Some may have brushed off last night’s 77-65 win at Rutgers and labeled it simply as a win Michigan was supposed to get, but anyone who follows the Big Ten closely understood how impressive it was.
The Scarlet Knights had already taken down Big Ten foes Ohio State, Nebraska and Indiana in Piscataway this season, and had possessed the No. 42 overall defense in the country (according to KenPom) entering the game.
Michigan shot 44.8 percent against it, however, in what was a nice bounce back effort after it had converted just 32.3 percent of its shots in Friday night's loss at Iowa.
Head coach John Beilein explained on his weekly radio show this evening what his team took away from that loss to the Hawkeyes.
“The need to play good individual defense,” he explained. “We swiped from behind so many times against Iowa, and after watching the tape, there were 38 points that could have gone differently.
“I’m not going to be one of those coaches who blames my players though — give Iowa credit, because they are really good. It’s so hard to win on the road and in some of these environments our kids are facing.
“I’m just so pleased overall with our guys though, because we’ve got four road wins in the Big Ten already and five overall.
“I don’t think each place has been at 100 percent capacity, but almost all of them have been sold out or within a few hundred seats of being sold out.
“Villanova definitely was, and Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa were all hyped up too — those are great environment for our kids.
“We’ve come out strong so often, including at Iowa, even though we couldn’t keep it up.
“We had so many great New York Michigan fans with us last night at Rutgers, and as a result, the parents and kids had me backing my way into the locker room, because I was taking so many pictures with them.”
Though he’s not from the New York/New Jersey area, last night’s win over Rutgers perhaps held a bit of personal significance for freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis.
The 6-7 Canadian was former teammates and roommates with Scarlet Knight junior power forward Eugene Omoruyi at Orangeville Prep in Ontario, and have since turned into two of the better players in the Big Ten (Brazdeikis is averaging 15.5 points per game and 5.5 boards, while Omoruyi is tallying 14.6 points and 7.2 rebounds).
Though Omoruyi scored the majority of his 21 points with his former prep teammate guarding him, Beilein was still pleased with the way his freshman battled against the 240-pound junior (Brazdeikis only weighs 215 pounds).
“I sensed Iggy would get tired with the wrestling match he was in,” Beilein noted tonight. “He answered Rutgers’ run with a three in the second half — they could have cut it to three or four, but we went right back up by 13.
“It was such a good win because they have so much young talent — that’s going to be a fun team to watch develop over the next few years.”
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