Hoops Takeaways: Michigan Struggles Again, Falls To Minnesota At Home

In what's become sort of a theme this season, Michigan struggled on offense for much of the night against Minnesota and it resulted in a 75-65 conference loss at home. Here's what stuck out...

Three-point shooting

It was another dreadful night for Michigan from distance. Tonight, in what should've been the friendly confines of Crisler Arena, the Wolverines went just 3-of-18 from three-point range. Minnesota didn't shoot it particularly well from deep either, going just 6-of-18 from deep, but still got nine more points than Michigan did from behind the long line. This is a problem because I just don't think there's a fix. Eli Brooks is the best shooter, but behind him there really aren't any other knock-down deep threats. Freshman Caleb Houstan is supposed to be a sniper from back there, but he simply hasn't been. Everyone else can shoot it from deep in a pinch, but there isn't anyone good enough that you'd want to draw up a three-point play for.

The curious case of DeVante' Jones

Jones is still hard to figure out. At times, he does some great things. He'll sneakily get a couple of steals a game, go to the rack and score through contact and find open guys with really crafty passes. At other times, he'll commit a dumb foul, turn the ball over like a freshman and look stuck on offense. Tonight he played 30 minutes, scored 14 points and committed four fouls. He didn't turn it over, but he also didn't rack up many other stats finishing with just one rebound and three assists. The freshman Frankie Collins sometimes comes in and looks like the guy who should be starting, but at other times he looks like the freshman he is. Whoever ends up being the guy, Michigan needs to get better play at the point guard position.

Entry passes

I tweeted about this early in the first half because while sitting in Crisler live, it was painfully obvious that entry passes are an issue for this team.

I'm sure they work on it a lot, but for some reason a lot of #Michigan's players don't seem confident in dumping the ball in to Dickinson. The dude is huge and great at getting position but guys seem to think he's not "open" if he has a dude sealed on his back.
— Brandon Brown (@BSB_Wolverine) December 11, 2021

Dickinson is an extremely big, extremely efficient post player, who just needs touches. During the first half especially, he was open a lot with a defender sealed behind him and for some reason, guards and wings just looked at him and decided not to give it to him. Rightfully so, Dickinson was getting frustrated as we've seen at times throughout this season. The big fella still finished with 19 points on 9-of-15 shooting, but he's working hard to get position without a payoff too often.