Gatlin Bair, a 2024 four-star wide receiver,The Michigan men’s basketball team hangs with their opponent in the first half before crumbling in the second. Each of those collapses follows a more particular pattern: Michigan’s opponent nearly always goes on a crushing run, leaving the Wolverines in their dust.
Penn State outscored the Wolverines 14–5. Illino
And with each one, a rising sense of skepticism emerges whenever Michigan’s opponents string together even a few baskets. With each run, it only adds up.
“I believe it’s the doubt when a team makes a run,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard explained. “We must avoid the mindset of blaming others for not performing their duties.
is leads 17-2. Iowa leads 14-0. Michigan State leads 12-0. And in their loss to Rutgers on Saturday, 18-2 over the final sevents of Oregon over Michigan.
However, the moment opponents string baskets together and scores become runs, the ‘here we go again’ mentality takes over. It won even against the Scarlet Knights’ 300th-ranked offense in the country, which the Wolverines should have been able to stop — and did a lot in the first half. However, rather of capitalizing on a struggling opponent’s main weakness, they appeared to have forgotten basketball fundamentals.
They began to neglect to box out, allowing nine offensive rebounds in the second half and ten more total rebounds than in the first. They failed to play together, committing four bad-pass giveaways and a shot clock violation during the final 18-2 run. It happened against Rutgers in the same way it has throughout the season. When the lead fades, they devolve into five separate individuals who appear to have never played together.
It’s gotten so terrible that even players watching from home can see how disconnected those on the floor are.
“I remember (sophomore guard Dug McDaniel) saying one time while watching the game at home, ‘Man, we don’t look together,'” sophomore forward Tarris Reed Jr. said. “That struck a chord with me and many others on the team. Okay, how do we remedy that?
Despite knowing about the problem, Michigan had no idea how to solve it again on Saturday, even with McDaniel on the floor. When Rutgers’ attack came to life, all the Wolverines could think about was losing the lead and doubting their ability to stop the bleeding.
As a result of that dread, the double-digit loss and subsequent collapse became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“What heals the bleeding is pride,” Howard explained. “I am proud to have the mindset, and whatever play it is, it must be one in which you roll up your sleeves and get your knees filthy. … It became a compound mistake when the ball was not going in offensively, since you go into your thoughts and forget what to do on the
