Michigan basketball: Hunter Dickinson says recent progress 'almost erased' by Indiana loss
Michigan basketball had a chance at another resume win on Saturday night in Ann Arbor, but let it slip through their grasp in a 62-61 loss to Indiana. The Wolverines now sit at 14-11 and 8-6 in Big Ten play still without much of an NCAA Tournament resume.
This was the type of game Michigan has lost several times this year. A lack of poise and execution caused a winnable game to disappear and go the other way. For junior center Hunter Dickinson, the gravity of the situation was not lost on him in a somber postgame press conference.
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“It is extremely unfortunate that we weren’t able to capitalize on this,” Dickinson told the media after the loss. “This was a great opportunity for us to build our resume. We need a lot of help in order to make the tournament. And this was a great opportunity that slipped through our fingers.
“But I feel like that’s the moral of the season so far, it’s just not capitalizing on those opportunities that we get. And he starts with me as the captain of the team. I need to do better.”
Dickinson did his part, scoring 16 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. But his basket with 5:12 remaining was the last time Michigan scored in the game. His basket was the only made field goal for the Wolverines in the final 8 minutes of the game.
“It definitely is frustrating,” Dickinson said. “We weren’t really getting that much good looks at the basket the last couple of minutes. Whatever we were doing wasn’t working. It just wasn’t an all-around good effort by us out there. We need to execute better down the stretch if we’re gonna win a tough game like that versus a really good team.”
He continued: “It felt very winnable until the last shot. Even the last shot I thought had a chance to go in there. But it felt very winnable. Obviously, we were up most of the game, and so for us to just have it slip away like that really hurts because it felt like a really winnable game and felt like our game to win.”
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Michigan’s recent progress halted by loss
Coming into Saturday’s game, Michigan was riding a 3-game winning streak with a chance to prove its recent success could be applied to a big-time game. Obviously, that was not the case given the game result and lack of an application of early-season lessons learned.
Dickinson felt in the aftermath that Michigan is basically back to where it was after a blowout loss to Penn State two weeks ago.
“The progress really kind of almost got erased with this loss right here,” Dickinson said. “We’re kind of back to the drawing board and I would say we probably only have like one more of these left to use up if we want to make the tournament. I think the progress kind of got erased out there. We have a lot of work to do and try to build back that momentum that we had.”
Michigan has to get off the mat and prepare for a road game at Wisconsin on Valentine’s Day and a home date with rival Michigan State on Feb. 18. There is no time to sulk, but Dickinson admits it is going to be a challenge to avoid that.
“It’s gonna be tough to not let this one linger,” he said. “The guys in the locker room were pretty upset and rightfully so. This was a game we let slip through our fingers. I’d be lying if I’d said you should be able to get over this easily. This one should hurt. I mean, it definitely hurts me.”
Tuesday night’s game at Wisconsin tips off at 9 p.m. ET.
