COLLEGE PARK — Take a large enough lead and avoid a close game.
That’s the Michigan men’s basketball team’s blueprint to avoid the narrow-margin collapses that have plagued it for two seasons. That’s the blueprint to end its now five-game losing streak.
For the second game in a row, the Wolverines followed it. On Thursday night, they held a 12-point lead over Maryland at halftime. But exactly 10 minutes later, the lead vanished, the blueprint was left behind and the game was over.
“(Maryland) is a team that is going to come out in the first five minutes (of the second half) and lay the first punch,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said. “The keyword for us is we have to be hunting for singles and not home runs.”
It wouldn’t have taken a home run to put the Terrapins away. No one needed to step up and hit a big shot or force a turnover. The Wolverines just needed to remain fundamentally competent: avoid unnecessary fouls, continue to make the looks given to them and not let defensive lapses turn into collapses.
Just over a minute into the half, sophomore forward Tarris Reed Jr. was stripped after receiving a pass along the right baseline from graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua. Up 10 points, it was a mistake Michigan could afford. But Reed grew over eager to correct it and was called for his third foul of the game, entering foul trouble and compounding one mistake with another.
Already down two players, graduate forward Tray Jackson to injury and sophomore guard Dug McDaniel to suspension, the Wolverines were forced to go to their already shallow bench. Not only were Howard’s players swinging for the fences, but his lineup card was lacking hitters above the Mendoza line.
Using a timeout after its lead fell to six points just over two minutes into the half, Michigan went back to the blueprint. It started hitting for average again — taking inside shots. While Nkamhoua missed the first three shots out of the timeout, the high percentage looks eventually fell, and the Wolverines led 39-31 as the clock read 15:00. It wasn’t a close game.
But then Michigan made it one.
Maryland’s shots began to fall, as they were bound to after an unsustainably poor shooting performance in the first half. And rather than staying the course and taking the blows, the Wolverines tried to respond with a big play to recapture momentum — but instead only opened the door further for the Terrapins.
When Maryland hit its first 3-pointer of the half seconds later, Michigan didn’t need one of its own to respond. An offensive possession that provided a clean shot and wasted some clock would have sufficed. Instead graduate guard Jaelin Llewelyn tried to dribble out of the full-court press and turned the ball over, giving way for an easy layup. Mistake on top of mistake.
Meanwhile, Nkamhoua continued to make inside shots, and the Wolverines maintained their lead with his makes. Until it swung for the fences once more. After a Llewelyn miss, redshirt sophomore forward Will Tschetter looked to pick up an offensive board and was instead met with a loose-ball foul.
15 seconds later he picked up his fourth foul, putting two of Michigan’s big men in foul trouble and sending the Terrapins into the bonus. Maryland hit both, tying the game at 44 as the clock read 10:00.
But it might as well have read 00.00, because the game was over. The Wolverines had slipped into another close game.
“We keep being in these one possession games,” Nkamhoua said. “And it seems as though our body language is very quick to go to a state of panic like we’re down 20, when we’re down 2 or we’re down one or we’re down three. And all that is winnable. We might be up three and they’re making a run and we’re like ‘ah, we were just up 10, damn.’ ”
And if Michigan was swinging for the fences with the lead, it was looking for a grand slam without it.
Swing and a miss.