EAST LANSING, Mich. _ This wasn't their best shot.
Not with Isaiah Livers on the visitors' bench in a sweatsuit. Not with Cassius Winston wearing a Superman cape once again. Not with Michigan State students back from break and ready to roar inside the Breslin Center. And certainly not with Juwan Howard's presence injecting more adrenaline into a rivalry that already carried plenty for Tom Izzo and the Spartans.
Still, it was a shot.
And as Michigan's players made their way to the team bus Sunday afternoon, headed home after an 87-69 loss to the Spartans, they knew they'd taken another pass. Knew, too, what they'd see when they gathered to watch film a day later at practice back in Ann Arbor.
As confident as this team looked in November _ or even a few weeks ago after a 100-point outburst in its Big Ten opener against Iowa and a near-miss in overtime against Oregon _ Michigan seemed unsure when it stepped into enemy territory Sunday. And by the time the game was over, the Wolverines were pretty sure that was part of the problem. Beyond the glaring defensive breakdowns and the undeniably short bench, there was that too-long pause that frequently set them up to fail.
"I think we hesitate a lot with threes, and second-guess ourselves, which kind of helps us to miss 'em," said sophomore Brandon Johns Jr., who made his second career start in place of the injured Livers. "It's a mental thing, so we've just got to stay mentally strong, mentally composed. And the more we do that, the more our shots will fall."
