Michigan basketball's makes West Coast statement: 'Big Ten goes through Crisler'

Michigan basketball’s makes West Coast statement: ‘Big Ten goes through Crisler’

Posted by Admin January 8, 2025 Basketball

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LOS ANGELES — Moments after Dusty May emerged from Michigan basketball’s road locker room to a handle his postgame media duties near John Wooden Court, he insisted this is about the long haul.

His Wolverines (12-3, 4-0 Big Ten) had just dismantled UCLA in historic Pauley Pavilion 94-75 on Tuesday, completing an LA-sweep of the new Hollywood-based Big Ten teams after dissecting USC 85-74 on Saturday evening at Galen Center. Yet even after saluting the maize and blue faithful who stuck around to pay their respects to the team, he kept a straight face when he gave his assessment of what just transpired.

“No statement,” May said of the trip. “On Jan. 7, we played a really good basketball game against a great coach, great program and great players. Other than that, we have a long way to go.”

The only problem, somebody forgot to tell his point guard, Tre Donaldson. The team’s energizer bunny and man who stirs the drink when the offense isn’t being run through its 7-foot point-forward Danny Wolf, Donaldson had a different assessment of what his team had just accomplished.

Just days after he made a career-high four 3-pointers and scored 16 points in the Wolverines’ victory over the a Trojans to start the trip, Donaldson topped those marks on the campus where legends like Arthur Ashe, Jackie Robinson and Lew Alcindor etched their name into the history books with a career-high 20 points, going 6 of 10 from long range as he added seven assists and six rebounds against only two turnovers.

All told, outside of a 28-6 push from the Bruins in a nine-minute span, it was U-M’s most complete outing of the season.

The Wolverines won the other 31 minutes 78-37, as they made 15 of 28 3-pointers (53.6%) and became the first team to shoot better than 60% from the floor (61.5% going 32 of 52) for a full game against the Bruins since Oregon did so in Eugene in 2021.

Much of that came courtesy of Vladislav Goldin, U-M’s 7-foot-1 Russian center who had the game of his life, scoring 36 points on 13 of 18 shooting from the floor and 9 of 11 free throws despite battling foul trouble.

“I mean, you enjoy it, but we come out here for a reason, to send a message to the Big Ten and get some big wins,” Donaldson said. “We keep talking about it — we just have to steal games like this. Gotta protect the house and come out here and get games like this. Because a lot of teams and Big Ten teams, everybody, Ohio State, they’re going to come out here and do the same (West Coast) road trip we did.

“But where are they going to be able to come out here and still two games? Because it’s tough.”

Cost of doing business

It didn’t look as if it would be tough early. The Wolverines made their first five shots of the contest, which included three finishes at the rim by Goldin − two of which were thunderous dunks − before he drilled a 3 from the top of the key to go up 18-6.

Combined with a Nimari Burnett long shot, Goldin’s 3 began a stretch where Michigan made 12 of 14 shots from the floor as its lead ballooned to as much as 18 points.

Included in the run, a pair of nifty dribble handoffs between Goldin and Danny Wolf; one which saw Wolf dribble behind his back before he hooked a pass around a defender, the other which saw him go no-look to set up Goldin for one of his 10 made slam dunks or layups on the night.

Wolf, who has emerged as U-M’s leader, finished with 12 points, eight assists and six rebounds and even though he did commit a season-high seven turnovers (admittedly higher than U-M wants) May conceded that’s the cost of doing business given all of the offense he creates.

U-M had 16 turnovers on 72 possessions − not terrible against the team ranked No. 1 forcing giveaways on 26% of possessions coming in, though leading to 20 points is too high − but its fast-flowing offense also led to 23 assists on 29 made buckets.

“I think we’re very effective in the open court,” May said. “We’ve got to live with some of (the turnovers), we just can’t live with the second shots and put backs in the paint, stuff like that.”

Learning to close out

U-M’s lead had ballooned to 45-27 when UCLA flipped the game with a 28-6 spurt, fueled by four turnovers and five consecutive missed shots during a nine-minute stretch that saw U-M go 2 of 9 from the floor.

By the time May’s group had re-gained its composure, the Burins led 55-51 after Eric Dailey Jr. made consecutive layups including an and-one. While the Bruins are a ranked team, at home, more than capable of making a run − U-M’s pattern of building big leads only for them to evaporate has become alarming.

The Wolverines have six times this season had a double-digit lead, only to allow a run of 10 points or better to the other team to flip the game. Michigan is 3-3 in those contests: it survived giving up a 16-point lead vs. Iowa, 15-point lead vs. USC and now 18-point lead vs. UCLA but was not so fortunate when it couldn’t hold its 11-point lead over Wake Forest, 15-point lead over Arkansas or 11-point lead over Oklahoma.

Much of that has come when U-M gives the ball away, May pointed out. But again, he’s willing to take the good with the bad up to a point.

“Look at the turnovers tonight and we’re not alarmed,” May said. “But you look at all the baskets and plays (Wolf) created with the same type of aggression, so just continuing to clean things up … but I feel like we’re getting much closer.

Big Ten going to ‘run through Crisler’

This time, however, Michigan was able to live to tell the tale as it closed the game on a 43-20 run, making 9 of its last 13 shots over the final 8:18 of the game which included 4 of its last 6 attempts from long range.

The 94 points are the most a Mick Cronin coach team has given up on a home court, as U-M (12-3, 4-0 Big Ten) moved to the top of the Big Ten and sent the coach with more than two decades of experience into a tyraide.

“Obviously they shot the ball well, but we’re soft. We’re too soft to play hard enough,” Cronin said. ““I have to run on the court to get guys to play hard. It’s crazy and it’s every day, I’m tired of it. I have the most energy of anybody in practice every day. I’m upset with everybody in that locker room, my assistant coaches and my players. I don’t need to do anything; I’ve got 500 wins and I’m 53.

“I have more passion and energy and pride than anybody in there, that’s the problem. That’s the truth.”

It takes a special type of dismantling to cause a coach to lose his cool like that when there’s no referee-related shenanigans. That’s exactly what U-M did, knifing apart the Trojans and Bruins with surgical precision.

With so much attention elsewhere, players like Burnett are getting wide open looks and making them count; the graduate wing is averaging a career-best 10.5 points and shooting career highs from the floor (54.1%) and from long range (47.1%); both at least an astronomical 13% better than his next best career mark.

U-M did all of this vs. UCLA without Roddy Gayle, who suffered a bruised knee recently in practice. May would not commit to his return next Sunday vs. Washington, but implied the belief is it’s not a long term injury.

Either way, Michigan proved it can withstand the storm without a veteran leader for the time being and not only concluded the most difficult travel portion of its year still undefeated in the conference, but has its next three games against the current bottom-three teams in the league.

If U-M didn’t get enough attention in Hollywood, the next 11 days may just put everyone on notice.

“The Big Ten is going to run through Crisler,” Donaldson warned. “That’s what we’ve been talking about… I heard there’s ties (at the top) of the Big Ten and all that (in some years), but as a veteran group we have to stay focused and put those teams away.

“We need to show why we’re at the top and why they’re at the bottom when they do come to Crisler.”

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.