Despite setbacks, head coach Dusty May remains confident in Michigan basketball’s title hopes

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The Michigan Wolverines have lost two of their last four games and are one game behind the Michigan State Spartans in their quest to become Big Ten conference champions.

The Wolverines have now found themselves in quite a pickle following Sunday’s (March 2) 93-73 boat race by the Illinois Fighting Illini.

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At one point in the season, the Wolverines were riding high. They were on a six-game winning streak, and they welcomed the Spartans into Crisler Arena, where they were 12-0 for the first time in program history.

Ahead of the Spartans’ matchup, the Wolverines were atop the conference and looked like a fine-oiled machine.

Even head coach Dusty May signed a contract extension hours before tip-off, but the team was blitzed from the start, losing by 13 points and falling half a game behind the Spartans.

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Just like the MSU game, Illinois dominated the glass, finishing with 19 offensive rebounds. This is absurd, as the Wolverines literally have two giants roaming the paint: Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf.

But what the Wolverines have been putting on display is not championship basketball as they’re floundering down the stretch of the season.

Those 19 offensive rebounds led to 30 second chance points for the Illini in the blowout victory.

“I think a little bit of everything. We were on our heels, and our communication wasn’t great, so we were broken down because we were late on our switches, and they did a nice job of confusing the switches.

But because we weren’t able to keep bodies on bodies early and then we had to go to the zone so they have a running start, we’re trying to meet them closer to the basket, and at the end of the day, when you look at their lineup Will Riley, (Tomisla) Ivisic, you know (Kylan) Boswell plays much bigger than his height.

Tre White’s a big kid; (Kasparas) Jakucionis, (Ben) Humrichous, they’re big, strong physical guys, and in a jump ball contest 15 feet to 18 feet, they won it seemed like all of them, even the ones we did block out they were able to get them back we just don’t have the margin for the ones that we missed or we weren’t aggressive to fly in and tip it or help our teammates out.

We just weren’t able to overcome those, but once again, I’m giving Illinois a lot of the credit, too. Those guys played really, really connected basketball tonight."

Dusty May

According to Will Tschetter, the message after the game was “Look in the mirror.”

May said it wasn’t just for the players; it was also for him, as they need to fix some of their “Built-in weaknesses.”

“I’m going to look in the mirror. Absolutely. That’s the first thing that I do, we do as a staff and try to figure out what we could have done differently to learn from it and then what can we do immediately to fix it because it’s it’s not as if, you know, you’re going to make roster accusations or anything like that this time of year so this is our team.

How do we fix these issues? Sometimes, the matchups, they present some challenges from what their strengths are to what our built-in weaknesses are and so you have to be more determined, you have to be more connected, you have to play better offense to still be able to find a way to win and we didn’t do that tonight."

Dusty May

The crowd sensed something was up as each offensive rebound, knocked-down three-pointer, and made shot seemed to deflate the Wolverines.

The arena where “Area 50-1″ roams seemed to be deflated and or tired as the whole team of talented players were getting outworked and outplayed by the Illini.

May said fatigue could be the problem, but every team is tired, as the entire league has had a long season. So, fatigue is not an excuse for lackluster play.

“I think everyone in the country is emotionally and mentally fatigued right now. Our season is along with the exception of the one or 2% of guys that are obsessed with it; that love it that this is it.

Other than that, ‘yes’ and we’re not using it as an excuse. We had time off earlier in the year. Whether we used it wisely enough, I’m not sure, but our tough stretch with the number of games is now, and we’re not the deepest team when you get past our top five or top six, and you know Rubin (Jones) hasn’t played in a couple of games and all that but I mean that’s what everyone’s going through this year."

Dusty May

The Wolverines are firmly in second place now, with a record of 22-7 overall and 14-4 in conference play.

However, they play host to a tough Maryland Terrapins team. They are 22-7 on the season, but they are 12-6 in conference and 4-5 on the road.

“But as we talked about, as a group, we still have an opportunity to compete for three more championships. We’re in contention to compete for three more championships. So, if nothing else will motivate you or inspire you or to get over that emotional or physical fatigue, then, you’re not built for it anyway,” said May.

But before the men in maize can think about streamers and confetti, they must first work on their offense. It has become stale and stagnant, as all they do is force the ball inside to Goldin in hopes that he will make a contested layup or get fouled.

“Well, that’s something that we are trying to comb through now. He’s got it going but coming down and just trying to force feed it into the post everyone else gets stagnant and static you lose your rhythm in the game and so that’s something you know as we look at the film we’ve got to figure out the balance of it and and probably the answer is when we do get stopped we got to make more of a court conscious effort to give him a look and and hopefully play off of that overreaction.”

Dusty May

Even if he gets fouled, he and the rest of the team are shooting poorly from the free-throw line, so they’re not getting contributions from anyone but Goldin.

The big Russian finished Sunday’s game with 22 points and seven rebounds.

The Wolverines’ next highest scorers were Wolf who finished with nine points, five rebounds, and five turnovers and Tre Donaldson who also had nine points, two rebounds, two steals and one assist.

As a team, Goldin was the only player to score in double-digits, which can’t happen in any league or conference, especially in the Big Ten.

“At the end of the day, we’re not finishing well around the rim, we’re not converting on our free throws, we’re still not shooting the ball well from three as we shot four of 18 again, and so with that being the case you know you’ve got to figure out some things and for us to shoot the ball as well as we did for majority of the year in the last month really just not make shots is a little bit mystifying but our guys are in the gym they’re working so you know we we we’ll have to to find that balance.”

Dusty May

You can watch the full postgame press conference below: