6A — Thursday, January 30, 2020
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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SUBMIT A 
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By Dan Margolis
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/30/20

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

01/30/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Thursday, January 30, 2020

ACROSS
1 Healthful berry
5 Sommelier’s 
concern
9 San Antonio 
cagers
14 Bananas
15 “... the __ 
blackness of the 
floors”: Poe
16 “The Fox and 
the Grapes” 
storyteller
17 Dutch cheese
18 Way to go
19 Queen’s milieu
20 “That’s fine”
23 Get going
25 “Knives Out” 
Golden Globe 
nominee de 
Armas
26 Lansing-to-Flint 
dir.
27 “That’s all folks”
32 1960s chess 
champ Mikhail
33 Mustard family 
member
34 They’re tapped
37 Bundle
39 On the money
42 Kentucky coach 
with 876 victories
44 Foolhardy
46 __ avis
48 Mex. title
49 “That’s not the 
point”
53 Withdrawal site
56 Carnival city
57 Words before 
“so sue me”
58 “That’s rich”
63 Polynesian 
language
64 Sitar music
65 Yemen’s Gulf 
of __
68 Conclude with
69 Indicator
70 Feet-first race
71 Video chat 
choice
72 “What __ is 
new?”
73 MP3 player

DOWN
1 Cream __
2 Fish that’s salted 
and dried to 
make bacalao
3 Like Pentatonix 
numbers

4 Flying insect 
with prominent 
eyespots
5 Bookish type
6 Wind up on 
stage?
7 Fly like an eagle
8 Win over
9 Hapless sort
10 Ucayali River 
country
11 Grammarian’s 
concern
12 Type type
13 Just-in-case item
21 “The Caine 
Mutiny” novelist
22 Paternity 
identifier
23 Web address 
letters
24 Atheist activist 
Madalyn
28 Deface
29 “When We Were 
Kings” boxer
30 Pola of the 
silents
31 Poetic 
contraction
35 Dressed to the 
nines
36 Wild period
38 Uncommon 
sense

40 Actor Holbrook
41 Amount past 
due?
43 Ranch bud
45 Wonder Woman, 
for one
47 Plot-driving song, 
perhaps
50 Zilch
51 Rough around 
the edges
52 High-pH 
compound
53 Summits

54 “__ goodness”
55 Temperamental
59 Edit for size, as a 
photo
60 Follow
61 Confident 
juggler’s props
62 Candy __
66 It may need a 
boost
67 Flanders who 
inspired the 
band Okilly 
Dokilly

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HELP WANTED

What we did and didn’t learn in Nebraska win
T

wo months ago, when 
the Michigan men’s bas-
ketball team looked at 
its upcoming Big Ten schedule, a 
midweek trip to Lincoln probably 
didn’t ring any alarm bells.
The Wolverines had just beaten 
now-No. 2 Gonzaga in the Battle 4 
Atlantis championship game and 
jumped out to a 7-0 record to start 
the season.
That was 
then — and 
it feels like a 
lifetime ago.
Whatever 
Michigan may 
have thought 
at that point 
has been 
turned on its 
head. It lost 
junior forward 
Isaiah Livers to a groin injury 
and then a subsequent hip injury. 
It dropped five of six conference 
games in January. And to make 
matters worse, its senior point 
guard and unquestioned leader 
Zavier Simpson was suspended 
Monday for violating team policy. 
All that is to say, entering Tues-
day’s contest, what had previously 
appeared like a mundane road 
game was anything but. Without a 
true road win to date, the Wolver-
ines’ backs were against the wall 
and they needed to take a step 
forward. 
“Every team goes through 
adversity,” Michigan coach Juwan 
Howard said on Monday after-
noon. “Through a process like 
this, it defines character, and it 
builds character.”
In short, Michigan did take a 
step forward last night, albeit a 
small one. Collectively, the team 
filled the voids left by Livers and 
Simpson en route to a 79-68 vic-
tory over the Big Ten’s bottom-
dwellers — and looked good doing 
it. 
Junior guard Eli Brooks 
showed once again that he can be 
depended on both offensively and 
defensively, registering a stat line 
of 20 points, nine rebounds, four 
assists, a block and two steals. 

Freshman wing Franz Wagner’s 
18-point performance highlighted 
his potential, while sophomore 
forward Brandon Johns Jr. — typ-
ically the Wolverines’ spark-plug 
on the boards — had an impres-
sively efficient and career-high 
16 points. Others contributed 
too; sophomore guard David 
DeJulius took the reins at point 
and his classmate, Adrien Nunez, 
played 17 minutes despite recent 
struggles. 
And so, Michigan returns to 
Ann Arbor a bit more comfort-
able than when it departed. The 
Wolverines avoided disaster, and 
now at least have an opportunity 
to get back into good standing in 
the Big Ten. 
“It was a huge win for us,” 
Howard said after the victory. “To 
be able to get a road win, seeing 
the guys stepping up and giving 
us some minutes — Adrien Nunez, 
who hadn’t played in a while, but 
being able to give us a spark. It 
was a total team effort. Proud of 
all of our guys.”
And yet, given that everything 
looked so new and different, I feel 
obliged to ask: Did we learn any-
thing from last night’s win?
Anything? Yes, as onlookers, 
we learned something about this 
Michigan roster under How-
ard. The Wolverines responded, 
away from home, to a cascade of 
setbacks from the previous two 
weeks — showing mental forti-
tude and their acceptance of the 
“next man up” mentality. 
“I just liked how everybody 
stayed aggressive and was con-
fident out there,” Wagner said. 
“Obviously stuff went wrong, but 
I liked how we stayed the course. 
People stepped up and stayed 
ready.”
It’s also fair to say, in Brooks’ 
10th double figure game of the 
season, the junior is a key cog in 
Michigan’s machine. The Wol-
verines are 7-3 when he scores 
more than 10 points, and with Liv-
ers sidelined for the foreseeable 
future, Brooks’ ability to space the 
floor and knock down shots from 
the perimeter gives Michigan a 

much-needed dimension. 
Additionally, speaking to the 
team’s depth, we learned that 
the Wolverines can win without 
a dominant display from senior 
center Jon Teske. Despite holding 
a pronounced height advantage 
over the Cornhuskers’ 6-foot-9 
starting ‘5’ Yvan Ouedraogo, 
Teske only managed nine points 
on 4-of-7 shooting. Neverthe-
less, for the first time this season, 
Michigan won a game in which 
Teske didn’t reach double digits 
offensively. 
We learned all these things 
about the Wolverines — they can 
be perseverant and tough, Eli 
Brooks is a reliable outlet for them 
going forward and they’re deeper 
than we may have thought, win-
ning a game without Livers, Simp-
son and a stellar game from Teske. 
What we didn’t learn though, 
is whether Michigan will turn 
this taste of momentum into 

something more. Record wise, 
Nebraska is the second-worst 
team in the Big Ten at 2-8 and 
7-14 overall. In his first year in 
Lincoln, coach Fred Hoiberg has 
tried to implement the up-tempo 
offensive philosophy that was so 
successful during his stint at Iowa 
State, but doesn’t have the neces-
sary personnel yet. And so, while 
any win on the road in the Big Ten 
is a “good win,” they sure as hell 
aren’t all made equal. 
Michigan travels to Madison 
Square Garden at the end of the 
week to take on a resurgent No. 25 
Rutgers, ranked for the first time 
since 1979. A win in that game 
would register much higher on 
the Richter scale than yesterday’s. 
There is still a tremendous 
amount of uncertainty swirling 
around the Wolverines. According 
to Howard, Simpson’s one-game 
suspension was going to be “re-
evaluated” after the Nebraska 

game. With no official word yet on 
his status going forward, it may be 
a bit naïve to think Simpson will 
definitely be back by Saturday. 
Sure, DeJulius and Brooks played 
well in his stead, but to reiterate, 
that was against the Cornhuskers 
— the Scarlet Knights are a differ-
ent beast. 
“It was very important to see 
how much (Zavier) gives us every 
single day,” Wagner said after 
Tuesday’s game. “I can see now 
how much he does except just 
initiating the offense. There’s a 
lot more to (Zavier) than just X’s 
and O’s — to be able to talk, to get 
everybody involved and every-
body ready.”
Similarly, after suffering a 
hip injury in his first game back 
against Illinois, Livers’ situation is 
also up in the air. As documented, 
his absence extends well beyond 
his 13.6 points per game. His ath-
leticism and ability to space the 

floor opens up Michigan’s offense 
and allows Simpson — when he 
plays — Brooks, DeJulius and even 
Wagner to penetrate the opposing 
defense. 
Missing that veteran duo may 
have galvanized the Wolverines 
on Tuesday, but it seems foolish 
to believe they can adequately fill 
in for both Simpson and Livers 
against better opponents over the 
next few weeks. 
So yes, with the pressure on, 
Michigan bounced back in a big 
way against Nebraska. But at the 
same time, you’re quite the ideal-
ist if you believe the team is auto-
matically back on track after one 
road win. 
Then again, given the circum-
stances, maybe the Wolverines 
need to be optimists. 

Brennan can be reached at 

conbrenn@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @ConnrBrennan.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Michigan coach Juwan Howard was able to overcome the absences of Zavier Simpson and Isaiah Livers on Tuesday, but the win came against 7-14 Nebraska.

CONNOR 
BRENNAN

