Michigan 79, Maryland 66
In an unexpectedly spicy Big Ten quarterfinal, Michigan overcame an early double-digit deficit and the second-half ejection of Juwan Howard to finish off a three-game season sweep of a feisty Maryland team.
Despite the unexpected return of Eli Brooks, the Wolverines got off to a painfully slow start, falling into a 15-6 hole. They clawed back only to fall behind once more after Hunter Dickinson picked up two dubious offensive fouls in a little over a minute. Maryland's stretch bigs hit outside shots and attacking guards found less resistance at the rim with Austin Davis at center.
With five minutes to play in the half, Juwan Howard shifted Brandon Johns to center. After Eric Ayala's layup pushed the margin to 12 on the next possessions, he called a timeout. Whatever he said in that huddle was effective. Johns backed down Galin Smith for an and-one baby hook, then Mike Smith went airborne to drop off an assist to Johns, prompting a Mark Turgeon timeout that failed to make the same impact.
Mike Smith had the ball on a string all game [Campredon]
Hellacious defense from Chaundee Brown forced a shot clock violation out of the TO, then Smith made play after play before halftime, scoring or assisting on 11 of Michigan's points in a 16-2 run to go into the tunnel up 40-38. Smith worked his way into the paint before a slick feed to Franz Wagner netted a layup just before the buzzer. Maryland shot 63% from the field, Michigan's top player played six minutes, and the Wolverines still led at the break.
The second half was mostly a continuation of that run, plus beef. Michigan quickly led by nine thanks to dominant play from Dickinson and Smith plus cooled-off shooting from the Terps, who couldn't find the mark from outside with Howard switching the defense to a matchup zone. Whenever Maryland threatened to make it a game again, the Wolverines responded with daggers. Smith hit all three of his three-point attempts; Wagner and Brooks each canned 2/2.
The Terrapins spent much of the half attempting to bully-ball Smith with bigger guards when they weren't firing wayward threes. Smith was up to the task on that end, helping hold the Terps to an 11/30 mark from the field in the final stanza. That's also burying the lede considering his record-setting afternoon on offense: he finished with 18 points on 16 shooting possessions while dishing out 15 assists, which smashed the Big Ten Tournament single-game record of 12 set by Derrick Walton during the Kam Chatman Game in 2016.
...oh [Campredon]
Even that performance may be overshadowed, however, by the brouhaha that occurred during the under-12 media timeout. Viewers were brought back from commercial break to the news that Juwan Howard had been ejected with two technical fouls, and the Maryland bench had also received a technical, following a heated exchange of words that led to Howard being held back by members of the staff. What was said is unclear; the result was Phil Martelli coaching out the duration.
Again, the Terps made a couple short runs only to be rebuffed. A beautiful give-and-go between Wagner and Brooks answered an Ayala layup to get Michigan back up by eight, then Smith and Brooks sank late triples to head off the potential desperation foul-fest.
After looking like the team that was less comfortable in an unfamiliar gym for 15 minutes, Michigan played like this tournament's top seed for the final 25. Brooks and his ankle looked little worse for wear after some ugly first-half jumpers came up short, which is the most important news to come out of the day even with the win. Unless someone leaks whatever Mark Turgeon said, at least.
Michigan will play the winner of four-seed Purdue and five-seed Ohio State (on BTN right now) in tomorrow's first semifinal at 1 pm Eastern on CBS.
[Hit THE JUMP for more photos and the box score.]
All photos by Marc-Grégor Campredon/MGoBlog.
January
February
Martelli
Martelli
Martelli Madness, MSU assholes are probably bragging that it didn't matter that Juwan got ejected cause Martelli is the real coach all along, lmao.
That absolutely WAS screensharted from rcmb!
Please NCAA put Maryland in our region.
They say it's hard to beat a team FOUR times in a season...
Unless, of course, that team is coached by Mark Turgeon - in which case, it is easy
I feel like that guy turtles a lot.
Just need to point this out from Brian's preview:
Michigan drop coverage. The best thing Maryland does on offense is run pick and roll...This might be a game to put Brandon Johns out for the backup C minutes, if you can do that in the presumed absence of Brooks.
Wow did you nail that.
The drop coverage was death for us. Once they went to Switch (with Johns), that was that.
We've been banging this drum all year long. Even in the preseason. Johns should be the backup / small ball center against teams that have small ball bigs (MSU, Maryland, OSU, etc). IfI have any criticism for the coaching staff in this masterful season, it's that I'm not really sure why they insist on running Davis when the matchups aren't good.
My main theory is that Johns makes too many mental mistakes for their liking (and he does make a lot) but he's still the better option. The other possibility is that they don't think he's comfortable enough at center given he primarily plays the four but I think that's a mistake. He's a small ball center. Should not be playing backup four at all (should just move Franz to four when Livers is out and/or give Williams a few min a game).
Any news on Livers?
What happened to Livers? I missed the last 10 min of the second half.
He didn't play at the end. Not sure why. Hopefully it was simply because Chandee was better in this game.
Yeah, hope it was a coaching decision. However, I thought I did see him limping going into a timeout. That could be nothing though. It happens.
He had a couple pretty bad defensive lapses in zone I thought. Paired with his shot being off I think he was just benched. Hopefully he's healthy and can regain his groove after a couple bad games
Shot 0-5 then looks like he tweaked an ankle getting back on d. Impressive to win without any of his contributions. Needs to get out of his slump ASAP.
Probably mostly this. Same way Chaundee played mostly at the end of some recent game instead of Franz (OSU I think?). They essentially have 6 starters and against small ball teams like Maryland and OSU, you can not only get away with 3 guards out there, it's sometimes preferable.
Thanks, Ace.
Fine work, Frenchy.
I hadn't posted in a game thread in awhile . . . man was it negative in the first half. Some posters need to pull it together. This team is going to be a #1 seed in the Big Dance and still, half the comments were pure BPONE. 5-10 minutes of subpar basketball shouldn't make you lose all hope. When you're playing your first game in a football stadium you're probably not going to shoot well right away. Maryland didn't at the beginning of their game yesterday either. But they settled in yesterday and we did today, too.
You know, I have to admit that I was one of them. I had complete confidence in this team when they were down against Wisconsin after the layoff, but the Illinois game, for whatever reason, just shattered that. The MSU loss made it a bit worse.
Now, when I see them down by 12 (just like they were against the Badgers) instead of being like "they're about to make their move" instead I go "they're about to get buried."
Human emotion/nature is a strange thing. Damn Illinois game dun broke me.
Time to gitback to a reasonable perspective.
Up vote for owning it!
Spot on. Some game-thread posters had comments like this team would be lucky to make the NCAA tourney and would be a quick out. This team went from preseason 6/7 prediction to league champs. This team probably does not have the most talent of any team but they play hard, smart and together. Occasional lapses in intensity will happen. This team should get the benefit of patience and confidence from fans.
Anyway, very proud of how the team responded today. And let's give Maryland some credit, they played very well for much of the game and played hard from the tip. Michigan overcame the challenge. Great win.
Seems like the only reason to be in a game thread is to spew massive hawwwt takes. So that's what you're gonna see.
Just wanted to say the second foul on Dickinson was absolutely absurd.
That looked like a ref who has been taught "moving on a screen means call offensive foul." Which in general is true, but, uh, not if the screener is moving because he got shouldered by the defender.
To play devil's advocate, I think what threw the official off was that HD was knocked such that his right side of his body went back, as his left side was hit. I think it kind of gave the impression he was leaning into the defender to shoulder check, even though he was standstill just bracing for the hit.
Hunter had 3 fouls and they were all offensive and away from the ball, if I am not mistaken. He needs to clean that up. We need those fouls for defense or for strong finishes, but mostly we need him on the floor. Fortunately, Davis and Johns were both great today.
I'm not sure how you clean up bullshit calls.
Hire new refs.
Both of those offensive fouls were absurd. The first was a flop and the other was a defensive foul for pushing through a completely legal screen
The Big Ten is belatedly learning what the ACC knew about Maryland for years. The existence of class in that program is a rumor only.
Nice to see that UVA-MD rivalry lives on.
If you ask around among UVA fans it's remarkable how many of them are happy to have foisted Maryland off on the Big Ten.
I'd rather have them in the ACC because tradition, but there are a lot of stories of really bad experiences on visits to Maryland. I've never been there for a game, but have my own story of shabby treatment from Maryland fans at a game....and this was when I was supporting my brother in Purdue gear at a bowl game and no rivalry was involved at all.
Lol uva fan says things.
Fuck Dook, etc, but one of my favorite Cameron chants back in the day was directed at Maryland: "NOT OUR RI-VAL CLAP-CLAP-CLAPCLAPCLAP NOT OUR RI-VAL CLAP-CLAP-CLAPCLAPCLAP"
yeah, spicy beef!
Picante beef? 
15 assists, no turnovers. Please get rid of Mike Smith’s banana peel!!!!
Waiting on the RCMB post: "Howard still without a post-season win after two seasons."
After yesterday's debacle, I think the rcmb folks have enough other things to worry about.
Man you sure haven't been paying attention if you think problems in their own program would prevent sparty from commenting on or trolling Michigan!!!
They're like the Marjorie Taylor Greene & white!
You should have seen the trash talk from Sparty fans on Twitter after the ejection. They know they are about to become irrelevant and attack Howard despite not knowing what was said.
It's gonna be worse than that. I completely expect racial attacks against Juwan and people calling him a thug
You mean a slug.
Maryland was called for 11 fouls all game. Wiggins flexed at one of our guys after a dunk, no T, not even a warning. Morsell flexed at a ref. Nothing done. Hunter beaten to a pulp and gets called for setting perfect, immobile screens. Juwan points out something at the other end of the court and Turgeon yells at coach Howard. The refs let this get out of control. Total shit-show reffing. Big10 needs to invest in better officiating.
likely the product of the bitching turgeon was doing to the league after the first game, as alluded to in his postgame presser.
While I think most UM fans would agree Maryland were acting like punks, neither of those were tech worthy. Players stare down each other all the time on their way back down the court. Although a little slow and not being very discreet, Wiggins was still backpedaling. We'd eat that shit up when Charles Matthews did that
Charles Matthews came mind for me too
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