No. 3 Michigan Wolverines basketball was down by 14 late in the first half against Wisconsin Sunday in Madison. But the Maize and Blue rallied back and took down the No. 23-ranked Badgers to improve to 14-1 overall and 9-1 in Big Ten play.
Here is a look around the country at what they're saying about Michigan's win.
RELATED: Fab Five Takeaways: Stellar Second Half Leads To Michigan Win At Wisconsin
Chris Balas, The Wolverine: Howard's Wolverines Prove Their Grit, Resolve In Win At Wisconsin
Credit Wisconsin senior guard Brad Davison, though, for really bringing U-M to life in the second half. Though his elbow into Michigan senior Mike Smith’s face looked anything but inadvertent during a drive to the rim, officials ruled it so, called a technical foul on the Michigan bench instead and could have changed the course of the game for the worse.
Juwan Howard wouldn’t let it. He used it to fire his team up, calling Smith’s number on the other end in a calculated move. Smith responded with a finish that cut an 11-point deficit to nine. The Wolverines continued to chip away, finding the smothering defense with which they’d been playing before being inexplicably shut down for three weeks, and held the Badgers to 20 second-half points in a 67-59 victory.
“Our guys looked at it and saw their brother looking pretty dazed and affected by the elbow, but Mike told his teammates, ‘Hey, I’m on fire now. I’m ready to go!’” Howard said. “He also told me — because I was a little fired up too — that it was nice to see that they all rallied together.
“It was a big, huge test of our culture … the No. 1 thing in our culture, a word that we say and we believe in, is that we all are family. And it goes to show you family got tested and everyone banded together like brothers for their family.”
He laughed in acknowledging he absolutely drew up the play for Smith, two of the senior’s six points to go with six assists. It was the motivation they needed to fight through heavy legs, and they all pitched in.
Austin Fox, The Wolverine: What Layoff? Not Even The Shutdown Can Slow Down Red-Hot Michigan
The Badgers held a 39-27 lead at the break, and things weren’t looking good for the Wolverines following what had been a sluggish first half.
“Our leader and boss, Coach Howard, clapped and smiled at us in the locker room and said this is where we want to be,” senior forward Isaiah Livers revealed when asked what Howard’s message was to the team at the break.
“He told us to act like we’d been here before. No one was pointing fingers or was upset. We knew we were in a great spot and weren’t going to make any excuses. We stayed true to the system and it blessed us, and we came out with a big road win.”
“Big road win” is an understatement. The triumph improved Michigan’s record to 14-1 overall and 9-1 in league play, with every other team in the Big Ten — with the exception of Illinois — having at least four conference losses.
Illinois currently possess three. The race for the Big Ten title is still obviously raging on, but needless to say, the Wolverines are in outstanding shape as we approach the home stretch.
“I’m blessed to be on a team like this,” Livers exclaimed. “Coach Howard talked about how what we did today is special — to have a pause and then play at Wisconsin and be locked in and together.
“We’re the most connected team. We rallied together and trusted the process, Coach Howard and each other. We had each other’s backs and it was back to normal — we were playing good basketball again.
“We didn’t make any excuses.”
After Sunday’s game, Howard raved about the ball-screen defense he got from Dickinson — and backup center Austin Davis — against [D'Mitrik] Trice and the Badgers’ pick-and-pop threats. Whether it was using his length in drop coverage or keeping his feet moving while hedging, the freshman’s effort was impressive, especially given the heavy minutes he played after halftime.
[Hunter] Dickinson added five blocked shots Sunday, while notching his first double-double since New Year’s Eve, a performance that left Gard shaking his head as he surveyed the stat sheet. His center tandem — Nate Reuvers and Micah Potter — combined for zero rebounds in 40 minutes.
“When he has 15 and we have two zeros from guys that were matched up with him, you know, sometimes it’s more than positioning or angles or physicality,” Gard grumbled. “I mean, he’s one of the better post players in the country. and even though he doesn’t score a ton today, the 15 rebounds — specifically the offensive ones — they were the difference-maker, I thought.
“He’s been a force all year. … He’s a load. he’s skilled, he’s got great footwork, he’s got great balance, he’s big and strong and he’s got a nose for the ball.”
And the smarts to know what to do with it once he has it, as Livers happily noted Sunday. After Dickinson snared Eli Brooks’ late-clock miss with less than 3 minutes to play, the freshman instinctively knew what to do, sandwiched between two defenders.
“The first reaction of mine was to look for somebody else on the perimeter,” he said, “because that’s the best time for a three is off an offensive rebound. … I looked up and ‘Zay’ was right there, so, of course, I gotta give it to my shooter.”
Of course, his shooter’s gotta make the shot, too. But Livers did, and as the Michigan bench erupted, Dickinson ran back up court, fists clenched and bellowing.
Tired? Nah, Michigan was rolling again. And you could see it in Dickinson's reaction: Objects with momentum are hard to stop.
Brendan Quinn, The Athletic: What Juwan Howard is doing at Michigan can’t be ignored
Speaking of Livers, he finished with 20 points on 4-of-7 3s. He delivered the type of poised, veteran performance that bolsters gritty road wins in a league such as the Big Ten.
Quite tellingly, Livers said afterward: “I was just doing what the system tells me to do. Coach Howard puts me in a spot to score and I go score the ball. If not, I try to create for someone else. Our offense is not favorited toward one guy. We all can do a bunch of extraordinary things.”
It’s that outlook, that selfless style, and that temperament that makes this Michigan team different. And that stems from one place: Howard’s coaching, which has Michigan ranked first in the Big Ten in defensive efficiency and third in offensive efficiency.
It’s who Howard is as a coach, though, that has the Wolverines where they are.
That’s how you can fall behind by as many as 14 at Kohl Center and come back to win by eight. That’s how you survive two weeks of isolation as a team, even when everyone is alone.
Howard noted late Sunday that the win in Madison “says a lot about the character of this team.”
The team, in turn, says a lot about the character of its coach.
Matt Norlander, CBS Sports: College basketball scores, weekend takeaways
The No. 3 Wolverines waited 23 days between games, got down by 14 on the road against a ranked team and then managed to double-up No. 21 Wisconsin 40-20 in the second half en route to a 67-59 win. That was impressive. In fact, it's probably Michigan's most impressive win this season, which it closed with a 13-2 run. Juwan Howard's team didn't make the committee look bullish for slotting them No. 3 overall. Considering this was a standalone Sunday game, it only enhances the Wolverines' profile overall as well.
Allow me to gush about that second half performance, as the collective defensive showing sliced away at a double-digit Wisconsin lead (the inadvertent elbow with Brad Davison's didn't help Bucky; Michigan turned the game thereafter). Hunter Dickinson, Isaiah Livers, Chaundee Brown, Franz Wagner and Eli Brooks held UW to just under 0.62 points per possession in the second half. Totally turned off Wisconsin's water. The Badgers fell off a cliff in the second half, shooting 25% and scoring a mere 20 points while shooting 1 of 13 from 3-point range.
Dickinson had 11 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks. He's a top-five freshman in the nation. Livers had a game-high 20 points, but Dickinson's play signified why Michigan can win a national title. He is special. One last thing: As much as I'd like to credit Dickinson's play entirely, the fact is there's no excuse for Wisconsin bigs Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers to finish with zero rebounds. That should never happen.
Benjamin Worgull, Badger Blitz: Five Takeaways from No.21 Wisconsin's 67-59 Loss to No.3 Michigan
Halftime didn’t do Wisconsin any favors with keeping its momentum flowing. UW again expected Michigan to come out with second-half energy (after all, this Michigan team had the league’s top field goal percentage defense and went on a 36-3 run against them last month). But even though the Badgers knew it was coming, they got dazed by the Wolverines’ punches.
Michigan’s aggression caused Wisconsin to get away from the plays that made them successful in the first half (mostly screen and rolls, attacking the rim and ball screens) and became stagnate, which made the Badgers move quicker. Not surprisingly, that resulted in a flurry of turnovers, rushed shots at the end of the shot clock and overall bad offensive decisions.
“They extended some pressure and got us on our heels,” UW coach Greg Gard said. “I thought when we did attack at times, we turned the ball over too many times. A lot of that was due to what Michigan was attempting to do to us, and we didn’t counter back with playmaking as well as we should have.”
The Badgers started 1-for-5 out of the locker room and Michigan, after its bench was whistled for a technical protesting an elbow to the head of starting point guard Mike Smith, started to flex its strength. After Trice went 1-for-2 on the free throws, Smith delivered a three-point play and UW’s offense went through four consecutive empty possessions that included two turnovers. Suddenly, a lead that had grown to 13 was down to six and kept shrinking because the offense never regained confidence.
UW only made seven field goals in the second half, went 1-for-12 from 3-point range that took away that momentum-lifting play and went just 5-for-6 from the free throw line.
Social Media Reaction: Michigan Basketball Wins At Wisconsin, 69-57
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