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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan stunningly broke down early and often against Penn State on Wednesday evening, losing at home, 72-63.
While the offense struggled, consistently missing open looks on one end, on the other, it was consistent in another way: that it was inconsistent.
Moments after the game, WolverinesWire asked forward Brandon Johns what went wrong, and he didn’t indicate an offensive problem as much as a defensive one.
“We just couldn’t get consistent stops. We need to be better on defense,” Johns said. “I think our communication could have been a little bit better. We just need to be solid on the little things on defense, for sure.”
In every loss this season, head coach Juwan Howard indicated that the breakdown was defensive in nature, and that said breakdown came from a lack of communication on that side of the floor.
So, how does that happen more than midway through the season? At this juncture, the team should know what it has to do, and just as importantly, what it can’t do.
Yet, time and time again, the defense doesn’t communicate, and teams manage to get the looks they want and the makes that Michigan can’t seem to get on the other end.
“Some people just get in their heads,” Johns said. “Everybody gets in their own heads. It causes us to stop talking. So, I think when we’re in the hardships of the game we need to be consistent and talk.”
What did Howard have to say about it? Needless to say, he wasn’t pleased with the fact that guys are still not talking.
As a matter of fact, he was flabbergasted by it.
“They got too many open looks and that’s because of a lack of communication on the defensive end,” Howard said. “It’s January 22nd. We talk about we have to communicate on defense, be physical, don’t be surprised. We have a great scouting report. We watch film on every opponent. We see guys’ tendencies as well as their strengths and who can shoot the ball and where they shoot the ball from. So there is no surprises. I don’t understand why guys get open looks. It tells me because of lack of communication on switching.
“At times, I thought we were lazy on our switches. We switch up on our shooters, not back or assuming that a guy has the man and unfortunately that particular guy is not guarding him or if your hand’s down versus a shooter, for example Curtis Jones who was lining us up and shooting it right in our face, that’s unacceptable. So you have to own it, you have to be able to do your job.
“But they’re gonna see it tomorrow, for sure.”
Michigan will have a chance to redeem itself on Saturday as it hosts No. 21 Illinois, a team it already lost to in Champaign.