A lot can change in a week in college basketball. Michigan basketball learned the hard way that's not always a good thing.
It was only two weeks ago this time when Michigan, now 14-5 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten, was tied atop the league with in-state foe Michigan State. However after dropping two of its past three contests, U-M finds itself in third place in the Big Ten behind, two games behind MSU and one game behind Purdue, with the Boilermakers currently holding the tiebreaker.
The Wolverines are only 8 of 20 games into conference play, but have played just two games (Wisconsin and Purdue) against teams in the top half of the conference. By the end of this week, league play will be half over and U-M will have a better idea of where it sits, and what type of work will need to be done in February to improve seeding or make a push for the Big Ten championship.
Each Monday, the Free Press will take a look at the Wolverines' previous week and assess how their résumé has changed and stacks up to the competition. U-M has a chance to get back into the win column when it hosts Penn State on Monday (6:30 p.m., Big Ten Network).
ESPN: 4-seed in South Region vs. South Alabama: Seattle (as of Jan. 24 before the loss).
CBS: 6-seed in East Region vs. play-in winner: Milwaukee (as of Jan. 24 before the loss)
Jan 24: 91-64 loss to Purdue at Mackey Arena: There's a reason that many people call Mackey Arena a house of horrors and the Wolverines got the full experience why on Friday night. Less than four minutes into the game, Michigan was down 13-2 thanks to five turnovers and it never got any better. Michigan trailed by 20 points just mid-way through the contest, never got within 20 points again for the final 29 minutes and even fell behind by as much as 30 points in the second half. U-M's boisterous point guard, Tre Donaldson, who didn't seem worried about the environment or positional matchup vs. all-league front-runner Braden Smith, had perhaps his worst game of the season. Sure, he scored 11 points, but he had just one assist and had a season six turnovers. Smith, meanwhile, became the first player this century to score 20 points, have at least 10 assists, five rebounds, four steals, and no more than one turnover vs. a ranked AP Top 25 team, per Stats Perform. U-M had lost four games by a combined eight points, yet dropped this one by 27, its most lopsided loss of the Dusty May era.
Record: The team's overall record, conference record and nonconference record.
Strength of schedule: The strength of the opponents the team played against.
Head-to-head results: The results of games between the teams being compared.
Conference championships: Whether a conference championship was won in the regular season or tournament.
Common opponents: The results of games against common opponents.
Adjusted Net Efficiency (NET): The NCAA's preferred metric measuring a team's overall performance during the regular season.
Team Value Index: A results-oriented component of the NET that ranks teams based on who they beat and where they played.
Rating Percentage Index (RPI): A formula that ranks teams using a team's winning percentage, opponents' success and opponents' strength of schedule.
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.