Michigan Wolverines basketball (15-9, 6-7 Big Ten) picked up its second true road win of the season over Northwestern (6-17, 1-12 Big Ten) Wednesday night.

Here's five takeaways from the game.

RELATED: Instant Recap: Wolverines Hammer Northwestern, 79-54

Tonight, Northwestern shot just 32 percent and 24 percent from long range.

After struggling for much of January, U-M's defense has really impressed in the last six games. Over that six-game stretch, the Wolverines are holding opponents to 39.4 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from three-point range. In the five games before that, for comparison, they allowed opponents to shoot 49.5 percent from the field and 40.3 percent from three.

Part of that is the return of junior forward Isaiah Livers, but the trend continued after he went back out with his second injury in the Illinois game, and in the games that followed. Now that he's back, expect more consistency out of the U-M defense.

Senior center Jon Teske continues to struggle on the offensive end of the floor. Confidence seems to be an issue, and after starting the season strong, he's shot 32.4 percent from the field in his last seven games.

Tonight, he shot 3-for-14, missing several easy shots near the rim, which is becoming a trend. He's being asked to be a back to the basket, post up big man, a role that he's never thrived in. Teske is at his best off the pick and roll and pick and pop, but isn't finding as much of that action as he did last season.

His struggles were magnified by a tough start in which he missed five shots in the paint in the game's first three minutes and seven seconds.

Redshirt junior forward Austin Davis came up huge in the first half, scoring seven points on 3-for-3 from the field, making up for some of Teske's struggles. He finished with nine points on 4-for-4 shooting.

Davis has made 15 of his last 16 attempts from the field (in the last five games). He's on an incredible run, and it's coincidentally coming right in the midst of Teske's struggles.

U-M missed its first 11 shots, and it looked like it may be a long night on offense for the Wolverines. But then U-M hit 12 of its final 17 shots of the first half, and never looked back from that point forward. U-M shot a cool, efficient 56.6 percent after the 0-for-11 start to win comfortably in Evanston.

The question coming into this one was if U-M was good enough to put together back-to-back impressive performances. It looked like that may be too much to ask after the first five minutes, but U-M responded magnificently.

As TheWolverine.com senior editor Chris Balas said in the live game thread on our message board, U-M fans can't take Wednesday night's win over the Wildcats for granted. Teams haven't been leaving Evanston with decisive victories all too often. Howard's message of "ignore the 1-11" (Northwestern's conference record entering the game) was followed by his players, and should be followed by fans alike.

The Wildcats just took Rutgers to overtime in Piscataway (Rutgers is undefeated at home this season), and have played others, including Purdue and Michigan State, within five points at home. Coming out of this one with a 25-point win is nothing short of a very good win.

Junior guard Eli Brooks doesn't need the home cooking. He's made four or more three-pointers in each of his last three road games, including going 4-for-8 tonight. He finished with a game-high 18 points, and added five rebounds and one assist.

Brooks is averaging 21 points per game in those last three road games — posting 25 points at Iowa and 20 at Nebraska, in addition to his 18 Wednesday night.

His shooting performances are starting to come more consistently, and it's well documented how well he's playing defense as of late, none more documented than slowing down MSU's Cassius Winston on Saturday, forcing him into a 5-for-18 night shooting.

The biggest shot for Brooks against Northwestern was his three with just under seven minutes to play, to extend the Wolverines' lead back to 15 points, after Northwestern had cut the lead to 12.

After his 14 points and four rebounds Saturday against Michigan State, junior forward Isaiah Livers put up 17 points, five rebounds and two assists against Northwestern. His impact on U-M's defense can't be quantified (it's huge), and he makes the offense much better.

Livers looked even healthier against Northwestern than he did just four days earlier, and that's a good sign for Howard and co. that there were seemingly no setbacks after his return. It's also a great sign that, as one reporter pointed out in Howard's postgame press conference, Livers has what seems to be no rust after missing nine games with his injury.

Need more proof that he's back?

Take a look for yourself:

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