When upwards of 10,000 fans regularly pack into arenas to watch one of college basketball’s most competitive conferences, it’s no surprise that winning on the road in the Big Ten is hard.
“If you want to be a good team, win on the road,” Michigan assistant coach Phil Martelli said Wednesday. “You want to be a postseason team? Win on the road. You want to move up into the bye area in the Big Ten? Win on the road. That’s our intention in preparing to win on the road.”
And so far, the Wolverines haven’t been able to do so. Visiting Michigan State, Iowa, Maryland and Penn State, Michigan has come up short time and time again, posting a 1-4 away record thus far and slipping further down the Big Ten standings with each loss, now sitting at 10th.
With the exception of last Sunday’s game in State College, the Wolverines don’t get blown out on the road, though. Each loss — to Michigan State and Maryland by just six points apiece and to Iowa in an improbable and excruciating overtime period — proves Michigan is capable of playing close games on their opponents’ floor. It just hasn’t been able to win them.
“On the road, play for the silence and don’t play to the noise,” Martelli said. “I can’t say that we’ve played to the noise, we haven’t played nervous. (We) just haven’t played well enough on the road. … This is the opportunity.”
That opportunity comes against Northwestern — a team that the Wolverines put away at home last month, 85-78. Having previously played this season, Michigan knows what it’s going to see against the Wildcats.
It knows that guards Boo Buie and Chase Audige are going to constantly try score. It knows that Northwestern is going to switch screens aggressively. It knows that Audige — averaging 2.57 steals per game, good for fifth in the NCAA — and the rest of the Wildcats are lurking, always ready to pick someone’s pocket or jump a passing lane in hopes of forcing turnovers that lead to fastbreak points.
“Sometimes turnovers you say ‘OK, well that turnover was caused because of the press and you threw it out of bounds,’ ” Martelli said. “No no no, (Northwestern) is actively and aggressively seeking to steal your ball.”
The Wildcats did all that in Ann Arbor last time. Buie and Audige combined for 30 points, albeit making just 11 of their 32 shot attempts, and Northwestern harassed the Wolverines’ guards with relentless switching and aggressive on-ball defense. Michigan finished the game with 18 turnovers as freshman guard Dug McDaniel and sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin combined for eight of those.
But the Wolverines handled that pressure at home and walked away with the win. This time, Michigan is going to have to find that success on the road, something it hasn’t done yet. After the Wolverines trounced Maryland, 81-46, at home Jan. 1, they lost just three weeks later in College Park. After beating Penn State in Crisler Jan. 4, they lost Sunday in Happy Valley.
As road woes continue to ail Michigan, though, it isn’t letting them affect its mindset. Leading up to Thursday, Martelli stressed that the Wolverines remain focused solely on the game in front of it:
“It’s all about this day, and not what could happen in two weeks, what happened over the last two weeks or over the last two games.”
And if they stay focused on one game at a time, Martelli says the answer to winning road games is right in front of them:
“As much as people can say ‘play harder’ or ‘play tougher’, you know what it really is?
“Play better.”