Michigan 73, Indiana 57
Indiana's best path to an upset was to drag Michigan's shooting down to their level and gain the edge with rebounding and drawing fouls.
The Wolverines shoved the Hoosiers into the foliage and walked that path themselves in the first half, then ran away in the second to bring their magic number for a Big Ten title down to one.
A ragged game stayed close for the first 12 minutes before Hunter Dickinson answered a Trayce Jackson-Davis poster dunk with one of his own. Led by Franz Wagner in full attack mode, Michigan widened the gap by getting into the bonus early and forcing the issue for the rest of the half. The Hoosiers went 12/28 from the field while Michigan was 11/37, but the visiting Wolverines went 16/18 from the line compared to a 6/9 mark for IU. Only a stepback jumper from Jerome Hunter, replacing the injured Armaan Franklin, kept the Hoosiers within single digits at the break.
Livers hit three of his four three-pointers in the second half [Campredon/file]
Then Isaiah Livers locked in. After opening the game 1/6 from the field, he went 4/5 in the second half with three makes from beyond the arc to finish with 16 points, second only to Wagner (21 on 13 shooting possessions) among either team. With the defense giving IU fits, Michigan only really needed scoring from four players, the aforementioned duo plus Mike Smith (14 on 7 SP) and Hunter Dickinson (13 on 11 SP). Eli Brooks and Chaundee Brown were the only others in the scoring column with six and three, respectively.
Dickinson shut down Jackson-Davis, who tied his season low with ten points on 15 shooting possessions. With their best player rendered ineffective, IU resorted to a lot of tough shots, and only Aljami Durham could put them down with any regularity. The Hoosiers had four scoreless droughts of about three minutes or longer (one clocked in at 2:59). It's hard to put up an answer when the other team is beating you at your own game.
Michigan is now 18-1 overall and 13-1 in the Big Ten. They've moved up to second on KenPom, inching ahead of Baylor, and have both Dickinson (3rd) and Wagner (9th) in KP's player of the year standings. A win in any of their three remaining games would secure the conference title, as would any Illinois loss. The Illini are currently playing without Ayo Dosunmu against Wisconsin on ESPN. If the Illini pull that out, the Wolverines can clinch in their head-to-head matchup on Tuesday.
I'm running out of superlatives. Enjoy the ride to a one-seed.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]
February 27th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
Mentioned that UM is #2 on Kenpom, but Baylor still to play Kansas tonight
February 27th, 2021 at 11:26 PM ^
Allow me to mention that Baylor got killed tonight
February 28th, 2021 at 4:50 AM ^
Uh oh Kansas ascendant
February 27th, 2021 at 2:50 PM ^
This team will beat Gonzaga or Baylor or both if they get the chance. Crazy how good they are. I wish Indiana the best in their next game. Here's hoping they start that spartan crash and burn that Michigan finishes in back to back games after beating Illinois!
February 27th, 2021 at 3:19 PM ^
MSU plays Maryland next, unless I am misunderstanding your sentiment.
Edit: NVM sorry, I see that MSU plays IU, before UM twice.
February 27th, 2021 at 2:51 PM ^
Archie's done. It's not that they lost to a superior team (no shame in that), but it looked like his team didn't care. Michigan looked to be a little off today; a superior effort could have made this more of a game. Didn't happen.
February 27th, 2021 at 2:55 PM ^
Pitino and Collins should follow him out the door. There’s going to be some jobs available in the big 10.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:05 PM ^
I disagree. I thought, watching the game, Indiana gave superior effort. They were playing their asses off IMO. They just have horrible decision making and horrible shot selection. But fuck, they tried real hard.
February 28th, 2021 at 12:32 PM ^
I guess we do disagree because I don’t know how one can look at IU’s performance yesterday and conclude they gave superior effort. They may have given COMPETENT effort, but not the kind expected of a team on the tournament bubble, playing at home, needing a signature win against a more talented foe—a tournament, mind you, that will be played entirely in their home state with some games in their home arena. Where was the energy, the hustle, the intensity? They seemingly gave up on trying to rebound in the second half, didn’t go after any loose balls, and was always slow defending the three if they tried at all. These are all hustle, energy plays. Those poor decisions and shot selection you mention? that’s a lack of focus and intensity. Also, why did they stop driving the lane like Raftery mentioned? Yeah, they would have faced a big at the rim, but they were successful early and could have gotten Hunter in foul trouble. They needed to be bloody-Zack Novak against State a few years back. Instead, they didn’t seem to want the contact. Speaking of MSU, they were in a near identical situation to IU earlier in the week when they played Illinois. Both State and IU were playing at home, needing a win to get off the bubble, against a talented opponent trying to win the conference championship. Compare State’s effort against Illinois to IU’s against Michigan. It’s night and day. Again, I’m not saying IU would have beaten Michigan had they played harder, but they could have made it more of a game (especially since Michigan wasn’t playing at its best). IU needed to come out fighting like a cornered dog. Instead, it looked like IU knew they were going to lose, gave it the ho-hum ‘ole college try, and was looking ahead to the post-game buffet. Even with the talent disparity and lack of a true home crowd, IU yesterday was not a team that tried as hard as the moment demanded.
February 27th, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
Solid defense ,especially on their talented Center.Offense was sloppy 8 assts/11 to's but still an easy win.Can I watch a College game on TV without hearing about how 'MSU is really playing well?" The Pro-Izzo Media Machine is out in full force.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:13 PM ^
They just won back to back games against top 5 teams and a hall of fame coach is in danger of missing the tournament. So when talking about the B10 or the tournament, makes perfect sense they would talk about him and MSU.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:25 PM ^
No it doesn’t. When talking about the B1G or the tournament it makes perfect sense to talk about practically anyone but MSU. They are irrelevant.
February 27th, 2021 at 5:28 PM ^
Well, the announcers have two hours on the air to fill and MSU honestly did have a really strong week. They weren't harping on them all game, they just brought them up briefly IIRC.
In fairness, Michigan gets mentioned in basically every other Big Ten broadcast, too ("What a season Juwan Howard is having!").
February 27th, 2021 at 6:38 PM ^
MSU was a Top 10 Pre-Season team,or close to it and currently just a bubble team yet the Media is kissing Izzo's ass saying what a great job he's doing.That's the Pro Izzo Media treatment.Even when he underachieves they kiss his ass.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:03 PM ^
Great gamer as usual
Does anyone have a link to an official announcement or anything that confirms the big ten is using win percentage to determine the champion? I've looked everywhere and can't find any announcement
February 27th, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
I think they're hoping Michigan just takes care of business so they don't have to say anything. They at least learned something from the football season.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:16 PM ^
yeah same just spent like 10 minutes looking for it -- can only find tweets from media insiders
February 27th, 2021 at 5:32 PM ^
Here it is from the announcers in the Michigan - Ohio State game:
https://youtu.be/9jgfVPDTfsI?t=313 -- about 12 seconds in from the beginning of this clip
February 27th, 2021 at 7:31 PM ^
Umhoops has still been saying "if" its winning percentage.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
Im beginning to think that, even though Howard will bring in many more top 5 classes in the future, this will be his best team he will ever have.
In a typical year, Michigan is the #1 team in the nation.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
Given the recruiting arc, this will likely be the most experienced team we see in a while.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:20 PM ^
Yeah I think this team will be the equivalent experience/talent wise to our 2016 football team that had NFL players and juniors/seniors all over the field. We may have insanely stacked teams with tons of top 50 players in the future, but we likely won't see this much experience at all once for a long time
February 27th, 2021 at 3:30 PM ^
Theoretically several seniors could return next year with the CIVID exception rule, giving us another year of senior leadership. Especially Smith? Brooks? Davis? Brown? Don’t know how feasible.
February 28th, 2021 at 7:31 AM ^
Considering we already have 6 guys signed for next year, I'm thinking that it's expected that a handful of the current roster are leaving.
February 27th, 2021 at 4:37 PM ^
If so, it probably has more to do with the grad transfers than Juwan’s recruiting. Guys like Williams, Howard, and Jackson are poised to become seniors.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
You might be right, but there's a decent chance we'll see even more dominant teams in the future. It will be fun to watch.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
A future where we can argue about which of Coach Howard's teams is the greatest is a future I will gladly sign up for!
February 28th, 2021 at 4:37 AM ^
Logged in to upvote.
May it be so!
February 27th, 2021 at 3:53 PM ^
Yeah, it feels like it. I don't know if they bring in guys like Livers and Wagner who are really talented guys who stick around 2-3 years consistently such that you have this nice mix of experience and youthful talent. Doesn't mean UM won't be able to win with the other classes, but the poise they've showed this season comes from a number of these guys having played in college for years and know how handle the ups and downs. With the recruiting successes will come a lot of years where you're likely teaching 3-4 big-minutes guys how to handle a college season, and that can be a strain.
Still think the future is bright but I do expect there won't be as many seasons like this one that are so sanguine.
February 27th, 2021 at 4:49 PM ^
It's really hard to be this good in college basketball. Howard could do everything right and not improve on it.
Or he could do everything right and Michigan is a #1 seed favorite every year, I don't know.
It certainly does help that we have Brooks and Livers buttressing our talented younger guys. But keep in mind that Howard has now shown the ability to transition experienced transfers into a winning system. If we have more recruits hitting the NBA, we might find more of those guys on our roster.
And if they play like Smith and Brown, I'm good with that.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
mike smith stood out for his turnovers as i watched the game unfortunately, but when you look at the box score he was otherwise extremely efficient on offense and still ended up with a 21+-
February 27th, 2021 at 3:23 PM ^
too bad Austin could not give Dickinson some more rest. Johns junior offense has been lousy of late and d wasn't much good either had one nice rebound
February 27th, 2021 at 4:29 PM ^
What is really too bad is that this team can play so well-and it isn't appropriately appreciated.
If Wagner continues on his recent course of ascendant play this team will move from excellent to dominant. The "supporting cast" did not even play well offensively yet they still won handily.
February 28th, 2021 at 8:58 AM ^
I thought he played quite well the last couple of games. He held his own against both OSU and Iowa - spelling HD (with Davis) for a freakishly long minute count when HD was looking at trouble with early fouls.
So he had a rough game against IU? So what? So did every other bench player...
February 27th, 2021 at 3:25 PM ^
They real good
February 27th, 2021 at 3:35 PM ^
This team rules!
Is there a difference between shooting possessions and shot equivalents? I see both on here so wondering if it's just a word choice thing or if they're measured differently.
February 27th, 2021 at 4:19 PM ^
same thing, just word choice.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:37 PM ^
It’s pretty amazing to run Indiana out of Assembly Hall and still feel like it was a little sloppy. We are so spoiled!
February 27th, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
It's crazy how far this team's exceeded expectations:
Unranked to start the season, with extremely modest predicted ceiling - perhaps above .500 in conference, low NCAA seed.
- NO ONE expected Dickenson to be a star as a frosh. He wasn't even a starter until December.
- Who would have imagined Mike Smith could step in from Columbia and immediately become a top-tier pg in the B1G?
- Never would have guessed Davis could suddenly develop a deadly post game, full of crafty moves and nice touch around the basket.
- Maybe others knew what a deadly scorer Chandee is - I don't watch much Wake Forest basketball myself - but I don't think anyone realized how relentless and effective his defense and rebounding are.
- Livers, Wagner and Brooks all playing absolutely as well as could have hoped. Livers has become the leader and efficiency expert we could only have wished for, Brooks is everything we could have hoped for with his defense and clever ball movement, and Wagner is blossoming before our eyes into a superstar.
- Most importantly, Coach Howard and the staff have been incredible. Team chemistry is off the charts, offense is dynamic and smooth, creative and balanced. Defense is sound and focused. Rotation and adjustments are almost perfect. Fantastic killer instinct.
- Tons of credit to the players, too. Super high hoops IQ, total buy-in, and unselfish, team-first attitude.
February 27th, 2021 at 3:54 PM ^
Chaundee Brown didn’t shoot well ... and that’s really the only negative I can see.
They really are making it hard to control my enthusiasm and expectations. Hard to be BPON-y about this team. Go Blue!
February 27th, 2021 at 4:52 PM ^
There's a guy that has a quiet/subpar offensive game in pretty much every game we've seen played this season. It was Franz against OSU, for example.
There are just too many other guys.
I assume this means Chaundee goes off for 18 on 10 shots on Tuesday.
if they can win these last 3 conference games and the BTT it will be the best REGULAR season I can remember since the Ricky Green teams in the 70s and they lost to IU.
this teams story is not completely written yet, have 3 more tough games to win to finish the regular season off in style.
February 27th, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
CJ Baird played/dressed this game but had to sit in the stands for the game in Columbus?
February 27th, 2021 at 5:15 PM ^
Maybe the rotate those at the end of the bench for the away games
February 27th, 2021 at 5:34 PM ^
Not everyone can make the travel team for regular-season road games. For the BTT/NCAA Tournament, all the walk-ons can.
February 28th, 2021 at 7:09 AM ^
Both were travel regular season conference games.
February 27th, 2021 at 5:39 PM ^
Wondered the same thing.
February 27th, 2021 at 5:17 PM ^
Don't look now, but Brad Underwood is poking the bear.
If Michigan is struggling to find motivation before a game that... uh, provides a chance to clinch the outright B1G title and a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament, he just added a little more.
February 27th, 2021 at 5:46 PM ^
Maybe good ole' Brad shouldn't have lost to MSU, OSU, Maryland, and Rutgers and he wouldn't be in this position. He thinks that games against PSU and Northwestern would've actually made a difference? Lmao
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