BY NICOLE AUERBACH
Daily Sports Editor
Published February 21, 2010
These days, it’s almost not worth asking Michigan coach John Beilein if his team's most recent loss is frustrating. For that matter, it’s not worth asking any of his players the question, either.
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The answer is always, “Yes,” followed often by silence and a gloomy look, more dispirited than angry.
Penn State’s 55-51 victory over Michigan on Saturday — its second Big Ten win of the season — was just the latest salt added to the wound that is the Wolverines' 2009-10 campaign. And it became another addition to the growing list of frustrating losses.
“There’s no question about it,” Beilein said in the postgame press conference. “Sometimes, you’re helpless, you’re absolutely helpless in it — and I know those times are helpless. But I know we’re capable of more.”
The Wolverines shot 35 percent from the field and just 21 percent from beyond the arc. And Michigan didn’t make much of its misses, failing to scramble to collect offensive rebounds. Excluding senior forward DeShawn Sims, who pulled down two on one play, the team combined for just five offensive boards. The defensive glass wasn’t much better, and the Nittany Lions outrebounded the Wolverines by 14.
Penn State, the team sitting at the bottom of the Big Ten rankings, went ice cold late in the second half. The Nittany Lions were held scoreless for more than seven minutes near the end of the game, and they scored just two points in the final 7:50.
But those two points came to Penn State on its most critical possession of the game, with under a minute to play in regulation. After 39 minutes dominated by streaky shooting and scoring on both sides, the Nittany Lions clung to a two-point lead as the clock ticked down.
The Crisler Arena crowd expected Penn State to give the ball to its star, junior guard Talor Battle, for the shot that could put the game away. But he dished the ball to junior forward Jeff Brooks.
“I know I definitely expected (Battle) to take the shot,” junior guard Manny Harris said. “(Brooks) stepped up, made a big shot — credit him. I wish it would have went the other way, but it didn’t. That’s it.”
Brooks’s mid-range jumper put Penn State up four points with 14 seconds left, which proved to be an insurmountable lead.
“I think we had good looks, we just missed shots,” said Harris, whose personal 7-0 run brought the Wolverines within two before Brooks’s shot. “They made big plays.”
Before Saturday’s game, this matchup didn’t look like it would come down to the wire. The Nittany Lions had just earned their first victory in conference play, and they hadn’t won a game at Crisler in more than a decade. Meanwhile, Michigan had just reeled off two straight road wins for the first time in the Beilein era. But after a four-day layoff, the momentum didn’t seem to carry over into Saturday’s game against Penn State (2-12 Big Ten, 10-16 overall). That, in itself, was a cause for frustration.
“Very irritating,” Harris said. “We’re all disappointed.”
Saturday’s loss marked the seventh time this season that Michigan (6-8, 13-13) has lost a game by fewer than six points. Missed shots down the stretch, not making a key stop with 14 seconds left in regulation — it was all too familiar to Beilein.
“This is a perfect example isn’t it? A perfect example,” he said.
And now, with hopes of any postseason bid dwindling with each defeat, the rhetoric has finally changed. It used to be about the NCAA Tournament, then it was about taking it one game at a time.
Now, it’s about looking toward next year.
“We just continue to work at it and know that it’s just great fertilizer for the future,” Beilein said. “It teaches our guys, it teaches me, it teaches everybody how to be a better team.”
