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