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.