It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t need to be. Michigan badly needed a win after dropping four straight games, and Nebraska was the perfect huckleberry. U-M’s 79-68 victory minus Zavier Simpson and Isaiah Livers helped U-M stay on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble for now …
And given how the season has unfolded, that’s the goal now … that, and perhaps a run in the Big Ten Tournament if the team is intact and healthy. It’s an important one, too, to maintain the culture that’s been established — a year-in, year-out tournament team — and though shorthanded, the Wolverines played hard.
They didn’t play particularly well in stretches, but they didn’t necessarily have to. Nebraska is 7-14 for a reason. But a road win against a team that beat Purdue and Iowa at home and took Rutgers to the wire over the weekend before losing on a last-second shot is a good win, no matter how it played out.
“It was a huge win for us. We game in here [shorthanded] without two of our best players, Zavier Simpson, back home, as well as Isaiah Livers being injured,” head coach Juwan Howard said. “To get a road win seeing the guys that hadn’t had a chance to play like CJ stepping up and giving us some minutes, Adrien Nunez, who hadn’t played in a while but being able to give us a spark, it was a total team effort. I’m proud of all our guys.”
CJ was walk-on CJ Baird, who played eight meaningful minutes.
The guys who really needed to step up, though, were those capable of scoring more — and they did. Sophomore Brandon Johns played one of the best games of his career with 16 points and seven rebounds and frosh Franz Wagner, though his outside woes continued (1-for-5), notched 18 points and eight rebounds.
Both were aggressive at the rim and on the glass, and their play in the last 10 minutes when the Wolverines finally pulled away played a huge role. They were at their best shortly after the Cornhuskers took their last lead at 52-50.
“The quality of possessions [after that] weren’t as good, and that’s when they went on their run and that’s when they started controlling tempo,” Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg said. “That’s when their size took over. They started getting the ball inside. That was their advantage tonight, in the paint … not only with [senior center Jon] Teske, but on the wings with Wagner and their other guys.”
Johns was one of those other guys, and he finally lived up to his potential. This is a kid who, when his confidence matches his ability, could be a monster in the Big Ten.
On Tuesday he showed why. He posted strong, rebounded well and hit a key triple in the second half.
“Huge,” Howard said. “He’s been huge for us all season. He’s been playing with a lot of energy, toughness, did a really good job on the glass. He got some opportunities to score inside. The kid is just growing, day by day, getting better and better game by game.”
Howard tweaked the offense, “put in a little extra” time, and Michigan put up 79 points with mish-mash lineups. They still struggled from three-point range, making only seven of 24, and they turned it over 17 times, but they shot 50 percent from the floor total and got a huge boost from junior guard Eli Brooks. He led the team with 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
Brooks hit key triples in the second half to help U-M pull away and was composed while sophomore David DeJulius (five points) struggled in his first start.
“Once they built that lead, they were tough to slow down because they had complete control of the tempo of that game,” Hoiberg said … and Brooks was a big reason why.
So now it’s on to Madison Square Garden Saturday and a huge home game with Rutgers, one the Wolverines gave up to play in New York. Given the Scarlet Knights’ play this year, that move appears to have been a mistake, and beating them there will be no easy task.
But the Wolverines are still very much alive after taking care of business Tuesday night, hopeful they’ll get their starters back for the stretch run with a chance to make some noise late in the season. That's thanks to great efforts by guys who have been afterthoughts but rose to the occasion when needed, a huge spark on a cold night in Lincoln.
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