Fab Five: Takeaways from Michigan’s win over Iowa

Michigan Wolverines basketball bounced back after three-consecutive losses with a 90-80 victory over Iowa Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Here are our five biggest takeaways from the game.

1. Tarris Reed Jr. got his swagger back

Last Saturday against Oregon and this Tuesday versus Indiana, Michigan sophomore forward Tarris Reed Jr. wasn’t trusted to stay on the floor.

Sunday, Reed was the star of the game and involved from beginning to end, with 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field, 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. He went 5-of-7 from the charity stripe and nailed 4 free throws in a row at one point.

This was a complete 180 from the previous few games. Michigan acting head coach Phil Martelli said that Reed’s parents were in attendance from St. Louis, and they got a real treat by seeing their son play the way he did.

When Reed is playing well, he completely changes the complexion of this team. He gives the Wolverines someone who can change shots at the rim and switch on defense, and he gives them a presence on the offensive boards. Michigan scored 1.2 points per possession, shot 55.6 percent on twos and grabbed 12 offensive rebounds. Reed turned the ball over twice, but the good things he did outweighed the mistakes, by a mile.

2. Iowa couldn’t make jump shots

Iowa loves to push the pace, and Michigan is willing to oblige, too, often faring well in high-possession games. The Wolverines are 4-1 in games with 70-plus possessions and 1-5 in all other contests.

The Hawkeyes did rack up 17 transition points, but that’s under their average for the season (23.7 per game), and U-M had 16 fast-break points of its own. There were still some lapses, but Michigan’s transition defense, an area in which it’s struggled, was solid.

Its overall defense, though improved, was hit or miss — partly because of how many open shots Iowa failed to connect on, particularly jumpers. Per Synergy, Iowa scored 0.727 points per possession on unguarded catch-and-shoot jumpers, finishing with 11 points in those situations. The Hawkeyes went 16-of-41 on non-layups/dunks, and they were 2-of-16 from three-point range before making three triples in the final minute.

Michigan has been poor at defending threes this season and doesn’t get all of the credit here. At the same time, it did contest shots at a higher rate than it had in previous games, marking improvement.

Iowa scored 1.07 points per play, its fourth-lowest mark of the season, shooting 52.3 percent on twos and 25 percent on 20 three-point shots. Playing solid defense and hoping Iowa misses some of its open shots is how you beat the Hawkeyes. They’ve been over 1.13 points per play in all of its wins and under that number in its losses.

3. Guard depth stressed

Michigan was without graduate guard Jaelin Llewellyn, who returned from last season’s ACL injury, playing sparingly against Oregon and Indiana before apparently suffering a setback. That meant sophomore Dug McDaniel had to go 35 minutes, graduate Nimari Burnett played 32 and the Wolverines went with a seven-man rotation with the two backups being forwards before putting in the reserves with a couple minutes left.

That’s just not sustainable. Martelli said last week that Michigan still wanted to work another guard into the rotation, and that was with Llewellyn available. He said it was between sophomore Youssef Khayat and freshman George Washington III. Based on what we’ve seen — and it’s even more telling that we haven’t seen much of either of them lately — neither are all that close to being ready. Their development will continue to be key in the long run.

McDaniel had a rough go against Indiana and didn’t start this game out very well, missing his first 5 shot attempts and not connecting on a field goal until the 16:01 mark of the second half.

But he stuck with it and had some key plays down the stretch. That’s what it has to look like. It can’t be completely boom or bust, and it hasn’t been much of the time, with the Indiana game being an outlier at this point. Even while not shooting the ball successfully in the first half, McDaniel had 7 assists and 3 rebounds, and finished with 11 second-half points.

4. Free throws and daggers

The second half was an odd one, with a ton of free throws (a combined 36 between both teams!) and the ejection of Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery due to a pair of technical fouls midway through the stanza.

Two Michigan runs allowed the Wolverines to build a 20-point lead. That advantage was really never in jeopardy even though the Wolverines had issues inbounding the ball with their backups in and Iowa hit three triples in the final minute.

The first big run was an 11-0 spurt to put Michigan ahead 46-37 with 16:38 to go. Burnett hit two threes, graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua tripled once and also had a dunk in transition off a feed from McDaniel, who notched assists on all 4 of those buckets (!).

The second run came during that stretch in which McCaffery earned his ejection. The Wolverines had 1 layup from Reed and seven-straight free throws for a 9-0 surge to put them up 62-42 with 12:25 to go.

Things felt a little uneasy at a few different points, but Michigan continued to score thanks to some made free throws and dagger threes. Nkamhoua and senior forward Terrance Williams II had big triples.

Williams, by the way, is now shooting 14-of-26 from long range in wins and 6-of-24 in losses. His 20 made threes are more than his 17 he hit all of last season. Those few swings points each and every game are going to be crucial. He’s going to get a few open jumpers, at least. Whether or not he knocks them down could be the difference.

5. Odd exchange

We’ll stop short of calling things ‘dicey’ at the end of the game, when Iowa cut the deficit to 12 points with Michigan’s walk-ons in. The Wolverines couldn’t inbound the ball, forced to call back-to-back timeouts, but we certainly had the thought, ‘maybe get the starters back in.’

Assistant coach Saddi Washington had a similar line of thinking but was shot down by Martelli, then rolled his eyes, as seen on national television.

Head coach Juwan Howard, who was so involved that he got ejected for arguing with the officials in Michigan’s game against Texas Tech even while in an assistant coach role, had odd body language during the game, leaning back in his chair and remaining seated even during timeouts.

It’s been an interesting setup with Howard, who underwent heart surgery Sept. 15, back on the bench but Martelli still technically calling the shots. Nothing was as dramatic was the Washington-Martelli exchange, but there have been a few moments where the operation just looks clunky.

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— ᗩᑎT ᗯᖇIGᕼT (@itsAntWright) December 11, 2023

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