Michigan’s Shooting Goes Ice Cold in 55-51 Loss to Penn State

By Sean · Monday, February 22, 2010 · 2:18 AM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Inconsistency has plagued Michigan sports in this academic year, and the basketball team exemplified that on Saturday.  After winning two straight road games, Michigan returned to Crisler Arena for a matchup with Penn State, the worst team in the Big Ten.  This was a matchup that favored Michigan big time, and the expectation was for Michigan to extend its winning streak to three games.  What ended up happening instead?  In typical Michigan fashion, the Wolverines struggled mightily and despite the fact that Penn State only scored 4 points — yes 4 points — in the final 9:57 of the game, the Nittany Lions ended up winning 55-51.

This game got off to a slow start, but Michigan jumped out to a 9-point lead multiple times.  The problem was Penn State battled back each time, once from a score of 15-6 and once from a score of 27-18.  The first comeback culminated with Penn State taking the lead after it went on a 10-0 run.  Michigan came right back and went on a 12-2 run thanks to 2 threes by Manny Harris, 1 by Zack Novak, and a three-point play by Stu Douglass (he actually went to the hoop for a change) to take a 27-18 lead.  Keeping with the tone of this being a half of runs, though, Penn State countered by outscoring Michigan 11-2 to finish the half, tying the game at 29.

In the second half, things were pretty even for the first five or so minutes of play, but Penn State changed that with a 7-0 run to go up 48-41.  5 points of that run came right after Zombie Nation was played and “We Own Penn State” was chanted despite the fact that Michigan was losing at the time.  It wasn’t exactly the greatest timing for that song to be played (the same goes for Temptation and the “You Suck” chant  when Michigan was down in the final part of the game), especially considering PSU eventually managed to extend its lead to 9 points with 7:50 left on the clock.

At this point Penn State led 53-44, and the Nittany Lions only ended up scoring 2 more points in the rest of the game.  This gave Michigan a chance to make a comeback, and the Wolverines Manny Harris did just that, hitting a three and a two and eventually following that up with a steal and an uncontested dunk.  Manny’s 7-0 run brought Michigan within 2 points of Penn State, but it just couldn’t close that gap.  Penn State continued to miss shots and give Michigan plenty of opportunities to tie the game, but the Wolverines couldn’t make anything either.  PSU finally did make a shot with 14 seconds left to extend the lead to 4 points, and Michigan’s debacle of a finish came to an end with Manny Harris missing a three and the front end of a 1-and-1.

Considering Manny Harris was the only Michigan player to score any points in the final 11 or so minutes of the game, it’s no surprise he led the team in scoring with 20 points.  DeShawn Sims was the only other player to score in double digits, ending the game with 10 points.  Stu Douglass and Zack Novak both went 1-6 from three-point land in this game.  Douglass had 8 points and Novak finished with 7.  Darius Morris had 5 points, and the only other Michigan player to score was Zack Gibson, who made a free throw in 4 minutes of action.  Laval Lucas-Perry played 19 minutes and continued to stink it up at Crisler Arena, missing all 5 shots he took (they were all three-pointers).  I don’t know what it is about Crisler Arena, but LLP just does not shoot the ball well at home.

Shooting problems obviously weren’t just limited to LLP.  The entire team was awful on Saturday, shooting a dismal 35.8% from the field (19-53) and an even more dismal 21.4% from behind the arc (6-28).  Outside of Manny Harris, who went 4-10 from three-point land, the rest of the team shot an embarrassing 11.1% from behind the arc (2-18). Penn State didn’t exactly shoot the ball all that well either, but it most definitely did compared to Michigan, which was just ice cold all game long.

Michigan has four games left in the regular season, and an NIT bid is looking more and more like a long shot after what happened against Penn State.  Illinois comes to Crisler Arena on Tuesday (7 p.m. on ESPN), and Michigan travels to Columbus to play Ohio State on Saturday.  The Buckeyes just beat Michigan State in East Lansing on Sunday and are 11-3 since losing to Michigan (without Evan Turner) on January 3.  After that Michigan will play Minnesota in its final regular season home game on March 2 and wrap up the regular season at Michigan State on March 7.

Illinois is on a 2-game losing streak after back-to-back wins over Michigan State and Wisconsin, but those losses came to Purdue and Ohio State.  Not that this isn’t already obvious, but Michigan is going to have to bring its “A” game to get a win on Tuesday.  The Minnesota game is probably Michigan’s best chance for a win coming down the homestretch, because the Illinois game will be tough and I certainly don’t see the Wolverines winning at Ohio State or at Michigan State.  Then again, this team is so inconsistent that it could pull off an upset on the road and drop the home game against Minnesota, so who knows.