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The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | January 30, 2017

Some time off
 The Michigan hockey team 
used its bye week to recover 
both mentally and physically 
before beginning the final 
stretch of its season 

 » Page 3B

Stars aligned
What would happen if you 
put Jim Harbaugh, the Pope 
and John Cena together at 
Hill Auditorium?
» SportsMonday Column, 

Page 2B

EAST 
LANSING 
— 
After a blistering offensive 
performance against Indiana 
on Thursday, the Michigan 
men’s basketball team (4-5 Big 
Ten, 14-8 overall) headed to the 
Breslin Center, eager to bring its 
hot shooting along with it. But 
while the Wolverines’ offense 
has carried them this season, 
their defense, particularly from 
the perimeter, has cost them 
dearly.
It came back to bite them 
once 
again 
Sunday 
against 
Michigan State (5-4, 13-9), as 
the Spartans shot 45 percent 
from three and opened up 
a 
nine-point 
lead 
midway 
through the second half — a 
deficit that Michigan could not 
overcome in a 70-62 loss.
Though 
Michigan 
State 
had been down by one with 15 
minutes left in the game, the 
Spartans went on a 12-5 run 
in the span of five minutes — 
bookended by 3-pointers from 
guard Matt McQuaid — to take 

a 54-45 lead. In a back-and-
forth bout between two evenly-
matched teams, the run turned 
out to be the knockout blow, 
and the Wolverines managed 
just five points from the floor 
the rest of the way.
“We just really couldn’t get 
good looks,” said Michigan 
coach John Beilein. “They just 
shut down a lot of the things 
that we do, they had a great 
defensive plan, and it worked 
really well.”
Michigan also scored six 
free-throws down the stretch, 

all courtesy of senior guard 
Derrick Walton Jr., who had 
come alive in the second half. 

One of just four Wolverines 
who hails from the state of 
Michigan, 
Walton 
made 
it 
abundantly clear Friday that he 
was eager to take on Michigan 
State, and his efforts on the 
floor Sunday showed it.
“I 
think 
he 
understands 
this rivalry probably as good 
as anybody out there,” Beilein 
said.
With Walton leading the 
charge, 
Michigan 
turned 
around its offensive fortunes. 
He opened the stanza with 
back-to-back 3-pointers to tie 
the game at 34, and he pushed 
the pace on offense in the hope 
that his teammates would do 
the same.
“I know this team looks at 
me as a leader,” Walton said. 
“When I play and show the face 
that, ‘It’s time to win’ I think 
they follow suit. ... I just try to 
exude it by playing hard and 
smart.”
While he finished with a 
game-high 24 points and nearly 
notched a double-double with 
nine rebounds, the rest of the 
Wolverines 
couldn’t 
seem 

to shoot their way out of the 
funk. They finished the game 
shooting just 34 percent from 
the floor and 27 percent from 
beyond the arc — a dramatic 
drop from their last game when 
they shot 63 and 55 percent, 
respectively. 
If a single trend has emerged 
from Michigan’s performances 
this season, it’s that when 
sophomore 
forward 
Moritz 
Wagner finds himself in foul 
trouble in the early stages of the 
game, the Wolverines’ offense 
struggles to find a groove. 
That trend continued against 
the Spartans, as Wagner played 
just seven minutes of the first 
half. He picked up a quick foul 
just two minutes into the game, 
and later picked up his second 
with eight minutes left in the 
half.
“He’s got a high skill level, 
and it allows us to flow through 
some things,” Beilein said. “But 
he is also learning defensively, 
so he’s still a work-in-progress. 
… At times, he makes our 
offense and our defense much 
better.”

Wagner’s 
replacement, 
senior forward Mark Donnal, 
managed to keep the Wolverines 
in the game, though, scoring 
a team-high seven points in 
the first half to help Michigan 
enter the halftime break facing 
just a four-point deficit. 
But while the Wolverines 

held on in the early stages of 
the second half, Michigan State 
turned it on in a flash and never 
looked back. The Spartans were 
led by freshman forward Miles 
Bridges, who notched a double-

double with 15 points and 13 
rebounds. In reality, it was 
more of the same from Bridges, 
who already led the team in 
both scoring and rebounding 
with an average of 16.4 and 8.1 
per game, respectively.
Though Michigan had begun 
to turn its conference season 
around with wins over Illinois 
and Indiana this past week, 
an entirely different challenge 
awaited the Wolverines inside 
the Breslin Center.
Michigan State may not have 
been having the season that 
many expected, not to mention 
that it had just lost three 
consecutive games to Ohio 
State, Indiana and Purdue, but 
the rivalry game brought out a 
different energy altogether in 
both the players and the fans. 
Spartan coach Tom Izzo stated 
after the game that the crowd 
made a huge difference and 
that his players fed off their 
enthusiasm.
Midway through the second 
half, the Spartans took their 
big swing, and Michigan simply 
couldn’t recover.

BETELHEM ASHAME
Managing Sports Editor

“I think he 

understands this 

rivalry ... as good as 

anybody out there”

“They just shut 

down a lot of the 

things that we do, 

they had a great 

defensive plan, and 

it worked really 

well”

Michigan 62, Michigan State 70 

