6A — Thursday, January 28, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wolverines fend off Rutgers, 68-57
Michigan beats
another sluggish
start to earn win at
Crisler Center
By JACOB GASE
Daily Sports Editor
After eight and a half seasons
coaching in the Big Ten, Michigan
men’s basketball coach John
Beilein has learned not to take
any
game
for granted.
When
Minnesota
and its winless Big Ten record
came into Crisler Center last
week
and
the
Wolverines
struggled to secure a slim five-
point victory, Beilein merely
shrugged. He knows that in this
conference, any team can beat
him on any given night.
So when Rutgers came to Ann
Arbor seeking its first Big Ten win
Wednesday night, Beilein knew
better than to look past it. Sure
enough, Michigan started slow
again — but this time, it woke up
more quickly.
Despite missing their first five
shots and not taking the lead until
late in the first half, the Wolverines
(6-2 Big Ten, 16-5 overall) took
over the game with a 12-0 run in
the first frame and cruised to a
68-57 victory. In contrast to the
win over the Golden Gophers — in
which junior forward Zak Irvin
and junior guard Derrick Walton
Jr. almost single-handedly took
over — multiple Michigan players
stepped up their play in the
winning effort.
Redshirt
sophomore
guard
Duncan Robinson led the way
with 18 points on four 3-pointers,
sophomore
guard
Aubrey
Dawkins spurred the first-half
offensive resurgence and finished
with 11 points, and Irvin flirted
with a triple-double with a final
line of eight points, 12 rebounds
and eight assists.
Though
the
Wolverines
finished with four double-digit
scorers, things didn’t look so easy
in the beginning. In fact, Beilein
had a bad feeling before the game
even started — just minutes before
the game, his scouting report,
which was between four and five
pages, went missing.
“I always religiously go over it
one more time, and I couldn’t find
it,” Beilein said. “That was a bad
omen to start, because after 1,100
games, I have the same ritual, and
I couldn’t find it.”
That bad luck quickly spread
to the court, where Michigan
shot just 25 percent (including
1-for-6 from 3-point range) in
the first 12 minutes of the game.
The Wolverines managed to
stay in the game thanks to nine
first-half Rutgers turnovers —
including one Scarlet Knight
falling out of bounds with the
ball and another throwing a pass
into the first row of courtside
seats near the basket.
With Rutgers (0-8, 6-15) clinging
to a 16-12 lead at the penultimate
first-half media timeout, Dawkins
— who dropped a career-high 31
points against Rutgers at Crisler
Center last season — was the one
to manufacture that energy. After
Dawkins cut into the lead with
a 3-pointer and a two-handed
slam dunk, junior forward Mark
Donnal blocked a shot and later
found Dawkins for a wide-open
3 on the other end for his eighth
straight point to tie the game at 20.
Dawkins’ spark propelled the
Wolverines to a 12-0 run, with
Irvin and Robinson both hitting
3-pointers to give Michigan a
seven-point lead at the half.
Walton
hit
two
straight
3-pointers soon after the break to
push the lead to 12, but Rutgers
marched right back with a 7-0
run. The teams traded offense for
the next several minutes before
sophomore forward Ricky Doyle
hit two straight layups, Dawkins
and Robinson nailed two more
triples and Walton converted
three straight free throws to
extend the lead to a game-high
14 points — a deficit the Scarlet
Knights couldn’t erase.
Dawkins comes off
bench to deliver
spark, put Michigan
in front for good
By SIMON KAUFMAN
Daily Sports Editor
After
the
Michigan
men’s
basketball team came out flat
against an unheralded Minnesota
team last week, Crisler Center
looked
like
it
might
been
experiencing déjà vu Wednesday
night as the Wolverines hosted
Rutgers — a team still looking for
its first conference win.
In the first half, Michigan (6-2
Big Ten, 16-5 overall) did its best
to allow the Scarlet Knights (0-8,
6-15) to forget they were riding
a seven-game losing streak into
Ann Arbor — including five losses
by more than 20 points.
The Wolverines started the
game shooting 5-for-20 from the
field and trailed the Big Ten’s
second-worst team 16-12 with
eight minutes left in the first half.
Enter Aubrey Dawkins.
After coming off the bench
with just under 12 minutes left in
the frame, the sophomore forward
wasted little time in making his
presence felt.
Following a string of three
straight misses from junior guard
Derrick Walton Jr., Dawkins hit
on his first try, knocking down a
3-point attempt from the corner.
Thirty seconds later, Dawkins
used a pick to lose his man at the
top of the key. He cut toward the
hoop and met eyes with Walton,
who had the ball just beyond
the arc. Walton threw a bullet
to Dawkins, and the 6-foot-6
sophomore caught it and threw
down a dunk, swinging his legs
beneath him for a split second in
‘How ya like me now?’ fashion.
Less than a minute later, after
junior forward Mark Donnal
blocked a Rutgers shot attempt on
one end, it was Dawkins again on
the other end, hitting another 3 to
tie the game at 20.
Two minutes. Three shots.
Nine points.
Michigan took the lead on its
next possession and never looked
back, ultimately picking up a
68-57 win.
“(I’m) just trying to provide
energy in whatever way I can,”
Dawkins said. “If it’s making
shots, if it’s rebounding, if it’s
making the right pass — whatever
it is — just trying to give the game
a different kind of vibe, a different
energy. That’s what I pride my
game on right now, just trying to
make something happen.”
Dawkins’
electric
entrance
provided the spark Michigan
needed to flip the switch. After
missing his first three tries from
deep, junior forward Zak Irvin
hit from beyond the arc with just
more than four minutes left and
hit two free throws late to salvage
an otherwise forgetful first half
and help send the Wolverines into
the locker room with a 34-27 lead.
In the second half, Dawkins
came close to changing the energy
in a big way again. With Michigan
up
nine,
Dawkins
streaked
through the paint after catching
a Walton pass from the baseline.
Two Rutgers players split as
Dawkins charged toward the
basket, elevated and attempted
to throw down a one-handed,
jaw-dropping dunk. But the ball
caught too much of the back of the
rim and ricocheted past half court
in the opposite direction.
“I jumped too far,” Dawkins
said of the dunk. “I thought the
guy in the paint was going to
jump, but he didn’t jump, so I
was expecting the contact, but
it wasn’t there, and I was like,
‘Wow, I’m too far away so now I
can’t land it, so I just gotta throw
it and hope it goes through.’ Blake
Griffin-esque. But it didn’t go in.”
Despite the blooper-reel miss,
he didn’t hesitate to fire from the
corner when he had an open look
on the next trip down the court,
hitting his third 3 of the night.
Dawkins finished 4-for-6 from
the field for 11 points — the margin
of Michigan’s win.
RUTGERS
MICHIGAN
57
68
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
Junior forward Zak Irvin flirted with a triple-double against Rutgers on Wednesday, scoring eight points, pulling down 12 rebounds and dishing out eight assists.