Poor shooting night leads to Michigan women's basketball loss to Detroit; Concordia wins
While the Michigan women’s basketball team was struggling through its worst offensive performance of the season, visiting Detroit Mercy found itself a new scoring threat.
Dominique Dixon scored a career-high 20 points and the Titans won 67-48 at Crisler Arena on Saturday night.
Detroit (5-5) packed in a zone defense and dared Michigan (6-5) to shoot from the outside.
The Wolverines responded by making just 18 of 59 (.305) shots from the floor and 6 of 30 (.200) from 3-point range, numbers that actually improved after a dreadful first half.
“(Detroit) just left kids wide open, said ‘Go ahead and shoot,’ and we missed. They dared us to shoot it. That’s a slap in the face, but what are you going to do?” Michigan coach Kevin Borseth said in a post-game radio interview.
“You can’t come down the court, get wide open shots and not make them. We literally had to play soccer defense. Hold them scoreless.”
Twelve of the Wolverines’ first 16 shots were taken from behind the 3-point line, and only one of them was good as Detroit built a 19-7 lead midway through the first half.
Michigan pulled within 25-18 by halftime when a few long-distance shots finally started to fall. The Wolverines made 3 of 7 shots from 3-point range in the final 10:40 of the first half.
The team had one short stretch of offensive efficiency in the second half, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The Wolverines scored on four of five possessions near the midway point of the second half, accounting for an 8-3 run that cut Detroit’s lead to 45-39 with 8:05 left to play.
But the run was short-lived and Detroit responded.
Dixon, who scored 14 of her 20 points in the second half, averaged 5.1 points through Detroit’s first nine games and was 3 of 14 from 3-point range this season.
On Saturday, the sophomore guard was 4 of 6 from behind the line, including one with 3:37 left in the game that put the Titans up 57-41 and ended any hopes of a Wolverine comeback.
Jordan Nya scored 15 points and Jenny Ryan 11 for Michigan, which hosts No. 25 Boston College (10-0) at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Detroit was playing its last of seven straight road games, a 2-5 stretch that started with a 40-point loss to Michigan State and included a 12-point loss at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne last Saturday.
Michigan had won six in a row over the Titans. Detroit’s last win was in 1994, when current coach Autumn Rademacher was a freshman on the team. Rademacher was an assistant to Borseth when both were at Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2004-07.
MORE WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Concordia 74, Spring Arbor 58: Hannah Sabol’s team-high 16 points and seven rebounds led Concordia to a non-conference win at Cardinal Field House. Marion Rodriguez added 15 points and Elyse Schlump 14 for the Cardinals (8-5).
Comments
Big Daddy
Mon, Dec 20, 2010 : 12:03 p.m.
Chapmaja, you are correct! Especially on Borseth's assitant coach's, they great people, great teachers and are recruiting not only better players but good character. We have lost some top recruits due to facilites,image and admissions unlike some of the other top programs, damn right now the mens and women coach's have to sit in temporary trailers for god sakes,how do you get top players bringing them to that. The new player development facility will help, somehow upgrade Crisler and have admin be a bit more supportive on the admissions program. If those things are done, the current base of players and new one's coming in will finally be able to build the basketball legacy that has never exsisted for the women. You have the right people now just need to get out of the way with all the other typical Michigan politics.
chapmaja
Sun, Dec 19, 2010 : 8:27 p.m.
This staff had done a lot of good things and had done much more than what Merchant had done during her coaching career. The head coach, Borseth had been a winning coach at the DII level and in the Horizon League at UWGB. In fact Borseth during his entire coaching career has had ONE losing season as a head coach (His first season at MTU). His teams at MTU were always contenders to win the GLIAC. While at UWGB his team was a dominating force in the Horizon League. While at UWGB his teams never finished lower than a first place tie. The top assistant coach at Michigan is Dawn Plitzuweit. Her resume as a coach is fairly decent as well. During her five seasons as a head coach as GVSU (DII) her teams had 4 winning seasons, made the NCAA Tourney 4 times, made the Elite 8 twice and won a national title. She was also an assistant at UWGB for several years before taking the GVSU head coaching job. The one losing season at GVSU was in large part due to numerous injuries and a very very young team that she was forced to play. While I don't know how good Tiana Kirkland is as a coach I know she knows the game very well and was a very good basketball player in college for Ferris St. I witnessed her give GVSU fits multiple times while I was going to GVSU. If she can coach the way she played she will be a good coach. Mike Williams was the top assistant at GVSU when Plitzuweit was coaching at GVSU and was very important in the success of the GVSU program. Compare the record of the current Michigan staff with that of Merchant's record as a head coach. Merchant coached at Saginaw Valley St for 3 seasons, leading the Cards to a highest finish of third place in the GLIAC North Divison. While her SVSU teams were always competitive they were never a serious contender beyond making the NCAA's, which they did only in her second year as HC. While at EMU she lead the Eagles to mid-pack finishes and.500 seasons her first 5 seasons as HC before the 2003-2004 team won the first of 2 MAc West titles in 3 seasons and made the lone NCAA Tourney she coached for. At MSU she took over a program that was becoming one of the nations Elite programs now it is hovering as a upper level Big Ten team at best without any huge accomplishments. I personally think the problem with Michigan basketball on the women's side is the same as the problem on the men's side. A lot of it has to do with the fact the school fights the image of being a "football" school and the facilities currently represent that. I think with the facility upgrades it is possible Michigan's recruiting will pick up beyond what MSU recruits and Michigan will dominate MSU in the future. Hopefully both programs can be among the conference Elite and contenders for deep NCAA runs.
Engineer
Sun, Dec 19, 2010 : 6:57 p.m.
Why why why did Bill Martin NOT hire Suzy Merchant? We may never know but will certainly pay. State will dominate us for years to come but give them credit they were smart enough to hire her. We interviewed her first but passed up the oppurtunity to get this staff. How Sad.