Michigan basketball must get more physical to be 'championship level' program

Michigan basketball must get more physical to be ‘championship level’ program

Posted by author January 27, 2025 Basketball

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There are 365 NCAA Division I basketball teams and Michigan basketball finds itself ranked in the bottom 10% among all teams in turnovers.

The Wolverines (14-5, 6-2 Big Ten), No. 333 nationally in turnover rate, committed a season-high 22 turnovers against Purdue on Friday night at Mackey Arena — a primary reason U-M had no shot from the tipoff in a 91-64 dump-trucking from the Boilermakers.

Yet still that wasn’t what disgusted head coach Dusty May most in the immediate aftermath of his team’s most lopsided loss in his first year in Ann Arbor.

“The theme (for us) lately, especially with the traditional Big Ten teams: We haven’t risen to the challenge from a physicality standpoint,” May lamented. “We’re not there as a program quite yet. But we’re going to be obsessed with getting to the point we need to where we match the level of intensity and physicality in these games.”

There are several indicators on the stat sheet of a team’s level of aggression — Michigan had a season-low 28 points in the paint, it got just 13 points from its bench unit and forced just six turnovers on defense.

But it was the details that don’t show up in the box score that he and assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. saw piling up on Friday.

Purdue seemed to be first to every 50/50 ball — poking out offensive rebounds for extra possessions, diving on the floor to create an extra possession — while also “setting the terms of engagement” from the outset. C.J. Cox picked up guard Tre Donaldson for all 94 feet and forced him to have his worst night of the season with six turnovers compared to one assist.

His counterpart, Braden Smith, became the first player to have at least 20 points, 10 assists, five rebounds and only one turnover against an AP top-25 team since 2017.

Sure, Smith is one of the best ballhandlers in the country, but May also felt his team got physically dominated in ways it hadn’t this year, a troubling realization considering U-M was hoping to cement itself as one of the league’s best.

“If we’re going to be a championship-level program, we’ve got to be able to rise to the occasion or at least match the energy and spirit of a championship-caliber program,” May acknowledged. “We’re not there yet.”

Hitting a mid-year wall?

Since Jan. 16, when U-M fell to Minnesota 84-81 on a 40-foot buzzer beater in overtime, Michigan ranks No. 109 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 185 in defense, according to T-Rank (Bart Torvik).

During that stretch, not only has U-M’s 3-point shooting dipped, making just 30.8% (24 of 78) of its 3 compared to a 36.7% rate on the season, but the Wolverines are shooting just 46.5% inside the arc after leading the nation at 60.7% on 2-point shots prior to the three-game struggle.

May doesn’t think that’s a coincidence.

“I don’t think we’re physical enough on our blockouts,” he said. “They play with great physicality.”

Clearly, it’s a message that permeated the locker afterwards. Nimari Burnett was on the team a season ago when U-M got hammered by 32 points by Purdue, but he left West Lafayette with the realization that the Boilermakers were simply a better team.

While that could end up proving to be the case this year, too, they’re not 27 points better. U-M felt comfortable in knowing that and largely has itself to blame for laying an egg at the biggest moment to date.

“They were getting physical with us as we were trying to run through sets,” Burnett said. “The physicality of the game, we have to impose, especially on the road against a team that just lost the previous one.”

Turn up the heat

Burnett, a graduate student and veteran, knows it’s not as simple as just starting to hit people in practice.

This isn’t the 1990s in East Lansing, when Tom Izzo would put shoulder pads and helmets on his Michigan State players to improve their rebounding, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways in which U-M can toughen up.

“You have to do it in a smart way where you’re not just fouling and being overly aggressive,” Burnett said. “But being physical on every blockout, being aggressive on the ball, getting through ball screens. The areas of the game that really impose that physicality, that’s what we need to be mindful of every single time we practice with every rep − then it will translate to the game.”

Michigan welcomes in Penn State (13-7. 3-6 Big Ten); the Nittany Lions still haven’t won away from Happy Valley but have scared several teams. Of their six losses in league play, five have come by two possessions or less, including a four-point loss at Rutgers, a six-point loss vs. Indiana, a one-point loss at Oregon, a five-point loss at Michigan State and another one-point loss on Friday at Iowa.

Penn State likes to play fast , at No. 25 in adjusted tempo (15.8 seconds per possession), shoots it relatively well at No. 32 nationally in 2s (56.7%) and takes good shots at No. 44 in effective FG% (54.7%). Still, the Nittany Lions’ defense allows opponents to generate assists on 63.1% of their buckets, bottom-10 in the nation.

If U-M can create offense as it has early in the season, then there’s a chance to get back in the win column. But if it doesn’t improve in one key aspect, U-M will be in danger of losing for the third time in four games.

What do the Wolverines have to do between Friday and Monday?

“Work on the things we need to improve on,” Burnett said. “Take care of the ball, feel like we didn’t get back in transition as good as we can.

“Oh, and being more physical. More physical in the right areas, boxing out, etcetera, like I said.”

Next up: Nittany Lions

Matchup: No. 20 Michigan (14-5, 6-2 Big Ten) vs. Penn State (13-7, 3-6).

Tipoff: 6:30 p.m. Monday; Crisler Center, Ann Arbor.

TV/radio: Big Ten Network; WWJ-AM (950).

Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia