Rick Barnes on Michigan & Dickinson: ‘We were glad he was shooting it'
INDIANAPOLIS — Michigan needed triples from somewhere — at least a handful — to beat Rick Barnes’ Tennessee team Saturday. That’s about what they got in a 76-68 win, but not from the usual suspects.
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The Wolverines made six of their sixteen threes, and fifth-year senior shooting guard Eli Brooks had two of them. Sophomore Terrance Williams nailed one from the corner in the first half, but frosh Caleb Houstan — one of the Wolverines’ best shooters — missed all three of his.
Enter sophomore center Hunter Dickinson, who had been ice cold heading into the game from long range. He’d made only two of his last 19, and Tennessee coach Rick Barnes was happy to let him fire away.
“We were glad he was shooting it from out there. We would have let him have all he wanted — we really did, because we [were worried about him] around the rim,” Barnes said. “But when he hurt us the most was when they did exactly what we thought they would do coming out of halftime. They would try to establish them on the block there.
“Did we think we could shut him out? We didn’t, because [he’s good]. But we had two stops there where we couldn’t rebound the ball [down the stretch], and that was a really pivotal time for us. He’s a hard player to guard. And two years in a row we have gone up against the big, burly post players that’s hurt us.”
Williams was the guy on the putbacks, though, and they were huge. Dickinson was gassed late after playing 38-plus minutes, and Barnes wished his team could have taken better advantage.
As it was, they continued to run downhill against the Michigan defense and tried to speed up the game.
“They got tired. We knew it, and we kept trying to push the tempo,” Barnes added. “Like someone asked about a zone — we were glad when they went zone because we knew they weren’t going to stay in it. That was not a factor. We knew if we drove it a couple times, they would switch man to man.
“What we weren’t able to do was take advantage of it early inside, because sometimes you end up with mismatches there.”
And when Michigan packed it in and forced Tennessee to shoot from the outside, the shots just weren’t falling. There were a number of open looks, Barnes noted — some of them wide-open — but the 2-for-18 from long range was one of the stories of the game.
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“We missed three, four looks that we would like. I don’t think we could have got it better,” Barnes said. “But some days it goes — some days they don’t.
“If you would have told me looking at the stat sheet that we were going to turn them over 15 times, 16 times and we only had seven. Points in the paint — we outscored them. I would have never thought that. Fast break points, 19 to five, bench points, 18 to 11, second chance points 13 to seven. And those two big offensive rebounds came after we got them to take two pretty difficult shots.”
And none of it was enough. They simply didn’t make enough shots.
Then, when crunch time arrived, so did Brooks. His hook shot at 53 seconds to put Michigan up four was the play of the game. He scored 23 points and made the key plays down the stretch.
“They’re a good basketball team,” Barnes said. “You’re playing this time of year, you’re a good basketball team. And they’re good.
“I thought their guard play was really good. And certainly, they have a post player that’s unique, and he does a lot of good things. He’s a hard guy to [guard]. If you would like to double him, he passes the ball well. He knows where he wants the ball. They do a good job of knowing where they want to get him the ball.”
In the end, Barnes said, his team just didn’t make enough shots.
“But give them credit,” he said. “They made the plays there at the end, and those two offensive rebounds were huge plays in the game.”
