On a Thursday night when Michigan Athletics’ eyes were turned elsewhere, perhaps the Michigan men’s basketball teams’ were, too. In a buy game that featured a little less ‘buying-in,’ the Wolverines trudged past Tarleton State 72-49 in a matchup that saw Michigan continuing to workshop the hiccups that have dragged it down thus far.
Despite the win, ahead of the Wolverines’ trip South for the Fort Myers Tip-Off tournament, Michigan sometimes appeared just off the mark, failing to fire on all cylinders. After its matchup against Miami (OH) earlier this week, Wolverines coach Dusty May preached a further execution on the little things, something that has yet to arrive.
“It’s nice to finish our home stand with a win, in another game that I feel like we learned something about ourselves,” May said. “This is a game we needed. Coach (Billy) Gillispie, he gets his guys to play extremely physical. They play with great passion and energy and for where we’ve been and what we’ve struggled with, it allowed us to really put an emphasis on taking care of the basketball.”
The Texans, indeed, came with an aggressive energy. Running essentially a six-man lineup, Tarleton State logged 23 personal fouls, with forward Chris Mpaka and guard Izzy Miles each fouling out. Attempting to make everything hard on Michigan, the Texans came at the Wolverines early and often.
To its credit, Michigan stood tall. The Wolverines committed just 11 turnovers all game — a far cry from their previous struggles. On the other end, Tarleton State coughed up the ball 24 times themselves; however, in what was a bigger pattern all night, Michigan appeared sluggish and failed to make the Texans pay for their errors.
“I think we had 11 turnovers. If you would have told me that we only had 11 turnovers and they had 24, I would have thought the margin would be much greater. Like I said, basketball is a funny game.”