Turnovers remain an issue as Michigan basketball falls to Maryland 71-65

ANN ARBOR — The final home game of the season ended in a loss for No. 17 Michigan men’s basketball (22-8, 14-5 Big Ten) Wednesday, falling 71-65 to No. 13 Maryland. The Wolverines finished with 16 turnovers and shot 35 percent from three. It marks back-to-back losses for Michigan for the first time since December.

“… When you’re not finishing (at the rim), you’re turning it over and you’re not shooting well from three, you’ve got to figure out other ways (to win),” Michigan head coach Dusty May said after the game. “Credit our guys, they fought like crazy and dug in and tried to win an ugly one, and we just came up short.”

Michigan basketball drops final home game 71-65 against Maryland

It was a mundane game to start as Maryland led 7-6 with seven minutes off the clock. Michigan grabbed its first lead of the game (9-7) amid an 8-0 run, including back-to-back threes from Danny Wolf and Nimari Burnett, respectively. The Wolverines were up 14-7 with 11:26 left until halftime, but the lead was short-lived as Maryland outscored them 26-8 for the rest of the half.

Selton Miguel led the Terps in points going into the locker room (13), followed by Derik Queen (10), Rodney Rice (6) and Jordan Geronimo (4).

Aside from Danny Wolf (11 points, 5-of-6 from the field), Michigan couldn’t do anything right on the offensive end in the first-half. The Wolverines shot 10-of-32 (31.3%) from the field and 2-of-9 (22.2%) from behind the arc with seven turnovers. They went into the break down 33-22.

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Michigan had four turnovers in the first four minutes of the second-half, three of which came from Wolf. Wolf said the way he played confused him.

“… Start of the second-half, I’m not too sure what happened,” Wolf said after the game. “I was seeing things, and then i just forced a few bad passes. I went to the bench for a little bit and I think I kind of just recalibrated and kind of found my footing again.”

The Wolverines mustered a 6-of-7 run from the field to follow, including ten points from Goldin (4-of-4). Will Tschetter added a three-pointer as well. The Crisler Center crowd was back into it after an LJ Cason layup cut Michigan’s deficit to five (44-39).

Coming out of a timeout, Maryland knocked down back-to-back threes to push its lead to 50-39. The Wolverines answered with a 7-0 run to force the Terps into taking another timeout with the score at 50-46 and ten minutes left in the game. After back-and-forth action, Michigan was able to cut its deficit to two (54-52).

“… It’s been the common theme the last few weeks,” Wolf said. “(We) just get (ourselves) into a little bit of a hole and suddenly we’re back in the game again. When we play like that, we like our five just as much as any five in the country. Coach May said it – that needs to be our ground zero for how we play games. No matter what the score is, what the time is, we just got to play with that chip.”

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Turnovers began to hurt the Wolverines once again, and Maryland was able to get some separation on the scoreboard (65-57), and it was all but over. Goldin tied Wolf for a game-high 20 points and also brought down a season-high 15 rebounds.

Rice finished with a team-high 19 points for Maryland, and Miguel and Queen each added 17. As a team the Terrapins had 12 steals and four blocks.

“… We need to get back to playing good team basketball,” May said. “We need to be more connected as a group, and all of us in that locker room that’ve been on different teams – every championship caliber team that we’ve been on has been through stretches like this. The best ones, they fight through it and they become closer and they work with more unity. And all the others splinter and point fingers and blame.

“This is a big test for us. This is the most adversity this group has faced, so we’ll learn a lot about ourselves these next few weeks.”

The Wolverines are hoping for a Michigan State loss to Iowa Thursday, as it would still give them a chance at the Big Ten regular season title. Michigan is set to travel to East Lansing for a matchup with the Spartans on Sunday.

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