It's safe to now say that this year's basketball team isn't going anywhere at this rate. Following a win over Army that showcased a brand new starting lineup, Michigan came out today against Georgetown and got beat easily by the Hoyas. In front of a supposedly sold-out Crisler Arena, the Maize and Blue played it close in the first half, but just as we saw last week, got blown away in the second. Today's starting lineup was the same as Thursday with the only change being Lester Abram starting over Jevohn Shepherd. Playing against a much better team, no one seemed to be able to do anything. But I don't blame the players completely for doing so bad. I think this all comes back to how Tommy Amaker coaches. It isn't really tough to shutdown Michigan on the offensive side of things, especially when more teams are doing it so much more easily. All that is needed is to play a defense where you trap the ball handler in the post and just relatively cover the perimeter shooters. For example, any time Courtney Sims feels the slightest bit of pressure he tries to get rid of the ball and usually turns it over. Then on the outside, Michigan as a whole can't hit a three pointer. Today, the Wolverines just didn't get anything going, which is a main reason why they only shot 36% from the field. On the defensive side of things, Michigan also is having some troubles. The Wolverines gave up points constantly today on the backdoor move. Georgetown just used a couple of screens to get someone opened and created a wide open lane to the basket. Also, Georgetown shot nearly 50% from three point land, which directly comes back to the lack of defense. All in all, this team flat out sucks. I've tried to be optimistic but no longer can be. It just doesn't seem like any of the players know the basics of basketball. Although the amount of turnovers was down today (only 13 for a change), missed shots and a lack of defense didn't change. When the Big Ten portion of the schedule starts on Wednesday, it'll be against a good Illinois team. I don't expect a win, but if it somehow happened then I'm sure another loss would come soon after. I hate being so negative, but look at the facts here. Tommy Amaker is not doing a good enough job as head coach of this team and he needs to be called out for it. I'm sick of seeing a team with so much talent go to waste because the coach doesn't seem to know how to win. On a related note, Michigan will get some scoring help next season when Manny Harris, one of the best recruits in the state of Michigan, comes to Ann Arbor. Harris scored 50 points on December 27th to lead Detroit Redford to a win over Grosse Pointe North. This is the second time this season that he has scored 50 or more. The sad part, that almost outscored Michigan's total output of points today.
