Michigan Goes Ice Cold in Second Half, Loses to Northwestern 67-52

By Sean · Wednesday, February 3, 2010 · 10:03 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

The first half of last night’s game between Michigan and Northwestern was frustrating to watch from a defensive standpoint because the Wildcats were shooting absolutely lights out.  There was a stretch that saw them attempt and make a three-pointer on four straight trips down the court, leading to many moments of disbelief where all I could say is, “Really!?”  Offensively Michigan was able to keep up with Northwestern in the first half, but its shooting was streaky at best.  Then again, as it turned out, that was much better than what happened in the second half, where Michigan’s shooting went from streaky to nothing going in no matter how hard they tried.  The offense basically disappeared, and although Northwestern’s hot shooting cooled off a bit, Michigan was getting blown out of the building anyways.  By the end of the game Michigan managed to go from trailing by 5 at halftime to 17 at the final buzzer thanks to the awful offensive performance.  The final score was 67-52 in favor of the Wildcats, ending Michigan’s three-game winning streak in Evanston.

I felt pretty good about how things were going following the first half.  Michigan didn’t play all that great, but a couple big runs kept this game close despite how well Northwestern was shooting.  The start of the second half made it seem like both teams cooled off in a big way, but after a while it was evident only Michigan truly cooled off.  The Wolverines couldn’t buy a basket for most of the second half, and during that time Northwestern got things going again, allowing it to pull away and win in blowout fashion.  It was one of the most frustrating halves of basketball I’ve seen in a while, and that’s saying something.

For Michigan, its scoring was more balanced than usual, but that’s mainly because everybody struggled so much.  Manny Harris and Darius Morris led the team in scoring with 11 points, and then next in line on the boxscore were Stu Douglass with 8 points and Laval Lucas-Perry with 6 (2 threes).  Zack Novak had 5 points and Corey Person 1 in the final minutes.  The one name I haven’t mentioned yet is DeShawn Sims.  He had an awful game, scoring only 4 points and playing only 22 minutes because John Beilein showed him the bench.  All in all it was just a terrible day offensively, which is obvious when you see that Michigan shot 32.7% from the field, whereas Northwestern went 54.3% from the field and 50% from three-point land.

Next on the docket for Michigan is a home game on Saturday against Wisconsin, which is fresh off of destroying Michigan State last night.  Tip off is set for 4 p.m. on CBS.