{"id":456,"date":"2025-03-22T18:07:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T18:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/michigan-preparing-to-slow-texas-am-offensive-rebounding-in-second-round\/"},"modified":"2025-03-22T18:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T18:07:37","slug":"michigan-preparing-to-slow-texas-am-offensive-rebounding-in-second-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/michigan-preparing-to-slow-texas-am-offensive-rebounding-in-second-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan preparing to slow Texas A&#038;M offensive rebounding in second round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>DENVER \u2014 After surviving the upset attempt of No. 12 seed UC San Diego in round one of the NCAA Tournament, the No. 5 seed Michigan men\u2019s basketball team turns around to face another opponent that will challenge its weaknesses in No. 4 seed Texas A&amp;M. The Aggies are the strongest offensive rebounding team in the nation, snagging a staggering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/stats\/basketball-men\/d1\/current\/team\/857\">16<\/a> per game, while the Wolverines place 34th nationally in total rebounds per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The answer seems simple for Michigan, as the 7-footer duo of graduate center Vlad Goldin and junior forward Danny Wolf have the height to clear the boards, but the fight isn\u2019t going to be height-on-height. The tallest player that sees the floor for Texas A&amp;M is its starting center Pharell Payne, who\u2019s listed at 6-foot-9.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This means that the Aggies\u2019 offensive rebounding prowess doesn\u2019t come from their height, rather their athleticism and desire to crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s obviously point number one on the scouting report,\u201d Wolverines coach Dusty May said Friday. \u201cThe way we\u2019ve chosen to attack it is just like we did with the turnovers (against) UCSD. We have a couple flaws that are things that we haven\u2019t done well this year. \u2026 There\u2019s an extremely heightened awareness to fix it or you\u2019re going home.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Against the Tritons \u2014 another team that Michigan had a big size advantage against \u2014 the Wolverines gave up 10 offensive rebounds for 11 second chance points. This wasn\u2019t as big of a point of emphasis for Michigan Thursday, but it proves that there is work to be done in the short turnaround before the game against Texas A&amp;M.<\/p>\n<p>One aspect of the rebounding game that May noted as well was guards rebounding down, alleviating some of the pressure on the bigs and helping start the fast break quicker.<\/p>\n<p>Further, the Wolverines are going to be tested by the Aggies\u2019 depth and defense. Texas A&amp;M runs a 10-deep lineup of players who play over 10 minutes per game, and it has time on its side as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe, maybe,\u201d Aggies coach Buzz Williams said when asked about having an advantage on the quick turnaround. \u201cI think this will be Michigan\u2019s fifth game in nine days, this will be our second game in nine days. Does that play a part? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With a deeper roster, 10 deep compared to the Wolverines\u2019 typical eight-man rotation, Texas A&amp;M could have the fresher legs going into Saturday\u2019s contest. But like the question Williams posed to himself, it\u2019s still to be seen if that plays a factor. By this point in the season every team is beaten and battered to some extent, it\u2019s purely about how they show up on a given day to determine who wins.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>What helps the Aggies in that aspect, though, is their defense. They are willing to give up the deep shot while packing into the paint and helping aggressively. This plays into Michigan\u2019s goal of shooting a high quantity of threes, but hinders the Wolverines\u2019 ability to get jolts of energy with shots at the rim. Especially on tired legs, this defense could be hard to penetrate for Michigan, and cause its offense to become one dimensional if executed well by the Aggies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve seen their type of defense before,\u201d graduate guard Rubin Jones said. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing we aren\u2019t prepared for, the coaches do a real good job preparing us for each and every game. I think we\u2019ll take advantage of whatever opportunities we get.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As UCSD did in the first round, Texas A&amp;M is going to present the Wolverines with some unique aspects of the game to hone in on. Rebounding hasn\u2019t been a strength for Michigan all season long, but it\u2019s going to be zeroed in on a bit more Saturday afternoon. In terms of fighting tired legs and an interesting defensive philosophy, the Wolverines\u2019 offense likes what it sees, it just has to execute to dismantle the Aggies in this second-round matchup.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DENVER \u2014 After surviving the upset attempt of No. 12 seed UC San Diego in round one of the NCAA Tournament, the No. 5 seed Michigan men\u2019s basketball team turns around to face another opponent that will challenge its weaknesses in No. 4 seed Texas A&amp;M. The Aggies are the strongest offensive rebounding team in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[222,394,391,395,392,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-michigan","9":"tag-offensive","10":"tag-preparing","11":"tag-rebounding","12":"tag-slow","13":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}