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.

