While the Michigan Wolverines did get the win last night, turnovers continue to be a problem for this squad. Dusty May and the players spoke about those turnover issues after the game:
Much like college football, the quickest way to lose a college basketball game is turning the ball over too much. The Michigan men’s basketball struggled with turnovers in Friday night’s win over TCU, giving the ball away a season-high 21 times, including 16 in the first half.
This comes after a Wake Forest loss where the Wolverines turned the ball over 16 times. The TCU Horned Frogs really sped up the Wolverines with 3/4-court pressure and aggressive defense, forcing quite a few turnovers, especially in the opening 20 minutes of play.
Head coach Dusty May was asked if he saw a theme with the turnovers, and if it was a result of guys playing too quickly.
“Yes, both — we were playing a little too fast” May said. “Each team presents a new challenge, whether it’s zone or no middle defense or whatever the case. We’re a bigger, less playmaking team off the bounce and when you drive, they collapse. So you have to have great off-ball movement, you have to have ball fakes.”
We know May’s squad wants to play at a fast pace, but there is such a thing as playing too fast. May blamed himself and the coaching staff’s approach for the amount of turnovers.
“We were over-penetrating,” May said. “We probably stressed not turning the ball over too much, probably talked about it and told them what not to do too much this week instead of focusing on what we wanted to do to beat their defense. But we were so consumed with focusing on ourselves. We’ll definitely spend some more time on the details as far as the turnovers, but it’s part of the growth process for us.”
It doesn’t appear there’s any sort of panic when it comes to turnovers, nor should there be. This group has only played three games together, and it will time to get used to playing with one another at a quicker pace.
“From Day 1, we’ve tried to play at such a fast pace,” May said. “We are encouraging them to play a lot faster than they’ve ever played. The decisions are quicker, we’re seeing bigger bodies. We’re not going to panic, we’re simply going to tighten up a little bit and tighten up a little bit, but there are some themes. We do feel confident that we’ll look back at the end of the year and we’ll have a significant improvement from where we are now.”
When asked if the pace May preaches was a contributing factor in the turnovers, point guard Tre Donaldson — who had two turnovers along with three assists and 14 second-half points — rejected that notion.
“Just take care of the ball,” Donaldson said. “Sometimes we try to make the home run play, and sometimes we can simplify it a little bit. Sometimes we can’t control if we slip or if a guy makes a great defensive play — it’s part of the game. But the way we play, we just got to take care of the ball and have pride in taking care of the ball.”
One positive we can take away from these team’s press conferences is they don’t make excuses. Rather, they admit their mistakes, as center Danny Wolf, who had four turnovers, did after the win.
“Yeah, personally, obviously (I’ve had) a few games with a lot of turnovers, I think it’s just something where coach May just tells me to slow the game down and let it come to me more,” Wolf said. “I think that a few of turnovers today were travels, the ones where it’s just bad passes and knowing the scout a little bit better, it’s something we’re going to continue to work on. If we don’t turn the ball over, our chances of winning go up significantly. That’s something that coach is going to preach and something we’re going to keep working at. It’s going to come with time.”
The Wolverines have plenty of time to figure out their turnover issues before they get into conference play. Part of that comes down to chemistry, and the more they play together, the more this group of new players will start to gel.
“We’re still figuring each other out,” May said. “Part of the fun of having a new group is that we simply stay the course, we find solutions and we’re never pointing fingers at each other. And I think our guys did a nice job of that (against TCU) despite the turnovers and what not, they stayed together which is most important.”