For a neutral fan I guess it was entertaining, but it was incredibly frustrating for me. Exacerbating things was that I thought the refs called it too close and inconsistently, but so it goes. Fortunately, Northwestern missed a lot of free throws, especially on the most questionable calls, interestingly enough.
Northwestern made some defensive adjustments in the middle of the second half it seemed, and Michigan couldn't get good shots and committed too many dumb turnovers. They left Simpson wide open on several 3s in a row, all of which he missed, of course. Meanwhile, they hit a ridiculous number of difficult shots (the banked 3 by Pardon for instance) that I was almost surprised the last one missed thankfully. Pardon got too many easy shots at the rim and not just against Davis, who appears to be more of a liability than anticipated, but otherwise the defense was pretty good, despite giving up 60. Northwestern having Donlon as an assistant (who was at Michigan for a year) definitely helps them in this game, too.
It's very good timing that Michigan just has easy non-con games left in December with South Carolina potentially being the worst team in the SEC this year. This game showed how Michigan needs better depth beyond its main 7 man rotation, so hopefully Davis, DeJulius, and Johns can get more meaningful minutes in these games.
I was encouraged by the team's resilience, though, especially with Brazdeikis making some big shots towards the end.
