Michigan Basketball: 3 takeaways from an irritating loss to Arizona State

From the word go Michigan basketball had no chance against a club that literally shot the lights completely out of the Barclays Center.

Arizona State played one of the best games of the Booby Hurley era, while Michigan basketball was the exact opposite for Juwan Howard. The Wolverines have not beaten the Sun Devils and that streak continued on Thursday night. Here are the three takeaways from the unexpected debacle in the Legends Classic finals.

1. Everything fell in the basket for the Sun Devils

The Sun Devils ambushed Michigan basketball from start to finish. On the other side of things, Michigan couldn’t buy a bucket to save their lives. Call it luck or skills, it certainly seems like these types of outcomes are rare in college basketball. Arizona State will not sustain this as they enter the Pac-12 battle next month.

After shooting 24% in a slim victory over VCU and coming off a loss to SWAC member Texas Southern, Arizona State went absolutely bonkers. They shot just about 60% from three and went on spurts where they didn’t miss any shots. No one, in their right mindset, could have predicted this matchup to end up that one-sided.

2. No disrespect but Arizona State shouldn’t be a tournament team

This is a really bad loss for Michigan basketball, there are no other words to describe it. The Wolverines came out flat and missed shot after shot, while the Sun Devils didn’t miss. They tried to get back in it and tighten things up, but Arizona State would just go right back up by 20 or more and never gave the maize and blue a chance to gain any sort of momentum.

Last year they floundered to a 14-17 record and no postseason. In fact, they haven’t sniffed the tournament since the 2018-19 season. Michigan supporters will look back at this one in 2023 and wonder how they lost so bad to a squad that barely snuck past Tarleton State in its opener. This blemish will haunt them for the remainder of the schedule.

3. Will the real Michigan please stand up?

It’s early in the season, but a lot has happened in four games thus far. Eastern Michigan gave the Wolverines all they could handle, then got smoked by Bradley in their next outing. Emoni Bates looked every bit the part of one of the country’s top players and his crew looked like a favorite to win the MAC, even though they lost by five.

Then Michigan goes out and slaughters a rancid Pitt club and everything is fine and dandy again. Now they get manhandled by Arizona State and somehow got worse after improving just a night ago. They’ll look to rebound with two winnable contests at home then a nasty stretch that includes Virginia and Kentucky in London, with North Carolina looming weeks later.