John Beilein was available to speak with the media following Michigan’s 75-62 loss at home to Wisconsin on Sunday. The coach talked about what the loss means for his team, his mindset going forward into a tough matchup against Michigan State and more. You can watch the full press conference using the embedded media player below and read notes and quotes after the jump.
Opening statement: “Well I was super impressed with Wisconsin today. I just think they were terrific. They’re a difficult matchup for any team they play and they’ve shown that. Their road victories have shown that, and we can’t forget they went 16-0 in non-conference play. So they just were really good today. We helped them in the first half with our seven turnovers. We can’t do that. We sort of shored that up. Once you get down like we got down, it’s tough to come back because of their ball-control offense. They made timely shots and they had a great plan. They really played a high-IQ game today. We’ll grow from it like we always do. Hopefully this is helpful for us in the future and helps us win a future game.”
- On Michigan’s poor assist-to-turnover ratio: “They’re going to lock up on the shooters and we’re going to have to create on our own. They make you play a two-man game. Different people have to get downhill and make plays. I can’t explain it until I watch the video of it. We were tentative sometimes and we threw the ball to them. If it’ a short possession game, and you give them the ball seven times in one half, to a team that doesn’t turn people over, you’re going to have a tough time. If you throw the ball away, you can’t get an assist is what I’m saying.”
- On whether it was more what Wisconsin was doing or what Michigan wasn’t doing: “They’re good. They’re really good and we weren’t so good today. We fought back and I really thought we were going to come all the way back. But they made a couple tough shots and we missed some. So it was one of those games where you bury yourself and you’re going to have to play a super second half. While we played better, it wasn’t good enough.”
- On some of the players saying there was a lack of effort: “I don’t agree with that. Everybody can always point fingers at people and say, ‘lack of effort.’ And they’re probably blaming themselves. No. Wisconsin is good and we’re going to have to play really good basketball to do it. I’m not going to beat our guys up for effort. Our guys played hard, as hard as they can play, I believe, but probably not smart enough. They didn’t play smart enough today and they’ll get better from it.”
- On the first five minutes of the game: “They’re timely in their transition offense. One of the times, Jordan Morgan dove on the ground after a rebound, he’s laying down in the end zone, but now it’s 5-4 the other way and I think they hit a three on that play. Our hustle led to their play. The ball bounced around a bit and they ended up crashing the boards much harder. They got some of those rebounds that maybe we can get, maybe we can’t. There was just some strange things that we did a few times. Maybe their defense was just good enough to make us lose insight on what was really going on with that play.”
- On Wisconsin getting inside looks: “(Frank) Kaminsky, he was really good. He was really the only one. We did a good job on (Nigel) Hayes, but he just dominated. We didn’t change anything from the first time we played them because I thought we had good answers for them. But it was just one-on-one. We didn’t double differently, we didn’t do anything. Kaminsky just really played well. Credit him. Our post defense is our post defense. They’re going to keep moving and try their best. but he made some great moves and finished around the hoop. The couple of offensive rebounds were big, too, where (Sam) Dekker or he came in and finished things.”
- On Caris LeVert’s contribution in the second half: “Sometimes it might be who’s guarding who is what happens. We;ll look at this and try to figure out what our other primary scorers could have done to help us. Wisconsin does not turn people over, and we have seven turnovers against them, that just makes the game even shorter. Our other guys, I think we’ve had some guys, some of our bench players come off. Zak (Irvin) in particular has been incredible off the bench. That’s not going to happen every game. He gets a couple of those, maybe we take the lead. But we can’t expect him to do that every game.”
- More on LeVert: “We had several actions called for him, and there are several actions that he has license to do in the middle of the play. He’s quick, he can shoot, and he uses the ball screen very well. I love that he gets this because it gives us now three or four weapons to try and score.”
