Michigan basketball shows it’s very good, but with one fix it could soon be great

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The 2024-25 college basketball season officially is at the quarter pole and Michigan basketball has shown enough evidence to know two things.

First, this is a really good basketball team.

As much has shown to be the case over the last four weeks when U-M has put together its seven-game winning streak. The run continued Saturday, when U-M survived Iowa 85-83 at Crisler Center — despite a late 10-2 push by the Hawkeyes over the final two minutes — helped by a Payton Sandfort game-tying 3-pointer with 20 seconds left.

Instead of panicking, coach Dusty May called a timeout and drew up a play. U-M got exactly what it wanted. The Wolverines used Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin as decoys and got the handoff from Tre Donaldson to Roddy Gayle.

From there, Gayle − one of five Michigan players in double figures − drove the lane and was credited with the game-winning layup on a goal-tending call with 4.3 seconds left. It proved to be the difference as Michigan (8-1) opened Big Ten play at 2-0 for the first time in four years. A very good team to be sure.

The second aspect we learned of this team is that it has a ceiling. The limiting factor? Turnovers. According to KenPom, Michigan is No. 336 (out of 355 NCAA Division I teams) in turning the ball over on 21.4% of its possessions and No. 350 on non-steal turnovers.

This has led to the opponent consistently having more opportunities than the Wolverines.

That was the case again Saturday as Michigan lost the turnover margin 17-4, leading to a monstrous 19-2 advantage for Iowa in points off of giveaways. In other words, Michigan won the game in the half-court 83-62 but still had to sweat out a game-winning shot attempt by Iowa at the buzzer.

Michigan head coach Dusty May reacts to a play against Iowa during the second half at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024.

“If we can figure out a way to fix this turnover issue — and it’s got to be all hands on deck, got to be the coaches, the players, managers, everybody involved has…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-basketball-shows-very-good-235030057.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2024-12-07 23:50:00

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