8 — Friday, February 8, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Matthews holds key to offense

When he steps in front of 
cameras, 
Charles 
Matthews, 
by nature, is quiet — both by 
the volume of his voice and the 
substance of his words.
On the night of Jan. 22, though, 
after Matthews hit a buzzer-beater 
to pull Michigan over Minnesota in 
a game it had no business winning, 
a throng of media surrounded him 
and, in the most unlikely setting 
possible, he started to divulge.
The Wolverines played poorly 
that night, nearly blowing what 
should have been an easy home 
win thanks to a listless offense, as 
had Matthews himself. Buzzer-
beater aside, seven points on 
3-of-7 shooting and a 76 offensive 
rating, as measured by KenPom, 
wasn’t going to cut it. Neither was 
anything else Michigan did that 
night — the second game in a row 
it hadn’t looked like itself.
Matthews, an internal leader, 
started to explain why.
“I 
told 
the 
team, 
Zavier 
(Simpson) told us as well, we 
kinda gotta loosen up,” he said. 
“We kinda playing kinda tense out 
there. We understand we wanna 
have a perfect season. We wanna 
win, but we still gotta be out there 

playing with smiles on our faces, 
having fun and competing to win 
that.”
It’s 
no 
coincidence 
the 
Wolverines have lost in two 
of 
Matthews’ 
three 
worst 
performances 
by 
offensive 
rating, nor should it surprise 
that their offense has generally 
lagged when he has struggled. 
The reason behind that is simple. 
When Michigan’s offense lags, it 
falls back on Matthews. In turn, 
Matthews falls back on contested 
midrange jump shots, which don’t 
do much for anyone.
That’s why, as the Wolverines 
jumped out to an early lead on as 
part of a 77-65 win over Rutgers 
on Tuesday night, their offense 
humming, 
it 
was 
Matthews 
greasing the skids.
When the Scarlet Knights cut 
the lead to 10 — seeming to weather 
Michigan’s initial onslaught — 
Matthews nailed a three on the 
right wing. Then he came off his 
man to block Geo Baker. Then he 
went to the midrange, nailing a 
fadeaway jumper.
In a half where the Wolverines 
scored 1.43 points per possession, 
that was the only midrange shot 
Matthews took for the first 15 
minutes.
Take what you will from a 

Tuesday in Piscataway. But this is 
what Matthews — and by proxy, 
Michigan’s offense — will look like 
in March if the Wolverines are to 
live up to their potential.
“He’s gotta embrace, just, this 
thing right now,” said Michigan 
coach John Beilein on Tuesday. 
“He’s in his fourth year playing 
college 
basketball. 
He’s 
got 
interesting decisions at the end 
of the year. He just needs to do 
exactly what he’s doing today. Just 
go attack. Enjoy every game, take 
the ball to the basket. Shoot the 
open three when you got it. And 
that — those turnaround shots at 
the beginning looked like, ‘Oh my 
god, we’re back at Villanova,’ right? 
The way he started that game.”
Matthews’ defense will buoy 
Michigan on his worst day. As it 
relates to the Wolverines’ ceiling, 
and Matthews’ NBA prospects, all 
that is set in stone.
It’s the rest that’s in question. 
A relatively unassuming 11-point 
performance can provide one hell 
of an answer.
“That’s who he is,” Beilein 
said. “That’s why you saw me. 
I grabbed him and I looked at 
him. I said, ‘That’s who you 
are, Charles. That’s who you 
are. And don’t think anything 
different.’ ”

Tale of the tape: ‘M’ offense 
comes alive against Rutgers 

Rutgers’ plan to upset the 
Michigan 
men’s 
basketball 
team 
Tuesday 
appeared 
straightforward: funnel the ball 
inside and scrap for close buckets, 
while packing the lane on defense 
and forcing the Wolverines to hit 
enough jumpers to beat them.
Offensively, the strategy was 
quite successful, as big men 
Eugene Omoruyi, Myles Johnson 
and Shaquille Doorson combined 
for 37 points on 16-for-30 shooting.
Defensively, it was another 
story. Michigan nailed 47 percent 
of its 3-pointers and scored 1.17 
points per possession to hold off 
the Scarlet Knights, 77-66.
Despite not resulting in a win 
for the home team, the gameplan 
was a logical one — and a few days 
ago, it might have even worked. 
Friday night, Iowa overwhelmed 
the Wolverines in the paint, and 
on the other end, sat back in a zone 
to dare them to shoot. Michigan 
obliged, but hit just eight of 33 
treys in a 15-point loss.
What changed?
Knocking down open shots 
was one part of the equation, but 
getting them in the first place 
was just as important. The Daily 
took to the tape to look at what 
went into the Wolverines’ best 
offensive performance in nearly 
a month.
Ignas Brazdeikis gets going:
Per a tweet from The Athletic’s 
Brendan Quinn, when Brazdeikis 
hits his first 3-pointer, he averages 
18.4 points per game on 53 percent 
shooting, as opposed to 13.1 points 
and 41 percent otherwise.
Without knowing why this 
difference exists, any statistic 
like this should be taken with a 
few grains of salt. But it’s still too 
massive to ignore.
Anyway, the freshman forward 
drilled his first shot on Tuesday. 
He finished with 23 points and a 
career-high five 3-pointers. Quite 
the coincidence.
On that possession, he was 
matched up with Omoruyi — his 
former high school teammate — 
on the left wing. It was a simple 
read for Brazdeikis as junior 
center Jon Teske came down to set 
a pick. Omoruyi went underneath 
the screen, deciding he was better 
off taking his chances with a pull-
up three instead of his 240-pound 
frame sticking with the nimbler 
Brazdeikis on the perimeter, as 
well as wanting to take away 
Teske rolling to the hoop.
“They definitely didn’t prepare 
for my 3-point shot, I feel like,” 
Brazdeikis said. “They didn’t 
close out as hard, and they left me 
open.”
Big mistake.
To be fair, it wasn’t as if there 
was a right answer. Throughout 
the game, Brazdeikis sat outside 
looking to dance to the rim, 
waiting for the Scarlet Knight bigs 
to join him. More often than not, 
they couldn’t keep up with the 
rhythm.
Pick-and-pop 
becomes 
deadly:
Last season, the pick-and-pop 
with Moritz Wagner was one 
of Michigan’s offensive staples. 
Against Rutgers, the Wolverines 
utilized it to great effect.
Brazdeikis 
generally 
plays 
the ‘4’ in Michigan’s offense, and 

his combination of slashing and 
outside shooting makes him a 
matchup nightmare, especially 
against a mostly paint-bound 
Scarlet Knights squad. Nowhere 
was this mismatch more evident 
than in the ball screen game.
“What Rutgers does, and this 
is very common, is they’re gonna 
choose to play with two big guys,” 
said Michigan coach John Beilein. 
“And it’s very difficult for them to 
switch at the four position.”
As a result, Brazdeikis ended 
up with two warmup jumpers 
midway through the second half.
Omoruyi wasn’t quite quick 
enough, or in position, to be able 
to close out effectively on either. 
The next time the Wolverines 
tried the pick-and-pop, Omoruyi 
closed out, and junior point guard 
Zavier Simpson blew past him for 
a layup.
“I thought we played well in 
the second half, but you can’t 
get yourself in a hole against 
a team ranked in the top five,” 
said Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell. 
“Every time we made a mistake 
on the defensive end, they made 
us pay.”
That was one of those mistakes, 
as Geo Baker did himself no favors 
by completely giving up on the play 
— though that may have stemmed 
from 
a 
miscommunication 
between 
him 
and 
Omoruyi, 
whose closeout on Brazdeikis was 
far too late. But the main point of 
the previous play is to show the 
dilemma that the Scarlet Knights 
faced in defending this action.
Simpson — who finished with 14 
points, seven rebounds and seven 
assists — has been elite at making 
plays when getting downhill, 
either from finding the open man 
off the pick-and-roll and pick-and-
pop or with his signature hook 
shot. Rutgers decided that taking 
away Simpson’s penetration was 
the smartest strategy in defending 
the ball screen, giving up multiple 
wide-open looks in the process. 
That’s the luxury of having one of 
the country’s most unique players; 
a barely 6-foot-tall point guard 
who’s also an elite finisher.
Charles Matthews blows the 
game open:
For about five minutes, the 
redshirt junior wing was the best 
player on the court.
With 15:22 to play in the first 
half, he took advantage of some 
poor scouting. Matthews prefers 
to drive towards the baseline off 
the side pick-and-roll, but Montez 
Mathis forgot this momentarily 
as Matthews shook him with a 
slight hesitation to the right. No 
Scarlet Knight was close to being 
in position to cut off his drive.
Matthews’ jumper has come 
and gone this season, but he 
knocked down two free throws 
after drawing a foul on a baseline 
inbounds play two minutes later. 
On Michigan’s next possession, 
he stepped into, and swished, a 
confident 3-pointer.
By 
that 
time, 
Matthews’ 
teammates had sensed he was 
feeling it, and cleared entirely 
out of the way for him to attempt 
one of his favorite shots, a 14-foot 
turnaround that’s as unblockable 
as it is inconsistent. This time, it 
dropped in.
Matthews scored just two 
points the rest of the way, but his 
dominating stretch turned out to 
be critical. After the Wolverines 

took a 17-point lead nine minutes 
into 
the 
first 
half, 
Rutgers 
outscored them 55-50.
Michigan finds success in 
transition:
“Sometimes, fast break, we 
shouldn’t even do it,” Beilein said 
after Michigan beat Minnesota on 
Jan. 22. “Because we’re jogging 
up the court. We gotta sprint. We 
don’t run. … You end up getting 
scores in the 50s and 60s if you’re 
not willing to bust your butt to get 
up the court.”
Against the Scarlet Knights, 
the Wolverines not only sprinted 
in transition, but showed strong 
positioning and patience when 
they were unable to get a bucket 
immediately.
Often, it started with — who 
else? — Simpson. Off a long 
rebound three minutes into the 
game, he was decisive but steady 
in pushing the ball up the court, 
his penetration drawing Omoruyi 
to help under the basket. The 
product was an easy corner trey, 
as Simpson fired the bounce pass 
to Brazdeikis at exactly the right 
time.
A 
minute 
later, 
another 
Simpson rebound led to fast-
break points. Before the rebound 
even landed in Simpson’s hands, 
sophomore guard Jordan Poole 
was off and running. Poole’s 
recognition 
put 
him 
behind 
the entire Rutgers defense, and 
Simpson hit him in stride.
Michigan’s 
best 
possession 
of the game, coming with seven 
minutes left in the first half, 
wasn’t a fast break. But its roots 
stemmed from transition, where 
Brazdeikis steamed up the middle 
in anticipation of a breakout. 
Meanwhile, Poole spaced the play 
well near the left wing.
While the Scarlet Knights got 
back to defend the fast break, part 
of successful transition offense is 
the ability to know when to run 
and when to pull out and set up 
the halfcourt attack. Simpson 
saw he didn’t have an immediate 
play and didn’t force the issue, 
and from there, dribble-drive 
penetration, a smart cut by 
Matthews and unselfish passing 
led to three points.
Early in the second half, the 
Wolverines’ 
transition 
attack 
exhibited more good spacing, as 
Simpson ran in his lane and forced 
Baker to stay on him. Brazdeikis 
fired a pass to Matthews, who 
simply beat everyone down the 
court. The pass was inch-perfect, 
right over Baker’s fingertips, but 
without Simpson sprinting out 
wide, Baker would have been able 
to play free safety and come up 
with a likely steal.
Six minutes into the second 
half, Simpson pushed the ball hard 
up the court and forced Rutgers to 
surge downcourt ahead of him. 
The Scarlet Knights were rightly 
occupied with stopping Simpson, 
but failed to notice Poole, the 
Wolverines’ best shooter, as the 
trailer. The result was a wide-
open triple.
Notice a common denominator 
in all of these plays yet?
“Fourteen, seven and seven. 
That’s incredible,” Beilein said 
after the game, reciting Simpson’s 
stat line. “We’ve been really 
blessed. It’s probably why we’ve 
had any success we’ve had is that 
we have really good point guards. 
... The point guards make it go.”

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

JACOB SHAMES
Daily Sports Editor

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Junior point guard Zavier Simpson had 14 points, seven assists and seven rebounds on Tuesday against Rutgers.

Despite familiarity of MSU, Boka 
found connection at Michigan

When Nick Boka jumped into 
a brawl against Michigan State 
in the Great Lakes Invitational, 
it wasn’t the first time that the 
senior bled for the Michigan 
hockey team.
From the time he could pick 
up a stick, Boka wanted to be 
a Wolverine. And both of his 
grandparents 
were 
fervent 
Michigan hockey fans. Many 
years back at a Michigan game, 
Boka was playing mini-sticks in 
the halls behind the bleachers at 
Yost Ice Arena.
As he lunged forward with 
his stick, Boka crashed into a 
picture frame on the wall and 
shattered his stick. But after a 
team employee picked glass out 
of his hair for the rest of the 
game, he left the arena that night 
not only happy but with a Red 
Berenson-signed stick to replace 
his old one.
“I don’t remember much of it 
but I still have that signed stick 
with me,” Boka said. “It’s pretty 
special.”
After four years on the blue 
line for the Wolverines, it’s 
hard to imagine him wearing 
anything 
other 
than a Michigan 
sweater. 
But 
when Boka first 
started 
getting 
recruited, 
he 
initially 
turned 
to the Spartans. 
Though 
Michigan 
was 
the defenseman’s 
preferred 
destination, 
he 
didn’t get an offer right away.
Boka’s former coach with 
the Detroit-based Honeybaked 
hockey program, Tom Anastos, 
was the Spartans’ head coach at 
the time, giving him the same 
chance to latch on to something 
comfortable that he would have 
had with the Wolverines. Though 
Michigan State went a middling 
30-34-11 in Anastos’ first two 
seasons at the helm, it was 

enough for Boka, who committed 
to play in East Lansing during his 
freshman year of high school.
“At the time, Tom was the 
coach at State when I was going 
through the recruiting process,” 
Boka said. “... It just felt like the 
right move at the right time.”
In 
time, 
however, 
Boka 
began to feel differently. While 
Michigan spent the better part 
of 
a 
quarter-
century skating 
its 
way 
to 
Frozen 
Fours, 
Michigan 
State 
only made the 
tournament once 
in the six years 
prior to Boka’s 
commitment. 
The 
Spartans 
had his old coach, 
old players he 
played against and even some of 
his old teammates, but the even 
more familiar allure of Michigan 
beckoned. Without even being 
committed for a full year, he 
decommitted.
Once Boka’s choice became 
public, 
Wolverines 
assistant 
coach Brian Wiseman knew that 
Boka wanted to be a Wolverine 
and brought him to Ann Arbor. 
When Boka saw Berenson, the 

coach remembered the signed 
stick that he gave Boka, and his 
conversation 
with 
Wiseman 
sealed the deal.
“I decommitted on my own 
because, as I said it never 
felt right,” Boka said. “On my 
recruiting visit, (Wiseman) knew 
I wanted to be a Wolverine and 
wanted to come here. Michigan 
was the first school I visited after 
I decommitted, and I committed 
right away.
“Luckily for me, Wiseman 
spoke to me at the right time. 
(Michigan State) never felt right 
to me, it never felt right in my 
heart. He said there’s always a 
spot for me at Michigan. So I’m 
pretty thankful for him and for 
the opportunity to play here. I 
couldn’t be happier with how it 
all turned out.”
Those former junior hockey 
teammates and familiar faces 
from East Lansing? They’re 
anything but that now. Boka 
himself admits that when the two 
in-state rivals meet on Friday in 
Ann Arbor and Saturday in the 
“Duel in the D”, there won’t be 
any love lost between the two 
rivals.
For familiarity’s sake, both he 
and Michigan wouldn’t have it 
any other way.

RIAN RATNAVALE
Daily Sports Writer

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Redshirt junior wing Charles Matthews scored 11 points in a 77-65 win on the road at Rutgers on Tuesday.

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Senior defenseman Nick Boka committed to MSU prior to coming to UM.

He said there’s 
always a spot 
for me at 
Michigan.

