For much of this season, college basketball fans and pundits had Friday’s Michigan-Illinois matchup circled as one of the nation’s best individual matchups.
Friday was supposed to deliver Hunter Dickinson vs. Kofi Cockburn round two. A battle of returning All-American behemoths. Two of the country’s most dominant interior presences. Cockburn got the best of Dickinson during the Illini’s trip to Ann Arbor last season, but Dickinson vowed to rebound in the second bout.
“Illinois fans definitely let me know how I played on Instagram and Twitter a lot,” Dickinson said at Big Ten Media Day in October. “I definitely had one of my lesser games of the season, so for me to be able to have another chance, I would appreciate that.”
Dickinson’s long-awaited second chance was supposed to come on Friday.
That is, until it didn’t.
Dickinson and senior forward Brandon Johns Jr. were ruled out less than an hour before tip-off due to COVID-related conditioning and stamina concerns. That left the Wolverines without their primary answer for the 7-foot, 285-pound Cockburn around the rim. At 7-foot-1, 260 pounds, Dickinson offered a comparable physical frame despite surrendering 25 pounds on the low block.
Michigan’s other options, however, weren’t physically equipped for Cockburn’s bruising playstyle. The Wolverines started freshman Moussa Diabate on Cockburn. Though Diabate stands 6-foot-11, he weighs just 210 pounds. After Diabate picked up a pair of fouls in the first five minutes, Michigan coach Juwan Howard threw walk-on Jaron Faulds and sophomore Jace Howard, neither of whom weigh more than 240 pounds, at Cockburn.
Cockburn cruised to his ninth consecutive double-double, posting 21 points and 10 rebounds. The Wolverines’ reserves gave it everything they had, but Cockburn was too much to handle around the rim.
“(Cockburn) is big,” Diabate said. “I’m not going to lie to you, it is challenging, but I’m a basketball player at the end of the day. I just want to compete every day. I love this type of matchup. That’s what I’m looking for. It makes me better. For my teammates, they did a great job — Jace, Jaron, hats off to them. They gave everything they had. That’s what we want. It was great. I was feeding off their energy.”
Without the necessary size to stop Cockburn, Michigan’s coaching staff tried to get creative. Howard started the game in a 2-3 zone, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t the answer.
The Wolverines returned to other variations of zone during the game, but it never gave them an edge. During the second half, Howard decided to scrap the zone altogether.
The main reason why? Cockburn’s size and strength.
“I can count maybe four or five positions where we guarded in the zone, and it seemed like every time we did go zone, they scored,” Howard said. “I had to come out of that zone and play a man-to-man because Kofi, he’s big. And he’s good, he’s not just big. He’s a talent, and he’s worked on his game. He does a really good job of finishing in the paint. It’s tough when you have a young man giving up 50 to 70 pounds and he’s giving everything he can and then you also bring in two other young men.”
As Michigan looks ahead, it will need Dickinson and Johns back in the lineup soon. The Wolverines face three solid big men in Indiana’s Trayce Jackson-Davis, Maryland’s Qudus Wahab and Northwestern’s Pete Nance in their next three games. If their frontcourt remains shorthanded, Cockburn’s dominance may have been a preview of what’s to come.
Now 1-3 in the Big Ten and losers of four of its last five, Michigan has seen its NCAA Tournament hopes dwindle. Losing an All-American and a key senior puts the Wolverines even further behind the eight ball. Even still, none of Michigan’s next three opponents are currently above .500 in Big Ten play. It’s a prime opportunity for the Wolverines to turn things around and work through issues.
But if Friday’s loss at Illinois showed one thing, it’s that Michigan will need Dickinson and Johns back in order to right the ship from the inside out.
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