Clearly I underestimated South Carolina, but to be fair, I didn't realize they had two new rotation players that were both better than most of the others - One guy was coming off an injury and the other from their football team. Their team is not good by any means, but they're good enough to pull some upsets in the SEC.
That said, it was a very fugly game, especially in the first half. Michigan had an absurd number of turnovers, many of which were unforced. South Carolina was getting way too many shots at the rim and also hit some difficult ones like Northwestern, but they also shot and hit enough threes to keep Michigan's defense honest. Again, I'll give the defense some benefit of the doubt given what they've done the rest of the year, and South Carolina had two players that hadn't been playing, but this should motivate them to get better.
Turnovers aside, it was encouraging to see Michigan's offense play so well. South Carolina did speed up the game to make it higher-scoring, but Michigan was able to adjust to it. Poole had a big game, especially in the second half, while Teske, Brazdeikis, and Livers also had really good games.
Because the game was always somewhat (but not really) in doubt, only the main rotation players played. Johns and DeJulius should get some meaningful minutes in the remaining non-con games. Johns would be particularly nice to see emerge, considering Austin Davis' mistakes in limited minutes.
