Michigan 77, Michigan State 68
Now that's more like it.
With Isaiah Livers back in the starting lineup, Michigan made all the necessary adjustments from their January loss at Michigan State. The Wolverines bottled up Cassius Winston, won the rebounding battle, kept the Spartans out of transition, stayed out of foul trouble, spaced the floor, and—most importantly—made some dang threes. In a game where both teams ferociously defended the paint, Michigan shot 11-for-28 from beyond the arc, while MSU only made 6-of-23.
Having your best player available is, as it turns out, rather important.
A Livers three-pointer got the game going in earnest after neither team could do anything for the first six minutes; the game went into the first media timeout tied at three with the teams a combined 2-for-17 with eight turnovers. Even though Livers subsequently took a breather, his shot kickstarted a 9-0 Michigan run when Brandon Johns and David DeJulius added triples of their own.
nice to have you back [Campredon]
While MSU would cut the margin to one point a couple times in the second half, the Wolverines never ceded the lead. After Winston scored a career-high 32 points in the first matchup, Juwan Howard made sure State's star wouldn't do that again in his team's building, employing a trap-heavy defensive scheme that forced the ball out of Winston's hands unless he tried to go one-on-one without help. While some late shots in desperation time got Winston up to 20 points, he went 5-for-18 from the field with six assists and three turnovers.
Meanwhile, Winston's counterpart played a great game despite a week full of off-court distractions. Zavier Simpson led the Wolverines with 16 points and eight assists; he punished State's plan to duck under screens by shooting 4-for-7 on threes and helped make life difficult for Winston on the other end. While Winston's pick-and-roll buddy, Xavier Tillman, scored 17 points, he needed 17 shot equivalents to get there and did a lot of his damage out of offensive rebounds—absent were the ferocious finishes of the first game after slipping a screen.
There were a couple hairy moments. Livers lost his head at the end of the first half, inexplicably fouling Kyle Ahrens in the backcourt with 1.9 seconds left with the Spartans in the bonus, which allowed him to cut what had been as much as a ten-point deficit to six. Livers tossed the ensuing inbounds pass directly to Tillman, who thankfully didn't connect at the buzzer to make matters worse.
SLEEP TIME [Campredon]
After MSU didn't make a three-pointer in the opening stanza, Winston and Aaron Henry each drilled triples before the first media timeout of the second half, with both shots slicing M's lead down to one point. Eli Brooks answered with a corner three out of the break, however, and not long thereafter threw a lob to Jon Teske for a momentum-swinging one-handed slam in transition and a six-point lead.
Tom Izzo tried to slow Michigan's roll with a timeout but his squad couldn't get any closer the rest of the way. The Wolverines were steady at the line down the stretch, going 18-for-23 on free throws on the afternoon to ensure the lead wouldn't slip away.
bottled up [Campredon]
After a protracted period of chucking-and-fouling, State's final shot was an airball was Winston. Fittingly, Simpson caught the rebound and dribbled out the clock.
This was a complete team effort. Livers (14 points, 2 blocks), Brooks (11 points, 9 rebounds), and DeJulius (10 points) each hit a pair of threes to augment Simpson's big shooting day. Franz Wagner added eight points and played disruptive defense, coming up with two blocks, a steal, and a couple tie-ups. While Teske didn't get much going offensively outside of the dunk, his ability to hedge and recover was important in limiting Winston and Tillman. Johns steadied the power forward position, mitigating Michigan's need to play Austin Davis or Colin Castleton alongside Teske. Davis had four points on 2-for-3 shooting and two rebounds in 12 steady minutes.
Michigan is now 14-9 and 5-7 in the Big Ten. They have a couple winnable games forthcoming in a trip to Northwestern before returning to Crisler to face Indiana. Livers's return stuck this time, with great effect. This could be the start of a run that gets Michigan off the NCAA bubble. Meanwhile, Howard has his first win over Izzo, and it looks like it'll be far from the last.
[Hit THE JUMP for the box score and a couple more photos from MG]
February 8th, 2020 at 11:51 PM ^
Yep, just changed the wallpaper from the "Devin Bush standing in front of the pre-game wall of Spartans" to this.
6.7.0February 9th, 2020 at 9:00 PM ^
Don't forget my royalties each time you look at it.
Of course, French Luxury import, you have to had an enormous TARIFFS.
I take Paypal. :)
February 8th, 2020 at 3:33 PM ^
I especially like the bit where Michigan ran the “make a three-point basket” play a few times.
Fun day. Very, very nice to have Livers back.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:18 PM ^
It astounds me that Howard waited until this game to coach his guys on having a ball fall into a basket at a high rate, but I guess that's part of the transition.
February 8th, 2020 at 6:21 PM ^
Yeah it took over half the season to see #BallInBasket while they dorked around with two-center formations and leaving unathletic defenders one-on-one in space and. . . wait this all sounds vaguely familiar.
February 8th, 2020 at 7:40 PM ^
Crazy thought: maybe a lot of our scoring/rotation issues had to do with our leading scorer and best shooter being injured?
February 8th, 2020 at 3:35 PM ^
Usually I succumb to fan bias, seeing players on other teams as neutral at best, or worse, annoying, and worst of all, blights on the face of the earth.
But Tillman seems like a good guy. Like UM good. Am I missing something?
February 8th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
He is w/o question. Hard to hate winston either really.
February 8th, 2020 at 11:04 PM ^
almost had both of them.
February 8th, 2020 at 11:52 PM ^
Winston seems like a good dude, but I do hate how he falls down after every shot he takes. I'm glad the refs didn't buy into that today.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
I like Tillman. Heck of a player.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:40 PM ^
I like how Tillman and Winston carry themselves. Hard not to respect them. So unlike their coach hah.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:33 PM ^
Honestly, it's a pretty likeable team all around with Tillman and Winston.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:40 PM ^
He is from Grand Rapids. Gerald Ford is our legacy.
BTW - if Tillman could develop a 3pt game, he would become an awesome NBA prospect. He has a great FT stroke so looks like a good shooter. Maybe Izzo doesn't give him the freedom to shoot beyond the arc much.
February 9th, 2020 at 12:30 AM ^
Wait until he gets benched when they play a zone team.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:43 AM ^
Tillman is a very good guy. My daughter helped him in high school and raves about his character.
February 9th, 2020 at 6:00 PM ^
Funny you say that about Tillman. Word on the street is that one or both of his parents are U of M grads, so.....maybe the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree?
February 8th, 2020 at 3:36 PM ^
Tough week for sparty. A lot of bullets.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:36 PM ^
They need more “foxhole” guys.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:53 PM ^
Program loss.
February 8th, 2020 at 3:41 PM ^
Give more minutes to Davis. Less Teske.
February 8th, 2020 at 3:53 PM ^
Probably would have had Davis not been hurt in the first half.
February 8th, 2020 at 11:04 PM ^
Davis can catch and finish. But his defense is a disaster. Teske is still the better of the two
February 9th, 2020 at 12:23 AM ^
They just need to accept the fact that Teske can't post against decent or better defenders. Every time he posted today I was like, oh no, oh no, why..please no.
He's still a very good defender in a lot of respects, especially when Michigan is hard hedging the pick and roll. He's much better at that than trying to prevent lobs while back-pedaling.
But on offense he needs to pretty much strictly be a screener, finisher off the pick and roll and oreb/tip out guy.
He is still better than Davis but Davis is a nice backup for 10-12 min a game.
February 8th, 2020 at 3:42 PM ^
4 threes from JJS was a really nice boost as well
February 8th, 2020 at 3:43 PM ^
Hmm, maybe this Juwan guy knows what he's doing after all?
February 8th, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
I don't break down film for a living, but the apparent adjustments against Winston are a good sign.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:29 PM ^
Another data point for Howard's teams showing up big time when it matters most. This was also a huge recruiting game with a lot of visitors. Big, big win.
February 8th, 2020 at 3:46 PM ^
Great defensive game plan by Howard & co. Would have been nice to see how few points Michigan could have held them to had the refs not let Winston push off all day while giving them 24 FTs.
February 8th, 2020 at 6:22 PM ^
I'm glad someone else sees what I see with Winston pushing people off all the time. Granted, many point guards use their other arm to some degree to get leverage. But Winston takes it to another level and the refs don't seem to care about calling it. He's definitely getting the star treatment from the crappy Big Ten refs.
February 8th, 2020 at 6:54 PM ^
You could literally make a video compilation of Winston pushing off. He does it like at least 4 times a game
February 8th, 2020 at 3:49 PM ^
No mention of the alley oop dunk by Teske? I thought that pass was a terrible idea until it emphatically wasn’t. Big Sleep indeed!!
February 8th, 2020 at 3:53 PM ^
it's mentioned just below the picture of his reaction to said dunk
February 8th, 2020 at 5:00 PM ^
Mea culpa. Reading IS fundamental.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:50 PM ^
Appropriately enough, the dunk did seem to wake him up. He had a poor first half on both offense and defense.
February 8th, 2020 at 3:51 PM ^
Ice cream for the whole team. Z's driving.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
VETOED!!!
I'll drive!
February 8th, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
VETOED!!!
Double post!
February 8th, 2020 at 6:32 PM ^
No more subs????
February 8th, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
Every damn time Austin Davis comes in the game:
February 8th, 2020 at 3:59 PM ^
I think we're well past the point where we should doubt him. He's a legit quality player.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:14 PM ^
I equate AD's improvement under Juwan to the team's upgraded D under Yak.
Such a visible example of players working hard, getting it, and reaping the benefits!
Very impressive, and personally gratifying.
February 8th, 2020 at 4:20 PM ^
And it's another reminder to not write these guys off. A lot of people were assuming he'd get a firm handshake and transfer.
February 8th, 2020 at 5:44 PM ^
I have a solid Big Country source and can tell you Juwan was the best thing that ever happened to him. The amount of confidence instilled has been omnipresent. I think seeing the ball starting to go through the rim against quality competition caused the light to click on - with respect to both ends. The days of insta-fouls on defense are hopefully all gone, too. The scholarship situation for next year will be interesting...
February 8th, 2020 at 6:15 PM ^
Three things that have really impressed me:
- his increased array of moves around the basket (he’s gone up and under, jump stopped and hit several reverse layups);
- his hustle (he’s slow, but you never see him doggin’ it);
- his rebounding positioning. Perhaps it’s a function of decreased spacing when they’re in the lineup, but it feels like he and Johns both have this excellent sense of where the ball will likely be on a missed FG. They give us many more 50/50 opportunities on OREBs than we have with other lineups.
February 8th, 2020 at 10:48 PM ^
As an add on to your first point, he has really good footwork when he gets the ball down low.
February 8th, 2020 at 11:11 PM ^
I’m ready for all the people pining for him to transfer to admit their mistake and apologize.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:36 PM ^
God willing you'll be writing the same about Nunez some day!
February 8th, 2020 at 3:55 PM ^
I didn't see it as much as a trap heavy defense as it was letting Brooks take Winston instead of Simpson. Brooks was the MVP of the game in my opinion based on his defense. Too bad we never got a fully healthy Matthews to guard Simpson last year.
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