January 6, Evanston, Ill. - The Big Ten season is a week old and already there is confirmation of some verities in college basketball, particularly the Big Ten. In a Big Ten Conference race playing on the road is a major hazard. Few teams have the maturity and experience to win consistently on the road. The recent Illinois championship runs all were accomplished with remarkable and rare road records. Seldom do the good teams run the table on the road. Another truth is the importance of senior leadership. Seniors are growing rarer as many of the really good players leave early for the NBA. Finally, most of the Big Ten championship teams had quality point guards. Without a consummate point guard in the mold of Deron Williams, Scoonie Penn, or Mateen Cleaves, you probably will not win the number of big games that are musts in a successful championship run. A corallary to all three of these important, time tested truths is that young, inexperienced teams most often struggle during their first year, particularly when they go on the road. There are exceptions to these verities and we may be seeing an exception this year with the very young, but fast maturing Buckeyes.
Now for the report from the sidelines of Michigan’s 58-46 win over Northwestern. Michigan has the most senior line-up in the conference since they often start four seniors, as they did Saturday. These seniors struggled mightily even though the final score suggested that they had a relatively easy time of it. Only two points separated the teams with less than 7 minutes to go in the second half, and, had it not been for a number of missed lay-ups and open threes during the final minutes by the Cats, this game could have gone easily to the Cats. Michigan did not demonstrate the maturity and confidence one expects from seasoned seniors.
Michigan is loaded with talented althletes, and they were obviously superior to the athleticism on the Northwestern team. But they continued to struggle to find ways to slash and cut their way towards the basket for easy shots throughout the game. A lot of their points came from offensive rebounds, missed outside shots. Had the Wolverines come with a game plan to work the ball into the paint so they could exploit their superior athleticism, the outcome would have been decided early in the first half since the Wildcats have no answers for this style of basketball. In essence, the Wildcats controlled the pace of the game until late in the second half.
This brings me to another observation about the Michigan team. They have no point guard. None of their players demonstrated any of the point guard instincts and capabilities. A slick point guard who is able to penetrate the defenses and set up the very athletic leapers for easy lay-ups and putt shots would go a long way towards enabling the Wolverines to exploit their superior athleticism in the paint.
Freshman Reed Baker came off the bench to lead them in scoring and he is an impressive outside shooter, by far the best on the Wolverine team. One only knows why he is not a starter on this poor outside shooting team, the poorest outside shooting team in the conference.
With all of these shortcomings, how did Michigan win? The Cat defense were effective in keeping Michigan on the perimeter for three/quarters of the game. The Wolverines had no game plan for working the ball into the paint to exploit their talent superiority. The Cats outside shooting was off and while they had some success in getting open for some easy inside shots, they missed many of them. But their offensive production deteriorated significantly in the second half as they shot only 19.2 percent.
A major factor in the lack of offensive production in the second half was some poor bench management by Coach Carmody. He played his two seniors and an experienced sophomore nearly the entire game. One of the reasons they did not shoot well, particularly in the second half, is that these three players were dead tired. A key substitution for each of these three in both the first and second halves could have made a difference. Vince Scott played all 40 minutes and he was pulling at his shorts for much of the second half.
For Cat fans this was a huge wake-up game. The 10 non-conference wins have the fans talking of an NIT or an NCAA invitation. Those hopes should have been dashed by this game as the Cats were unable to take advantage of a Michigan team that showed little interest in making a statement as a legitimate contender in the conference race.
For Michigan fans, expect the Wolverines to have some disappointing losses on the road. While this is a senior team, they do not play like seasoned veterans and they suffer mightily from the missing point guard. Michigan probably will get a NCAA bid, but don’t expect these Wolverines to pull of a repeat of the 1989 national champions.
Northwestern will be very fortunate to win even a small number of their home games. And fans who are thinking of post-season game travel should take a cold shower since this team does not have that potential.
Gunner Scharer writes:
Nice article.
A Wisconsin Update. After away game with Marquette and battles with with Pitt and Georgia, the Badgers are in good shape for a Big Ten run-top 4 by the charts! What has been noticed in the wins is (1) terrific defense and (2) that someone besides Alando Tucker has made the difference. Marcus Landry coming off the bench was critical in the wins at Marquette and Georgia. Pitt didn’t realize Butch had a sweet 3 pointer if not watched closely so he went wild and piled up plenty of rebounds. Winning the close ones-Winthrop in OT and a close Georgia game til the end were the
difference and build poise for the Big Ten. More fouls and turnovers by opponents haunt their opponents in the endgame. The big games for the Badgers if they don’t get too confident should be the away games with OSU, ILL, MSU and Indiana.
Left by TD Lawlor on January 10th, 2007