2022 ncaa women's basketball tournament

1 hour and 39 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

And let’s not forget our associate sponsors: Peak Wealth Management, HomeSure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, The Phil Klein Insurance Group, SignalWire (use the code MUPPETS), Prentice 4M, where we recorded this, Team Fan Club, and introducing The View from the Cheap Seats podcast by the Sklars, who join us for the Hot Takes segments. Please go subscribe and like their podcast,and leave your hot takes about this game in the reviews.

1. Spring Game - Offense

starts at 1:00

It's been so long since there was a spring game we could actually talk about. Instead of a punting exhibition we got Donovan Edwards and Blake Corum smack-talking each other from across the field. It was fun. Davis Warren looked to be functional, Bowman maybe not as much. Yes, Alex Orji's name is pronounced the way you think it is. Mullings might be the closest to replacing Hassan Haskins as the power back (Wisconsin recruited him for running back, after all). Idaho... Almost impossible to grade the offensive line based on how much it was mixed around but the starting five are probably decided anyways. Comment below if you think Seth should UFR the Spring Game!

The 2021-22 season of Michigan Women's Basketball met its unfortunate end on Monday night at the hands of the 1st seeded Louisville Cardinals. Michigan played a solid game and kept it within striking distance for all but the last couple minutes, trailing by two with only five minutes to go before running out of gas offensively. The loss closes the book on this season, with Michigan finishing at 25-7 and making the Elite Eight for the first time in program history. It was a season with a lot of high notes and will definitely be remembered down the line as one of the peaks of a rapidly improving program. Today we're going to do a quick review of the season for those who may have missed parts (or only jumped on the bandwagon in March), talk about what it means in context, and give a brief preview of next season's roster. 

A Season Synopsis  

Sometimes it's easy to forget the happy moments from a season in the immediate aftermath of a tough loss, but this year was rife with them for the Michigan women. They started the season 12-1, losing just one game in the 2021 portion of the season, which was also to Louisville in early December. Mixed in were some big wins that affirmed the potential of this team, most notably over a Baylor team who had knocked them off in the preceding year's tournament, in addition to a throttling of Ohio State on New Year's Eve, and victories in the Daytona Beach Invitational over Mississippi State and Oregon State. By the time the calendar flipped from 2021 to 2022, it was clear that Michigan Women's Basketball this season had a good shot to be the best team in program history, something that would be proven true later on. 

From the get-go of the season, Naz Hillmon remained the superstar, but it was the efforts of some of the pieces around her that made the season feel so hopeful going into the new year. That win over Baylor was the handiwork of Leigha Brown (and Laila Phelia), after Naz fouled out of the game, with Brown carrying the load in OT. To win against a highly ranked team away from home without Naz was a sign that the team had made improvements to the supporting cast that would give them a shot to go even deeper in the tournament. 

The team was also getting contributions from other, lesser-known pieces. The team entered the season knowing they'd need to replace key pieces like AK Johnson and Hailey Brown, and they were able to do so thanks to Emily Kiser and Danielle Rauch stepping up. Kiser was never more than an occasional role player in her first three years in Ann Arbor, but this season she snagged the starting center role, giving Michigan a strong interior presence next to Naz. Rauch was a backup guard with little starting experience who elevated her game by moving into the starting lineup and her hot three point stroke was especially useful in the fall (before cooling off later). 

[David Wilcomes]

They started 2022 with a rough loss against Nebraska, but Michigan was quickly right back on their winning ways. They cruised through the month of January and quickly started to look like the team to beat in the B1G. Michigan's big win over Maryland in College Park, made possible by Maddie Nolan's three point assault (21 points), was an important touchstone that solidified the Wolverines near the top of the league. They went into Columbus and polished off the Buckeyes for the second time on the season, and then returned home to play #5 Indiana in the biggest home game in program history. A complete effort from the Maize & Blue gave them a 15 point win and put them in the driver's seat of the conference. 

Unfortunately, at the tail end of the Indiana game, Leigha Brown sustained a lower leg injury that would change the trajectory of the regular season. Michigan hosted #21 Iowa in early February and were able to prevail with a victory thanks to Phelia's best game in a Michigan uniform to that point, but the offense would soon find a rut due to the loss of Brown. Michigan struggled offensively with high turnovers in back-to-back losses to Michigan State and Northwestern, two middle tier B1G teams (both of whom they probably would've beaten with a full lineup), and in the span of a week went from prohibitive conference favorites to a lagging candidate. 

With the season pushed to the brink, the Wolverines responded. They played great defense to beat Maryland for the second time on the season, and then Naz carried the team on her back (28 points) on Senior Night in Ann Arbor to beat MSU. This set up a winner-take-all battle for the conference regular season title against Iowa in Iowa City. In front of a raucous Hawkeye crowd, Michigan got out to a hot start, but things crumbled from there as Iowa superstar Caitlyn Clark played the game of her career to win a conference title. Clark led Iowa in points, assists, and rebounds, with 38-11-6, and the entire Hawkeye team shot the lights out from distance. Not much Michigan could really do about that. Leigha Brown returned in that game but was not remotely close to full strength.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Feelingsball and a look to 2022-23]

1 hour and 52 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. Check out their wide selection of officially licensed Michigan fan gear at their 3 store locations in Ann Arbor or learn about their custom apparel business at undergroundshirts.com.

And let’s not forget our associate sponsors: Peak Wealth Management, HomeSure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, The Phil Klein Insurance Group, SignalWire (use the code MUPPETS), Prentice 4M, where we recorded this, Team Fan Club, and introducing The View from the Cheap Seats podcast by the Sklars, who join us for the Hot Takes segments. Please go subscribe and like their podcast,and leave your hot takes about this game in the reviews.

1. Post Villanova

starts at 1:00

The shots didn’t go in. They were higher quality, and Nova was 30% from their contested threes, and that was the way Michigan could win this game but the shots didn’t go in. Also the shots didn’t go in. We run out of ways to say that.