Off to the greatest start in program history, the Michigan Wolverines are 22-1 overall following a win over Ohio State on Sunday. The final seven games of the regular season reveal a brutal stretch where they play four road games and four top-15 opponents.
This is the time of the year that great teams have lost steam and fizzled out before conference tournament play and the NCAA Tournament. While the Wolverines have been one of the top two teams in the country this year, they have exploitable weaknesses that could cost them down the stretch. Here are the three things they need to get better at in order to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
To anyone who watches this team, this shouldn’t be a shocker. Michigan plays at a really fast pace, which is what makes it dangerous. The Wolverines average 91.0 points per game, the most in the Big Ten, and the gap between Michigan and second-place Illinois (84.5 points per game) is larger than the gap between Illinois and 11th-place Iowa (78.1 points per game).
The problem with that pace is it focuses on speed rather than taking care of the ball. The Wolverines are up to 12.3 turnovers per game, third-worst in the Big Ten.
When the Wolverines take care of the ball, there is not a team that is better than them. That’s reflective in their effective shooting percentage — showcasing the teams taking the best shots — which is 59 percent, No. 7 in the country while Arizona is at No. 30. More possessions taking the level of shots they do is the difference between a blowout and a game staying close.
No. 2: Free throw percentage
Michigan is top-50 in college basketball at getting to the free throw line (24.4 times per game), but it is converting at just 73.7 percent this season, which is 129th in the nation. The good news is that has increased to 76.8 percent if you count just conference play,but it’s still something that could cost Michigan in a big game.
The biggest eye sore in this category is Aday Mara. He’s attempted one less free throw than team leader Yaxel Lendeborg, but is converting at just a 49 percent clip. In late games, this could make Mara almost unplayable if teams start hacking him. As we move towards better competition, the Wolverines will need the mismatch they get from Mara to continue their success. It makes them susceptible for a late game comeback.
But it’s not just Mara, it’s also the point guards. Elliot Cadeau has converted only 69 percent of his free throws, and L.J. Cason is at 65.7 percent. That brings down the team’s average when guys like Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. are both at or above 80 percent while shooting almost double the free throws.
Between Mara (96), Cadeau (58), and Cason (35), that accounts for 189 of the Wolverines’ 562 free throws, and they are the only three of Michigan’s rotational pieces that convert less than 75 percent of them. All three must be better, but especially Mara.
No. 3: Offensive performance in the clutch
It’s been a significant boon for the Wolverines to not play many close games in the final five minutes. At that point of most games Michigan has been a part of, the game has already been decided. It’s a testament to just how dominant this team has been from start to finish.
There have been only five games all season for Michigan that have been within 10 points, and the offense disappeared in the clutch in each of them. Unfortunately, there are direct ties to the mistakes we highlighted above throughout.
The Wolverines had eight points in the last five minutes of their most recent close win over Nebraska. That was enough, as they held the Cornhuskers to only two in that stretch, but they missed two free throws and had a bad turnover that allowed Nebraska to have a shot to tie it at the buzzer.
In their lone loss of the year to Wisconsin, Michigan had an 84-83 lead with four minutes left. The next few possessions: missed Nimari Burnett three, turnover, missed Roddy Gayle three, missed Cadeau three, Gayle bucket (losing 88-86), Gayle missed layup.
Two points in a three-and-a-half minute stretch where Gayle shot the ball three times in five possessions, including the potential game-tying shot as time expired. As much as Gayle has meant to this team, I doubt Dusty May had it drawn up for Gayle to take four of the team’s seven shots in the final five minutes. Someone needs to step up in moments like these.
Penn State, and earlier in the season against TCU, crawled back in the final five minutes after the Wolverines had multi-possession leads. There are examples of this team withering in the most important stretches of the game. In the final couple games, there will likely be contests that go down to the wire. Duke, Purdue, Illinois and Michigan State are all elite teams the Wolverines still have before the tournaments.
Every March, it feels like a one-seed falls because they can’t finish late in a game. Michigan’s still rather inexperienced in that area, and its two largest flaws feed into what could be a disaster scenario. The Wolverines will likely have a few of these pivotal moments at some point, and they need to find out who their go-to guy as the final seconds tick away.