Every team has strengths and weaknesses. But it’s not normal for those to change every game.
Prior to the Michigan men’s basketball team’s matchup with Northwestern, it boasted an average of just 7.4 turnovers per game. But after the Wildcats decimated the poise that the Wolverines had prided themselves on all season, that number has rocketed to 10 per game.
Michigan may have come away with the win, but in the process, it notched 18 turnovers — a new season high. Northwestern exposed a facet of the game that the Wolverines seemed to have on lockdown. And right now, that has major implications.
“Jace Howard pointed (the turnovers) out at halftime and was screaming at us,” freshman wing Jett Howard said after the Northwestern matchup. “And it’s like, man, we’re one of the top four teams in the country in fewest turnovers. … He was like ‘What’s going on? Like, this is not us.’ ”
Michigan doesn’t have many things on lock. Its success in almost every element of the game fluctuates from matchup to matchup. Against Maryland and Penn State, the Wolverines looked unfazed on the offensive end, easily outscoring both of their opponents. But against Michigan State, Michigan floundered from behind the arc, shooting a measly 15% from deep — an area that once looked like an established piece of its game.
The same can be seen on the defensive end. Against Iowa, the Wolverines struggled to stop key scorers, allowing two Hawkeyes players to score more than 20 points apiece. But against the Spartans — even in a loss — Michigan played lockdown defense, holding Michigan State to just 59 points.
Eighteen turnovers in one game is indicative of a bigger problem plaguing the Wolverines. They haven’t yet pieced it all together, at least not yet. Their constant identity fluctuation confirms they’re still figuring it out.
Each game reveals a new success and a new failure. The team keyed in on fixing rebounding after its upset loss to Central Michigan, and hasn’t been outrebounded since. And auto-benching due to foul trouble hadn’t been a problem prior to the Michigan State matchup, but at Breslin Center’s raucous environment, it plagued Michigan in its loss.
Every game there’s a new issue, and they’re often things the Wolverines have hung their hats on through tough losses. Rebounding, shooting, defense, turnovers — they’re all buzzwords that have come up time and time again in post game pressers. Michigan sits at a 10-7 overall record despite showing success in every facet of the game at one point or another, and seemingly finds a new weakness every week.
“I mean, if you really look at it, if like 10 to 12 points go the other way, we’re sitting at like a 13-1 (record),” junior center Hunter Dickinson said after the Penn State game on Jan. 4. “And that’s really how close this season is from being like a top five team in the country.”
Even players like Dickinson, who are veterans on this young team, don’t seem to have the answers.
And while it’s typical for every team to fluctuate throughout the season, the Wolverines’ peaks and valleys are too drastic to lead to any long term success. They make each and every game a battle against themselves to find any middle ground.
Fortunately for Michigan, the turnovers are quite possibly circumstantial. Against the Wildcats, the Wolverines had three freshmen on the floor for a majority of the game. Howard and freshman guard Dug McDaniel made up a sizable portion of Michigan’s backcourt. And freshman forward Tarris Reed was worked into the rotation alongside Dickinson, a lineup the Wolverines are expected to utilize more often.
But while the three freshmen held their own for most of the game, their inexperience still showed. Making multiple silly plays, the game just hasn’t yet slowed down enough for the freshmen to consistently remain calm under pressure.
Whether it was a bounce pass into the post that slipped through Reed’s fingers or a dribble handoff around the perimeter that McDaniel mishandled, the chemistry is still building between the young team.
“That’s a part of the growing pains,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said. “Those mistakes that we’re making, hopefully by the end of the year we won’t make the same mistakes.”
The Wolverines’ need to sort themselves out grows more apparent every day. With the bulk of Big Ten play just on the horizon, Michigan needs to cement its identity in something. Whether it ends up being turnover margin, rebounding, shooting or any other category the Wolverines have shown success in — it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is that they do so soon.