Michigan guard Laval Lucas-Perry comes through for the Wolverines

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Laval Lucas-Perry searched for weeks to find something to pick himself up.

The sophomore guard from Flint hadn’t scored in two games. He had missed his last five shots. He was a non-factor, scoring-wise, in the starting lineup for a Michigan basketball team desperately seeking points from players not named Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims.

He showed up for the first time in the Big Ten against Penn State, scoring 16 points and tying a career-high for 3-pointers made with four.

“Coach (John Beilein) told me, I passed up a shot, and Coach told me I got to shoot that,” Lucas-Perry said. “So I started hunting my shot a little bit more, and Manny and DeShawn found me.”

Lucas-Perry has looked tentative in recent games from 3-point range. Beilein told him at halftime that when he’s open, he’s one of the best shooters on a Wolverines’ team that has been struggling from beyond the 3-point line.

“Laval just hit open shots,” Beilein said. “Which he can do.”

Michigan loses its bench. Again As Michigan searches for answers to its season-long issue of finding a third scorer and a consistent rotation, Beilein has said he might have to shorten his bench.

On Thursday against Penn State he had an absolute reason to.

“I’m not putting our losses on our bench,” Beilein said during the Big Ten teleconference Monday. “But we do need to play better or change that up.”

Playing better wasn’t an option Thursday. Michigan’s bench really couldn’t have been much less of a factor.

The Wolverines substitutes - freshman guards Darius Morris and Matt Vogrich and senior forward Zack Gibson - played 29 minutes.

They combined for no points, three rebounds and four assists - the three rebounds and four assists coming from Morris, who logged 23 of the 29 minutes.

Vogrich missed the one shot he took. Gibson had a turnover in two minutes.

Forward Anthony Wright didn’t play for the first time all season.

Talor Battle blames players for loss Penn State has one of the best players in the conference in guard Talor Battle, and for a half he looked like it, scoring nine points.

Then, in the second half, Battle and his teammates disappeared. They started turning the ball over. They missed more shots.

And Battle was held scoreless.

“We had a lack of effort in the second half defensively and that’s been an Achilles' heel all season long,” Battle said. “It came back and got us today. It’s one of those things where every shot they took you could see it going in and every shot we took, they weren’t going in.

“Then we were turning the ball over entirely too much.”

This and that Sims had over 20 points for the second consecutive game, scoring a game-high 25. With 8:07 to go, Michigan had 19 points from Sims and 19 points from the rest of the Wolverines combined … The two minutes played for Zack Gibson is his season low. … Penn State lost its first game of the year when leading with 5 minutes remaining. At that mark, the Nittany Lions led 47-46. … In the first half, Michigan was 0-of-12 from 3-point range and 8-of-11 from 2-point range. … The Penn State crowd was sparse at best with an announced attendance of 5,799 and 8 students in the student section behind the basket. Penn State doesn’t start classes until next week.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.