First, Michigan is a lot more talanted than us. Our top three scorers were all going against players that were better than them. That's not a good match up.
That said, I was incredibily frustrated that we were unable to play to our strengths. Up to this point, it seemed to me that oscar had understood that we had to be an offensive reboudning second chance points team. In this game, it seemed to me that we tried to become a jumpshooting, then get back on defense team. I have no problem with that style in of itself, but not with our personel. To Michigan's credit, they seemed to crash all 5 to the defensive boards and were a big part of our inability to get put backs, but that was all the more reason, to stay on the attack. All the talk about "not knowing the offense" is stupid. They didn't look like a team that didn't know what they were supposed to be doing, they looked like a team that couldn't make shots and were playing better atheletes.
Defensively, I thought we played ok for long stretches, but Hardway took over at a time when we couldn't do anything offensively, then is started to snowball out of control. Angel was really great defensively I thought. Spradling got worked, but I'm not going to pile on him like the mindless groupthink drones on this board love to do. Frankly, he's been pretty good this year IMO, and nobody on our team can guard Hardaway. Agree with MIR about Sprads agressiveness. Also thought we saw good signs out of Rodney towards the end of the game.
Ultimately, it was an ugly loss to a pretty good team. We have never in my lifetime had a season without one of these. I have no problem putting heat on the coach for it, but lets not act like this is some new low we've never experienced. Look no further than the last game we played under the previous coach.
