After early Big Ten exit, Michigan looks to cure shooting woes ahead of NCAA Tournament - MLive.com

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Michigan’s women’s basketball team has put up hundreds of shots in practice in hopes of solving the shooting woes that has ailed it since returning from a two-week quarantine Feb. 7.

But after the Wolverines scored a season-low 49 points Thursday in a 65-49 loss to Northwestern in a Big Ten quarterfinal, they are going back to the drawing board ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

Michigan (14-5), which has lost four of its past seven, shot 29.5% Thursday, including going 1 for 15 from 3-point range.

“Our kids are incredible and they’re in the gym all the time getting shots up, but getting shots up compared to game shots is completely different,” head coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “They’re very committed to being great shooters, but when you’re in the game and the pressure, it’s a different moment, especially a contested shot.

“That’ll definitely be something we’ll work on -- just moving the basketball and making the extra pass, instead of settling for the first pass so we get a great shot instead of a contested shot.”

The Wolverines appeared to gain momentum heading into postseason play after beating the Wildcats 63-58 in the regular-season finale Saturday to earn the No. 4 seed and a double-bye in the conference tournament. But Northwestern, which lost both games to Michigan during the regular season, made the necessary adjustments and stifled Michigan defensively, especially in the second half. It outscored the Wolverines 35-19 in the final 20 minutes.

“It was a tough one, definitely against a team that we had been successful against twice,” Barnes Arico said. “It was a tough way to go out in the Big Ten.”

Michigan still has a chance to enter the NCAA Tournament with its highest seeding in program history. It was a No. 7 seed in 2018 and was a No. 8 seed in four other years. But ESPN’s Charlie Crème has the team pegged as a No. 5 seed in his latest projection, although that could change based on conference tournament results.

Regardless, the Wolverines understand their play must return to the level from earlier this season during their 10-0 start if they are to go on a postseason run. They averaged 81.4 points in their first 11 games before Michigan’s athletic department-wide two-week shutdown but are scoring just 66.2 per game in eight games since, albeit against tougher competition.

“I think we definitely need to take a day off to regroup and rest up and get ourselves ready to go,” Barnes Arico said. “Then we got to get back to work. I think we were really disappointed, but, sometimes when you reflect and you think about kind of all the different situations that have been thrown our way this season, those pauses have gotten us. At this point in the year, I’ve never had a team that wasn’t in tremendous shape, and we look like we’re still trying to find our shape sometimes

“I think part of that reason is because our pause was a pause of ‘you’re in quarantine and you can’t be in a basketball gym.’ So 14 days in the middle of your season was really difficult, and I think we’re trying to find our groove. We’re trying to get our groove back at the end of the year so it’s a different position than I’ve ever been in as a coach. But it’s obviously something we’re very excited for, to have an opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament.”

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After early Big Ten exit, Michigan looks to cure shooting woes ahead of NCAA Tournament - MLive.com
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