Michigan Basketball: Highlights, takeaways from win vs Western Michigan

After a week off, the Michigan basketball team was sluggish in its 70-62 win over Western Michigan Saturday at Crisler Center.

With the way that Michigan basketball has dominated some other teams at home, you would have thought that the Wolverines would have no trouble with the Western Michigan Broncos.

But I guess that is why they play the games because, after a sluggish start, Michigan basketball didn’t wrap up its win over the Broncos until the final minute. A big 3-pointer by Charles Matthews, as well as a steal and score by Zaiver Simpson wrapped up a 70-62 win that was anything but easy.

Maybe after a week off from game action, a slow start was to be expected. But in the first 18 minutes of the game, Michigan basketball scored just 20 points. It also missed its first six 3-point attempts.

While the offense struggled with missed 3’s, missed free throws and turnovers early, the defense helped turn things around with four steals that led to buckets late in the first half. The last one tied the score at 28-28.

Then, Matthews went end-to-end, scoring another bucket right before the buzzer to give the Wolverines a 30-28 lead.

In the second half, the Broncos still wouldn’t go away and were only down five when Jordan Poole hit his second triple of the half, giving Michigan a 52-44 lead.

Yet, no matter how many times Michigan basketball seemed to push the lead to eight or 10, Western Michigan refused to go away and with just a few minutes left, the margin was still only five points.

But as he seemed to do all game long, Matthews delivered when it was needed, knocking down a corner trey that proved to be the dagger. It made the score 66-58 and UM won 70-62. Matthews was outstanding in the win, scoring 25 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. He was 11-of-16 from the charity stripe and also pitched in with three steals.

Simpson contributed with 15 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals and Poole, who was 2-of-3 from downtown, finished with 14 points.

Quick Takes

• This is the second straight game that Michigan has started slowly on offense. That is concerning with Big Ten play right around the corner. 30 points in the first half against a team that ranked 210th in the nation in points allowed is not a promising start. What is even worse is that UM scored 20 points in 18 minutes and at one point, Western Michigan shot a 3-pointer that would have given it an 11-point lead. Pretty stunning.
• Another thing that was stunning was the offensive struggles of Ignas Brazdeikis. Iggy as he is known, was the Wolverines leading scorer coming into the game but against Western Michigan, he scored just four points. He was 2-of-7 from the field and 0-for-3 at the line. He did score two key buckets in the final few minutes, which says something for his mental toughness, but hopefully, he doesn’t have another game like this anytime soon.
• One reason Western Michigan hung around was poor free throw shooting, which has been an ongoing issue for the Wolverines. Michigan finished 15-of-25, which is 60 percent. While that isn’t terrible, the Wolverines outscored the Broncos by one at the line, despite shooting five more shots. A few points don’t seem like a lot but had UM made a few more free throws early on, things wouldn’t have been so tight at the end. Just another area that still needs improvement and trust me, no one knows that better than John Beilein.

Despite some of the struggles, Michigan basketball is still 11-0. The Wolverines will be off for another week before they host Air Force Dec. 22. They close non-conference play with Binghamton at home Dec. 30.