Big Ten Finally Defeats ACC No Thanks to Michigan

By Sean · Thursday, December 3, 2009 · 8:07 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

The Big Ten got the three wins it needed on Wednesday to finally win the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, and two of them came from unexpected teams.  Ohio State won comfortably over Florida State as expected, but the other favorite from the Big Ten, Michigan, laid an egg against Boston College.  That put the Big Ten in rough shape, but luckily Illinois and Wisconsin pulled off a couple of great upsets.  Despite trailing by 23 points in the second half, Illinois managed to hang on to a 2-point win at Clemson, and Wisconsin controlled its game against Duke and staved off a late comeback by the Blue Devils to win.  Wisconsin’s win was really the deciding game for the Big Ten, because at the time Ohio State was already well on its way to a victory.  Although the Buckeyes’ win made it official, the Big Ten was able to celebrate its first ever triumph over the ACC after the Badgers won.

It’s a good thing Wisconsin and Illinois won their games, because Michigan would have been the goat if the Big Ten lost this thing by a single game.  I say that because Michigan was favored to win its game, and going into Wednesday night it looked like a Michigan victory was going to be a necessity for the Big Ten to get to five wins.  In the end that wasn’t the case, but man, Michigan sure was disappointing, losing its third straight game thanks to a 62-58 defeat at the hands of Boston College.  The score was not at all reflective of the game itself, because Boston College was in control for most of the night.  Michigan did make a comeback attempt late in the second half, but more poor shooting and poor play in general led to a win for the Golden Eagles.

Just like in the Old Spice Classic, Michigan could not hit a three-pointer to save its life against Boston College.  To make matters worse, Michigan was struggling from inside the arc as well, sometimes having trouble just making a layup.  It was a frustrating game to watch for sure, especially when Michigan cut the lead down to 6 points with just under two minutes remaining in the second half.  This came after Michigan was down by 17 points with around five minutes left in the game.  Michigan finally got it together at that point thanks to back-to-back threes by Zack Gibson, and the Wolverines went on an 11-0 run to cut the lead down to 6.  Michigan had a chance to get the game within one possession with more than a minute left on the clock, but it ended up missing 4 shots on one possession.  Boston College finally got the ball back and that was basically the game.  The overall theme of the game was poor shooting, and no moment showed off Michigan’s struggles more than a possession that included 4 missed shots.

As usual, Manny Harris led Michigan in scoring, netting 19 points on the night.  He was the only player to score in double digits, which pretty much says it all as far as how this game went.  Zack Gibson and Zack Novak both had 9 points, but this was just a collectively bad effort by the entire team.  From three-point land, Michigan shot a dismal 26.5% (9-34), and from the field it shot 32.3% (21-65).  Michigan even had trouble making free throws, going 7-11 from the line.  Manny Harris finally started making both free throws on a couple trips toward the end of the game, but before that Michigan was seemingly only making a single free throw during each trip to the line.

I don’t know what has happened to this team, but winning games against decent teams is going to be tough unless Michigan starts making shots, especially from three-point land.  I guess losing streaks like this shouldn’t be surprising when a team that relies on the three as much as Michigan goes cold for an extended period of time, but this team is beyond bad right now on both sides of the ball.  Sure, the offense has been downright terrible for a good part of the last week or so, but the defense is just as concerning.  Perhaps we all underestimated the impact of losing C.J. Lee and David Merritt, because Michigan’s defense has been really bad during this losing streak.  Opposing players are getting way too many open looks and are having way too easy of a time driving to the hoop.  Boston College’s Corey Raji ended up with 24 points last night, and he only made 2 free throws and didn’t sink a single three-pointer.  It seemed like he was making all of the mid-range shots he took, but he also was able to get to the hoop way too often.

Looking at the schedule, Michigan will get a chance to get things turned around on Saturday against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.  This is a game Michigan should win in blowout fashion, but at this point I just want to see the team shoot well and play good defense.  This cold streak has to end Saturday, because Michigan goes to Utah next Wednesday to play a tough game against the Utes.  Michigan then comes back home a week from Saturday to play Detroit before gearing up for a game at #1 Kansas a week later.

I don’t want to start panicking since it is only the third day of December, but considering how tough the rest of the schedule is — both the non-conference and conference portions — Michigan needs to stop losing.  Talk is going to begin to shift from what seed Michigan will have in the NCAA tournament to if Michigan will even make the field of 65 teams.  Like I said, it’s still a little early to be panicking, but the fact of the matter is the losses are starting to pile up.  If Michigan doesn’t put a stop to its losing ways soon, it may take an unbelievable run in the Big Ten to ensure a tournament berth for the second straight year.  I may be looking too far ahead, but as you can tell, I’m a little concerned about the rest of the season based on Michigan’s play in its last few games.