, Michigan needed to quickly put something together, but all it ended up with out of a timeout was Darius Morris driving from coast to coast to get a shot blocked.  Why Manny Harris didn’t end up with the ball is beyond me, but Morris took it to the hoop and was rejected as time expired, giving Alabama a 68-66 win.

Similar to the Marquette game, Manny Harris basically carried the team on his back against Alabama, scoring 26 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.  DeShawn Sims did score 16 points, but he and Manny were the only two players on the team to have a double-digit amount of points.  Also similar to the Marquette game, Zack Gibson played well off the bench, going 3-3 from the field and scoring 6 points, but the rest of the team didn’t do very much.  That was evident in the three-point statistic, as Michigan went 6-25 from behind the arc.  Anytime Michigan goes cold from three-point land against a decent team it will result in a loss more often than not, so to get things turned around the Wolverines will have to start shooting better.

Michigan’s first chance to end this two-game losing streak will be on Wednesday against Boston College.  The Golden Eagles will come to Crisler Arena as part of the Big Ten/ACC challenge, and the game can be seen on ESPN2 at 7:30 p.m.