Michigan coach Dusty May on players slipping on wet floor late in Wake Forest game: 'Just chalk it up to bad fortune'

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan Wolverines basketball lost a nail-biter to Wake Forest, 72-70, Sunday afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. The Maize and Blue made some mistakes down the stretch and were also the victims of some bad luck, with two players slipping in the same spot on the floor, both plays leading to turnovers.

With just over a minute to play, down 65-63, junior forward/center Danny Wolf caught a pass from junior point guard Tre Donaldson while coming around a screen from graduate center Vladislav Goldin. He slipped and traveled right at the top of the key, giving it back to the Demon Deacons with 1:14 on the clock.

Michigan forced a turnover of its own and went to junior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. on its offensive possession. On the right wing, Gayle used a ball screen from Goldin and dribbled to the top of the key — slipping in the same spot as Wolf was just on the floor minutes earlier. He lost control of the ball, and it was picked up by Wake Forest forward Tre’Von Spillers, who dunked it on the other end to put his team up 67-63 with 40 seconds left.

After the dunk, officials called their own timeout to have the floor wiped down. Both Wolf and Goldin were assisting them, pointing to the wet spots.

According to Michigan coach Dusty May in his Monday press conference, Wolverine players had noticed some abnormalities with the playing surface before the game began.

“In warmups, our guys were talking about how the floor felt slick. I don’t know,” May said after a big sigh. “They had the same floor. Maybe it was just specific spots. I’m not really sure.

“It’s definitely unfortunate. I thought both of those possessions, we had advantages to get in the paint and make good decisions in the flow of the game.”

To May’s point, just before Gayle’s turnover, Michigan had both of its big men — Wolf and Goldin — on either side of the hoop with only one defender between them. The defense was broken down, but Michigan wasn’t able to capitalize.

“Just chalk it up to bad fortune. I’m not sure,” May said.

Dusty May on shot quality, allowing offensive rebounds

Michigan made 8 threes in the first half but went 2-of-16 from distance in the second, cooling off significantly. May was asked if the shot quality decreased as the game went on.

“It’s strange, because I thought [junior forward] Sam Walters banged in a couple really tough ones, and then I thought he was surprised he was open on one or two and didn’t knock them down.

“I thought there were opportunities when we had those separating plays, those run plays where we probably had better looks than the shots we had that got us to that point. But that’s basketball. Sometimes, you’re so open that you’re surprised you’re open; sometimes, you miss it by a centimeter. 

“We gotta do a better job on the glass, we gotta do a better job of limiting possessions, because we can’t hang our hats on whether or not those shots are gonna go in. But we weren’t disappointed in the quality of our shots — we were disappointed in the rhythm of the game.”

Michigan gave up 2 offensive rebounds on a Wake Forest possession that started at the 2:31 mark and lasted for over a minute. The Demon Deacons posted 11 offensive rebounds that amounted to 8 second-chance points. May said it’s an area Michigan has to improve, and that the Wolverines aren’t going to trade being strong on the glass for looking to push in transition.

“No. “Those are two different [things],” May noted. “We would sacrifice transition offense every day, twice on Sunday to defense rebounds.

“That’s been something that, with our size, we didn’t think that this would be an issue. We didn’t think that we’d be a dominant defensive rebounding team, for a number of reasons, early in the year.

“But we didn’t think that we would be giving up the amount of second shots that we had, especially on the possessions when our defense wasn’t really broken down. When you’re broken down and guards are in the paint, it usually puts a big against a guard and a rotational block out. You can expect to give up some of those. But the others, when we’re on balance, we’re in position and we don’t come up with it, those are the ones we have to get.

“Especially with the variance. These are one-possession games, and they’re going to be one-possession games a lot this year. So you can’t give them three or four opportunities in the last two minutes of a game.”

Michigan’s next test comes Friday night against TCU at Crisler Center.