Phil Martelli — Michigan must 'play quicker' to improve
Michigan basketball is beyond the danger point in making the NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines, in fact, probably need a miracle given the adversity they’ve faced and the lack of improvement over the last few weeks.
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They’ll get another shot Thursday night in Evanston, Ill. against a Northwestern team that’s 6-4 in Big Ten play and playing very good basketball. They’re also going to be playing their second game in three days after a COVID shutdown rescheduled a game with Iowa for Tuesday night.
Michigan assistant Phil Martelli insisted Wednesday the Wolverines’ coaches and players weren’t focusing on anything other than Thursday night’s game in an effort to improve the season.
“It has to be about today, not worrying about what bracketologists say or the impact of another game,” Martelli said. “Like, what did the Iowa win over Northwestern mean to us? Really it didn’t mean anything other than they’re going to have a little bit more of a chip on their shoulder playing at home on Thursday.
“I think the urgency has to be there because if you’re lucky, you get 120 opportunities like this, and you have to make use of every single opportunity. That includes the practices building up. So, it’s all about this day, and not what could happen in two weeks or what happened over the last two weeks or over the last two games.”
Youth isn’t a factor or an excuse either, he added. It’s about the “entity” that is this year’s Michigan team, he noted, and how they play together.
There have only been a few moments this year in which we’ve seen this Michigan squad reach its potential, frankly. They played with passion and urgency against Maryland after an embarrassing home loss to Central Michigan, blowing out the Terrapins after going up 17-0. They’ve come close in several Quad 1 games but gone 0-8, and in others they didn’t show up.
They’ve also nearly lost to other bad teams in addition to Central Michigan by going through the motions.
It’s beyond time to rectify that, as Martelli and everyone in the Michigan locker room understands. While there’s still time to improve, they’re going to have to try something different. Transition is one area, and on both ends.
“We have to acknowledge [that] we have to play quicker. We have … I think it’s now 8 fast break points in our last 4 games,” Martelli said. “For us, we have to get more in transition, more up and down play.
“All year long, our individual defense and our team defense … we’re not a team that creates a lot of turnovers. And one of the things that we’ve noticed is we’re a beat off in outletting the ball after a rebound. So, I would say it starts there.
“We [also] have to clean up the defensive boards, and then we have to really work on outletting the ball. Everybody wants to be part of the offense, so we want to get everybody running with the ball. But it starts with rebounding.”
And that starts with getting stops, something Michigan hasn’t done well enough this year, either. The Wolverines are now No. 86 in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com — that’s not good — and have looked disinterested at times.
Do that Thursday and they’ll get run out of the gym like they did at Penn State Sunday, no matter how tired the Wildcats may or may not be.
Michigan is ready and rested. We’ll find out soon enough how serious Juwan Howard’s team is about turning its season around, and how much it means to them.
