At first, it appeared No. 14 Michigan would run John Calipari’s Arkansas team out of Madison Square Garden. Thanks to quick scoring bursts from Nimari Burnett and Will Tschetter in the first half, the Wolverines jumped out to a 15-point lead with just over six minutes to play in the first frame.
Then, though, the Razorbacks fought back. Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, after the game, admitted that the team got a bit “complacent” after building their comfortable lead, and Arkansas had all of the momentum late in the first half, which carried over after the teams broke for halftime.
To begin the second half, Boogie Fland and D.J. Wagner made shot after shot, and on the other end of the floor, the Wolverines continued to shoot themselves in the foot with turnovers.
“Elite players force you to break down,” May said of Fland and Wagner after the game. “… I thought they made really good plays. Obviously we made some errors. We weren’t physical enough. They made some tough shots. … When elite players step up and make elite plays, we’re not talking about those. Obviously we always want to do a little bit better. We need to control the things — the turnovers, the defensive glass — much better if we’re going to be able to win these NCAA Tournament-type of games.”
Arkansas’ lead ballooned to 18 points midway through the second half, but a sudden change in momentum resulted in Michigan clawing its way back into the game.
Down one with less than a minute on the game clock, Michigan had the ball with a chance to take the lead, but Tre Donaldson stepped out of bounds, committing arguably the most costly turnover of the season — and there’s a large library to choose from.
On the next possession, Dusty May drew up an inbounds play for Danny Wolf to find Roddy Gayle Jr. on a backdoor cut. Ironically, though, Johnell Davis — May’s former star at Florida Atlantic — interrupted the pass and blew up the play, leading Calipari’s team to a sensational 89-87 victory.
After the game, May described what went wrong for the Wolverines in the loss. The main topic was turnovers, of which the Wolverines committed 17.
“The turnovers, emotionally, are deflating for us. When you get a quality look, even if you miss it, you’re in the flow of the game. When you turn it over, everyone kind of feels dejected, and then you don’t have the same sense of urgency on the defensive end.”
“(The turnovers) are coming in such an assortment of ways that it’s hard to identify what’s the most important thing. We’ve figured out a few things. Once again, I thought their physicality, speed, quickness definitely has an impact on turning the ball over.”
Michigan entered the contest averaging 15.1 turnovers per game, which is tied with Colorado and Virginia Tech for 334th in the nation. On Tuesday, the Wolverines’ 17 turnovers upped the season average to 15.3, which would put them in a tie with Stetson, UC Davis and Grambling.
Turnovers have been the story of the season so far for May’s squad, but the Michigan head coach is confident things will turn around.
“We’ve got to get more consistent with our approach. This team is still learning to win together as a group, and (I’m) very confident we’re going to take the lessons we learned tonight and apply them going forward.”
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