GAME CHANGER
Michigan’s 3-point barrages ends OSU season
INDIANAPOLIS — Bryant Reeves sat about eight rows behind the OSU bench Friday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Big Country, the king of the low block, had to be wondering what had become of the game he played.
Up on the concourse of America’s grandest gymnasium, among the hundreds of cool artifacts celebrating Indiana’s love affair with hoops, rests a photo of Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird and John Wooden, taken at the arena’s 1999 grand opening. None of those basketball giants ever experienced a game like this.
Even the winning coach was hard-pressed to believe what he had just witnessed.
“Give up 91 and win? I wouldn’t have thought that would happen,” said Michigan’s John Beilein.
But happen it did. The Wolverines beat OSU 92-91 in the NCAA Midwest Regional in a game that defied basketball wisdom.
The Cowboys shot 54.7 percent from the field; 43.8 percent from 3-point range.
They made their foul shots (14 of 16). They generally took care of the ball (10 turnovers) for such a fast-paced team. They scored 50 points in the paint and scored on 60 percent of their possessions. They trailed by one point at halftime, then scored on 23 of their 33 second-half possessions.
And OSU was sent home because basketball has changed.
In this basketball mecca, a city where Bird works and Oscar was born and real-life Milan High School won a 1954 Indiana state title so memorable it inspired “Hoosiers,” OSU and Michigan played a game that was hard to recognize.
The Wolverines made 16 of 29 3-point shots. After a slow start, Michigan made 15 of its last 22 from long range. Discounting five trips to the foul line late when OSU resorted to hacking to extend the game,
the Wolverines had 28 second-half possessions and scored 45 points.
Michigan, a prestigious academic school, has a basketball team that has mastered math. Three is better than two.
“The game’s changing,” Cowboy coach Brad Underwood said, without lament. “To their credit, when you make 3’s, you’ve got a great chance to win.”
Time we all accepted it. Just like those Big 12 football teams that go to Lubbock knowing that 50 points might not be enough to win, college basketball coaches are realizing that scoring is not enough anymore. It’s how you score. Even for a good 3-point shooting team on a good 3-point shooting night, you might always need more.
OSU got up 52-46 early in the second half, then Michigan scored 16 points on six possessions. Derrick Walton Jr., Zak Irvin and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman made consecutive 3-pointers, then Walton capped the spree with another trey that gave the Wolverines a 62-61 lead.
“It’s amazing how contagious shooting becomes,” Underwood said. “Somebody jumps up and makes one. Everybody else sees that goes in, takes the lid off.”
OSU had lost a sixpoint lead during a stretch in which it scored on four of five possessions.
And here’s how you know the game is getting strange. Underwood was relatively pleased with OSU’s defense. He recalled a couple of mistakes that allowed Wolverine sharpshooter Duncan Robinson a couple of open looks, but basically, Michigan made a bunch of 3-pointers that were relatively contested.
“The game is evolving into that,” Underwood said. “I expected them to make shots. Not at that rate, I was hoping. You go 11 of 15 from the 3 (in the second half), that’s hard to do in a gym by yourself. And they hit some hard shots. Give them credit.”
Of course, Michigan doesn’t always shoot like this. But the Wolverines did make 39.2 percent of their Big Ten 3-pointers.
When an opponent shoots like that, the pressure mounts on your offense to score. OSU was mostly up to that challenge. Jeffrey Carroll was incredibly efficient, scoring 19 points on eight shots. Jawun Evans had 23 points and 12 assists. OSU made seven of 16 3-pointers itself.
But the Cowboys blinked just a little. With the game tied at 64, OSU went three straight possessions without scoring, and suddenly trailed 70-64. And after Irvin produced an 82-77 lead with what would prove to be Michigan’s final 3-pointer with 3:47 left, the OSU offense momentarily stalled again, getting only a Mitchell Solomon dunk off a miss and a Leyton Hammonds driving basket over six possessions.
That wouldn’t beat you in the old days. That beat the Cowboys against Michigan.
“Scored 50 points in the paint, shot 55 percent, outrebound them by 20,” Underwood said. “In the old standards, you won today.”
But in this home of basketball history, we were reminded quite well that the old days are like this OSU season. Gone.