Bryan Fuller
Rutgers is a team that forces you to play their way. Entering today’s game, they ranked in the Top 25 nationally in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency per Kenpom, and they had the worst shooting numbers (according to eFG%) of any high-major team in the country. The Cable Subscribers have players who are quick, long, athletic, or some combination of those three, but their lack of skill on offense is stark. Their strategy is to make it nasty on both ends of the floor, and they hope to win rock fights.
Michigan’s 62-47 victory was fairly typical for a game against Rutgers. The Wolverines had a very rough start offensively - Rutgers pulled out to an 8-2 lead and held Michigan to just 1-11 shooting from the field to start the game - but a series of threes, the first from Charles Matthews and then two more from Duncan Robinson, gave Michigan the lead. Robinson played his best game in several weeks, hitting four threes total, notching four assists after attacking hard close-outs, doing a good job staying in front of quicker guards on switches, and playing solid defense on Deshawn Freeman in the post. Isaiah Livers had a rough stretch early, missing three shots and fouling twice before the first TV timeout of the game, but Robinson stepped up and provided some scoring punch when Michigan sorely needed it.
Robinson sparked what would eventually become a prolonged 17-2 Michigan run in the middle of the first half - though they were certainly abetted by poor offense from the Cable Subscribers. Rutgers managed to have the same amount of turnovers as made shots - eight - in that first half, despite being a generally turnover-averse team. Part of that turnover avoidance is because they don’t move the ball at all: so many of their made shots came on pull-up twos out of isos or on post-ups. In the end, Rutgers finished with just one assist total on the game.
They were able to claw back and cut the deficit to six at halftime; Eugene Omoruyi ended a field goal drought of almost nine minutes with a basket over Robinson, and then the Cable Subscribers scored five points - Omoruyi put back an airballed layup and Freeman put back an airballed mid-range shot for an and-one. At the half, Michigan was sitting at 0.83 points per possession, and Rutgers was at 0.67 (per UMHoops).
Michigan’s offensive improvement continued into the second half. On the first possession, Matthews scored on a layup coming off a curl screen; Livers saved a missed Moe Wagner three from going out of bounds, which led to a Zavier Simpson three; MAAR assisted Wagner for five points on two consecutive possessions after some nice two-man plays. Rutgers eventually cut the lead back to six after Freeman scored through a double team (he was Rutgers’s best player, notching a double-double despite inefficient shooting).
Point guard Corey Sanders - the leading scorer for the Cable Subscribers, both on the season and today - had a rough game; his fourth foul came with about ten minutes left in the game while setting an off-ball screen. From there, Robinson canned a corner three, Poole beat Issa Thiam with a lovely inside-out dribble after turning it over to Thiam a few possessions earlier, and Steve Pikiell called a Rutgers timeout after the lead ballooned to 12. Simpson put the game away from there, assisting a Wagner layup and scoring two of his own for Michigan’s next three baskets. It was garbage time after that.
In the end, Michigan barely clawed its way to about one point per possession after their terrible start, and - despite Rutgers’s overall ineptitude offensively - turned in one of the best defensive performances against the Cable Subscribers all season (their second-lowest points per possession number this year). Four Wolverines scored in double figures: Wagner had 16 points, most of which came in the second half, Robinson had 12, and Simpson and Matthews had 10 each. In contrast to their opponents, Michigan shared the ball quite well, and three Wolverines had four assists each (Simpson, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, and Robinson).
Michigan’s stretch of four games in nine days is mercifully over: that they managed to go 3-1 is a positive result, the meltdown at Nebraska notwithstanding. This win moves Michigan into sole possession of fourth in the Big Ten. A huge matchup looms on Thursday in West Lafayette: Purdue may be the best team in the country, and Michigan will be looking for revenge after a heartbreaking one-point loss two weeks ago.
Today’s box score after the JUMP:
