At 6 feet 8 inches and 300 pounds, Robert Traylor is among the world’s great implied threats, along with nuclear warheads and summer school.
Opponents have no choice but to devote much energy and manpower to stopping the Michigan center. It was with this basic philosophy that Minnesota approached Traylor on Saturday, albeit on tippy-toes so as to not aggravate him.
It didn’t work. None of it. Michigan hit 13 of 23 three-point shots to knock a big hole in the Gophers’ strategy. And Traylor arranged enough furniture inside to score 18 points in the Wolverines’ 85-69 victory.
The moral of the story is that it sometimes doesn’t pay to pay so much attention to Traylor. Louis Bullock led Michigan with 23 points, Jerod Ward had 17, Robbie Reid had 11 and Travis Conlan had 10. Much of it came from the perimeter.
“It’s really key, especially early in the game, for us to make outside shots,” Reid said. He should know. Coming into the Big Ten tournament, he had hit only 12 of his last 51 three-point attempts.
“Most teams’ game plan coming in is to collapse really hard on our big guys and force us to make shots from the outside,” Reid said. “If we can do that, then they have to come guard us. If we can do that, it makes us a really, really difficult team to play against.”
Tell Minnesota about it. The Gophers spent much of the afternoon running from Traylor to the perimeter, desperately trying to get to the man with the ball, usually in vain.
“Robert Traylor is probably the best big man in the country,” Minnesota guard Eric Harris said. “Once he gets you down low, he’s got you pretty much at his mercy because he’s so big and powerful.
“When you’re helping down low, you’ve got to be conscious of the shooters (outside) and try to get back out. If you’re a second or two late, you’re burned.”
Reid said that if he were coaching against Michigan, he’d play a straight man-to-man because the Wolverines are so good against a zone, especially in practice every day. Of course, he doesn’t have to guard Traylor in practice.
All Michigan coach Brian Ellerbe knows is that the Wolverines had everything working Saturday.
“It was something that I think would have been very tough to play against,” he said.
If Michigan can take this type of inside-outside game out of the Big Ten final Sunday and into the NCAA tournament later this week, confidence won’t be a problem.
“When it’s really going good, when guys are hitting the outside shot and the inside shot, we’re going to be tough,” Traylor said.
