Frigid finish sends Michigan basketball to 8th loss in 9 games after 88-78 loss to Iowa
The season went from bad to worse for Michigan basketball on Saturday.
The Wolverines entered having lost seven of their past eight, at home in desperate need of a victory to right the ship against one of the Big Ten's weaker teams thus far. Instead, the ship hit an iceberg of poor shooting, with U-M falling to Iowa, 88-78.
Michigan missed 11 of its final 12 shots, making just one field goal in the final 10 minutes.
Since it opened the season 3-0, Michigan has lost 13 of its 17 games. It may not get any better for the Wolverines, as a trip to Breslin Center in East Lansing to visit Michigan State — which lost to Wisconsin on the road Friday — looms Tuesday (9 p.m., Peacock).
So what went wrong?
"Letting the defense affect our offense," Nimari Bunett said. "I mean, I feel like it was a lot of open looks. I myself had a few, couple other guys had some looks that were great shots that we'll take any day.
"We're happy with 78 points, we're just not happy with the other team having 88."
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The Wolverines led most of the first half Saturday, building the lead up to nine at one point. But, as has been the case much of the season, they failed to hold the lead.
The Hawkeyes used an 18-2 run over a six-minute stretch, ending the first half and opening the second, to flip the momentum and take their own eight-point lead, 52-44, with 16:46 to play. After opening the second half with a three-point play, they never trailed again.
"They went on a 10-0 run," coach Juwan Howard said. "Just can't allow that, especially teams on the road, to give them life that way. The basket gets a little bit bigger."
U-M chipped the lead to two, 60-58, with 12:27 remaining after a Will Tschetter 3-pointer in the right corner followed a Jace Howard 3 from the same spot. But the Hawkeyes, led by Tony Perkins (whose 24 points nearly set a personal season high), got more separation with another 7-2 run.
U-M responded with a 6-0 run, which included a Olivier Nkamhoua free throw, a Tschetter transition layup and a 3-pointer from the left wing by Terrance Williams II with 10:06 to play to get within one. Iowa then scored five straight on a contested Payton Sandfort 3-pointer and a slashing Patrick McCaffrey layup to go back up by six.
"The first half our transition points we gave up was low margin," Howard said. "Then the second half, we give up a layup or three, it takes the life out of you and I saw it. Guys were upset, upset with themselves. ... We've just got to fix it."
That's when U-M's offense sank to the bottom. Dug McDaniel hit a pair of free throws with 8:47 to play to make it a four-point deficit, but the Wolverines didn't score again until another pair of McDaniel free throws exactly three minutes later. By then, Iowa's lead was nine.
During that stretch, the Hawkeyes made six consecutive field goals — including three 3-pointers by Sandfort.
"We talked about it on film, 'Sandfort can't get any open looks'," Howard said. "Yes, one of them he made was well-contested. If you make it well-contested, when he's falling back, going left to right, then that make is on me.
"But those open looks, that is on them."
Iowa made eight of 16 3-pointers, got another 34 points in the paint and went a season-best 18-for-18 on free throws for 76 of the team's 88 points.
Despite McDaniel's free throws to break the scoring drought, the lid remained on the rim for the Wolverines. Michigan missed its next 11 shots: four by Nkamhoua, three by Williams, three by Burnett and one by McDaniel.
U-M went 9:47 without a field goal; Burnett's 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds to play only cut the deficit to 10.
"Attention to detail and not looking, especially in the second half when they went on a run," Burnett said of what went wrong. "I mean we're still here, we still have a game to play, a game to win. When adversity hits, we've got to respond better."
Sandfort finished with a game-high 26 points, Perkins added 24 and Owen Freeman added 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Four Wolverines scored in double figures, led by Williams with 16; Burnett, McDaniel and Nkamhoua each finished with 13. U-M shot just 28.1% (9-for-32) in the second half.
Defense optional
The battle of the Big Ten's two worst defenses — U-M entered allowing 78.7 points per game, Iowa 77.4 — started early, as both offenses ripped the nets and shot better than 50% in the first half.
U-M got just about anything it wanted on offense, as 38 of 44 points came either in the paint, from long range or at the free-throw line. But Iowa didn't struggle much, either, while shooting 51.6%, and the teams traded the lead 10 times (with four ties).
Tarris Reed Jr. scored six of U-M's first eight points, nailing a lefty layup, another finish at the rim off a pass from Nkamhoua and a transition slam on a pass from McDaniel.
But despite Howard's emphasis on transition defense in practice this week, U-M gave up two quick 3s on the run to fall behind 8-6.
The game would remain within a single possession for nearly its first 14 minutes. Finally, U-M ripped off a 14-2 run in less than 3 minutes; Nkamhoua's midrange jumper, the Wolverines' fifth straight field goal, made it a first-half high nine-point lead, 36-27, with 5:32 to play.
But the Hawkeyes weathered a 3-for-11 stretch and closed with four consecutive makes for a two-point halftime deficit.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball sputters in second half, falls 88-78 to Iowa
