The shift in Michigan basketball‘s vibes from January to March is nearly palpable.
As the Wolverines near the Big Ten tournament on the verge of earning a double-bye — despite a 20-point beatdown by Illinois (in which U-M allowed 19 offensive boards and 30 second-chance points and Wednesday’s six-point loss to Maryland (in which 16 turnovers became 21 Terp points) — they’re suddenly reeling in a way they weren’t in the midst of the early winter’s six-game win streak.
Sure, Michigan was still turning the ball over too much and struggling on the glass then, as well, but as head coach Dusty May said, the team was making enough shots to cover up those warts. In the past nine games, however, U-M has shot 35% or worse beyond the arc, and the struggles have begun to catch up with the group.
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“It’s just a confidence thing,” U-M big Danny Wolf said. “I have all the confidence in myself. I have all the confidence in my teammates and my coaches. (But) when the ball’s not going in, and you have a few games back-to-back-to-back, that rim seems smaller and smaller, and you’ve just got to see a few go in.
“Confidence just comes from yourself and I have nothing but trust and confidence in my teammates.”
This isn’t Wolf’s first time dealing with a loss of confidence among his teammates.
Last year, just as the calendar flipped to March, Wolf and his then-teammates at Yale were floundering, following an overtime senior day loss to Brown on a buzzer-beater that cost the Bulldogs the Ivy League regular-season championship.
It was crushing, but Wolf remembers a phrase that rallied his teammates — one that May also leaned on after Michigan’s lopsided Purdue loss in January.
“We saw a fork in the road and we were gonna go one way or the other,” Wolf said. “But we came together as a team and we were like, ‘Everything we still want as a team is ahead of us.’ ”
It wasn’t easy for the Bulldogs, though.
Yale rebounded with a win in the Ivy League tourney semis for a rematch with Brown in the championship game. Down six with 27 seconds left in that one, the Bulldogs cut it to one with 14 seconds to play. Following a pair of missed Brown free throws, Yale’s Matt Knowling hit a baseline floater at the buzzer to send the Bulldogs into the NCAA tourney, where they rode the momentum to upset SEC tournament champ Auburn (and Wolf’s future teammate, Tre Donaldson) in the first round.
“I kind of told that to my teammates after the game tonight,” Wolf said. “I’m like, ‘Look, guys, like best part of college basketball is ahead of us. And we have all the talent, we have the coaching, we have everything we need. So it’s just about guys coming together and just staying confident in what we’re doing.’
“I’m just excited to see what we can do these next few weeks.”
As Wolf said, Michigan has talent. But if it is to make a run, it will start with flipping a switch on offense.
Over its past five games, Michigan is averaging 95 points per 100 possessions, well below the national average of 106 this season. Blame the 3-point shooting: Michigan has hit just 28.4% on 3s across its past 13 games to fall to 31.4% in conference play — 17th in the Big Ten (out of 18 teams). Also, turning the ball over more than any other team in the Big Ten doesn’t help matters.
“Obviously, you could say it’s the wrong time of the year (to be playing badly),” Wolf said. “We were in the hunt for a Big Ten championship, and at this point, we need a few things to happen for that to happen. (But) eventually, we’re due for a good shooting game, and I’m happy that it’s going to come at some point in March.
“At some point the lid’s going to fall off the rim for some of the guys. So, just excited for when that happens.”
There’s also the chance the schedule is simply catching up with U-M. Over their first 18 games, the Wolverines faced only four teams currently ranked among the top 40 per KenPom (and just one in nonconference play, No. 39 Arkansas, which topped U-M by two points in New York in December). In their final 13 games of the regular season — counting Sunday’s matchup with Michigan — the Wolverines will face eight top-40 foes.
“We need to get back to playing good team basketball,” May said, after his team lost consecutive games for the first time since mid-December. “We need to be more connected as a group. … This is the most adversity this group has faced, and so we’ll learn a lot about ourselves here these next few weeks.”
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball taking lesson from Danny Wolf run at Yale
