Michigan Basketball: 3 takeaways from brutal loss at Iowa

Foul trouble and Beilein’s quick trigger cost UM dearly

One thing I have always been critical of John Beilein about is the way he manages players in foul trouble. If a guy gets one foul early, Beilein will sit him and at times, his thinking in this area is way too conservative.

This has cost Michigan basketball in the past and Friday night, it reared its ugly head again. On the positive side of things, the Wolverines don’t generally have issues with too many fouls, however, that wasn’t the case against Iowa.

Basically, Teske, Livers, Brazdeikis and Poole all found themselves in foul trouble and in the first half, it left Teske seeing only a couple of minutes of court time. While you can understand wanting to keep Teske out of further trouble, sitting him absolutely killed Michigan.

With the 7-foot-2 defensive stalwart sitting, Iowa dominated inside and scored 20 points in the first half and owned the boards. Michigan couldn’t handle Cook down low without him and that opened up some perimeter shots.

Early in the second half, Michigan got back into the game thanks to Teske, who scored eight points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked a shot. His plus-minus was noticeably better than his teammates and Beilein’s unwillingness to risk playing him with two fouls in the first half or Poole early in the second half with three proved costly.