Michigan clinched a share of the Big Ten on Tuesday night with a 77-67 win over Minnesota. It was one of the least aesthetically pleasing wins of Michigan’s 16-win (and counting) Big Ten campaign, but it counted just the same.
Niko Medved and the Minnesota Golden Gophers had one way to play this game to survive, let alone try to win. That was to slow it down as much as possible, sit back in a 2-3 zone, and try to win a 3-point shooting contest.
The strategy worked for stretches. The Wolverines weren’t particularly sharp; they struggled to defend the Princeton-style cutting and screening, and every time they looked ready to pull away, they made a key turnover or defensive mistake.
As frustrating as the 40 minutes felt at times, Michigan’s offensive performance netted out at 1.19 points per possession, 60% on twos and 42% on threes — that’s pretty solid.
The Gopher zone forced (allowed?) Michigan to take a season-high 57% of its shots from 3-point range, but I don’t know that Michigan really had much choice. Minnesota packed everyone into the paint in the zone, and most of the 33 3-point attempts were close to wide-open.
Michigan got hot in the second half and made 8-of-11 threes over about a 12-minute span and finally broke the game open.
The turnovers were probably the most frustrating element of the offensive performance. Michigan turned it over on 22% of possessions, and seven different players had at least one giveaway. It felt like every time there was a chance to stretch the lead toward 20, a turnover or two kept the Gophers close.
It felt like Michigan was desperate to speed up the game, which led to some giveaways. The quest wasn’t exactly successful, as Michigan only scored 7 points in transition and had four transition turnovers.
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