4B — March 9, 2020
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Missed
opportunities
haunt
Wolverines
INDIANAPOLIS
—
Midway
through the fourth quarter Saturday,
as
Ohio
State
nursed
a
three-
point lead, junior forward Hailey
Brown found herself open with an
opportunity to tie the game.
The play felt like a rerun of the end
of Friday’s duel with Northwestern,
when Brown iced the win with a
3-pointer off the glass. Another shot
like that, and the Wolverines find
themselves in a tie game with all the
momentum.
It rimmed out.
Not to worry, though. After a quick
miss from the Buckeyes, freshman
guard Maddie Nolan found an open
look of her own. She had buried 3-of-
4 from deep against the Wildcats, so
this one felt like a certainty.
Nope. Another clank off the rim.
As
the
buzzer
sounded
on
Michigan’s 66-60 loss in the Big Ten
Tournament semifinals, there hung a
sense that the Wolverines could have
won. Just one night earlier, almost
everything fell in a perfect storm that
ended in the tournament’s biggest
upset. But Saturday, they just couldn’t
hit the open shots they needed to pull
off one more.
“(Friday) we made shots. We won
the game,” Michigan coach Kim
Barnes Arico said. “If it was that
easy — we didn’t make shots early
(Saturday), and I think when you
don’t make shots early, that messes
with your confidence a little bit.”
Beyond that pair of missed threes,
there were plenty of examples of
Michigan not capitalizing on its
opportunities. One could point to its
5-for-11 mark from the free throw
line, or players passing on open looks
because they’d lost the confidence to
shoot. Even sophomore guard Naz
Hillmon — the Wolverines’ most
reliable scorer, who finished with
22 points — missed on a few layups
where she’s usually automatic.
And while Michigan floundered,
Ohio State pounced on every mistake.
The Wolverines had just 12 turnovers
on the game, but the Buckeyes
took full advantage and grabbed 15
easy points off them. Even though
Michigan controlled the glass with
21 offensive boards, it could only
collect 16 second-chance points. Ohio
State had 11 on just eight offensive
rebounds. And when the Wolverines
missed shots, the Buckeyes ran in
transition and notched 17 fastbreak
points. Michigan had none.
“Whatever we did, they were able
to adjust to, whether that was defense
or offense,” senior guard Akienreh
Johnson said. “Their coach really
adjusted. And then attack defenders
that came off the bench, they attacked
them immediately.”
At
this
point
in
the
season,
everything — justifiably or not —
will be looked at through the lens of
March. Teams across the country will
have to answer to being “made for
March.” In this context, critics could
view the Wolverines’ struggles down
the stretch as evidence that they
aren’t built for postseason basketball.
In
fairness,
though,
Michigan
can hit those shots. It did in the
previous two rounds of the Big Ten
Tournament, and three close games
in three days can be exhausting.
But from here on out, it won’t
matter if the Wolverines can hit shots,
or if they could have won.
Because if they don’t win, their
season’s over.
INDIANAPOLIS
—
Michigan,
for the second year in a row, stared
down a chance to do something it had
never done. No team, in the history of
the program, has played in a Big Ten
Tournament title game. For a program
steeped in mediocrity, Saturday was
an opportunity for the Wolverines to
put their name down in history.
They gave it their best shot, but it hit
the rim and bounced out.
Michigan (21-11 overall, 10-8 Big
Ten) couldn’t buy a bucket, bowing out
of the tournament in the semifinals for
the second straight year, losing, 66-60,
to Ohio State (21-11, 11-7).
Michigan’s offense played directly
into its identity: shoot, rebound, shoot
again. It was an offense reminiscent
of the beginning of the season,
when junior forward Hailey Brown
sometimes struggled, her confidence
gone, and when freshman guard
Maddie Nolan barely played.
Teams then didn’t respect the
Wolverines’ outside threat and packed
the paint. The Buckeyes did exactly
that in the teams’ first matchup in
January. Saturday, Ohio State did
the same. Brown and Nolan, riding
hot hands coming into the game,
found themselves with plenty of
opportunities to score.
But their shots hit the rim — once,
twice — and bounced out. Over and
over and over again.
“I had the confidence to keep on
shooting,” Brown said. “My teammates
were putting me in good positions and
drawing up plays to get those shots. …
All my shots felt really good, they all
felt on frame, I thought they were all
going in.”
Brown ended the day 3-for-11 from
beyond the arc.
Michigan’s offense was on life
support, dragged along by sophomore
forward Naz Hillmon — the rebound
part of the shoot, rebound, shoot
again. She finished with 10 offensive
rebounds and 16 total, leading to her 22
points on the day. Even the unanimous
all-Big Ten player, though, watched
her shots bounce out, shooting 47.6
percent compared to her season
average 57.2.
“(The double team is) definitely
difficult, just because any two-on-one,
that’s tough to deal with,” Hillmon
said. “But in the past couple of games,
especially in the end of the regular
Big Ten season, we faced that and we
really tried to work on that.”
Those
adjustments
required
teammates to make shots, shots that
didn’t bounce out.
But, like the beginning of the Big
Ten season, Michigan’s defense kept
it in it. Ohio State shot equally poorly
through the first quarter and the
Wolverines settled in for a physical
matchup of who could rebound better.
A matchup they can beat almost every
team at. Then Buckeyes’ guard Janai
Crooms entered the game.
“They are balanced and they have
seven players that are pretty much
averaging the same, between 14 and
10 points,” Michigan coach Kim
Barnes Arico said. “And I thought that
was really the difference when they
brought in Crooms in the first half. I
thought she did a great job for them.”
Two hours later, Michigan players
were talking about her shiftiness
in the locker room. She sparked a
nine-point run and the Wolverines
couldn’t conjure an answer of their
own; Brown’s shots kept rimming out,
Dilk’s drives were walled off, Hillmon
suffered through double teams.
Late in the third quarter, the
Wolverines finally found their mojo:
Five quick points followed by a couple
3-pointers drew them even with 7:18
left in the game. The shots were falling,
the bench was feeling it, momentum
was theirs.
Then Ohio State called a timeout.
Afterwards, Hillmon watched her
shot travel across the rim and into the
hands of Dorka Juhasz.
Time and time again during the
fourth quarter, Hillmon shook her
head, lips drawn into a frown after
another layup attempt bounced twice
off the rim and into the waiting arms
of a Buckeye.
Ohio State, meanwhile, regained its
composure. It made plays, it hit free
throws — nothing but net.
The game was over. History would
have to wait.
BRENDAN ROOSE
Daily Sports Writer
KENT SCHWARTZ
Daily Sports Writer
I thought that
was really the
difference
when they
brought in
Crooms.
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Sophomore forward Naz Hillmon finished Saturday’s game with 22 points, but it wasn’t enough as Michigan lost 66-60 to Ohio State.
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Junior forward Hailey Brown missed a 3-pointer to tie the game late in the fourth quarter of Michigan’s 66-60 loss to Ohio State.
Lack of
secondary
scoring
plagues ‘M’
INDIANAPOLIS — Hailey Brown
walked off the court three minutes
into the second quarter, her head hung
low, and slammed a towel down on
the scorer’s table. The junior forward
turned the ball over twice in the last
minute and missed her first four shots
of the game.
Brown’s
frustration
was
a
microcosm of a larger issue that held
the Michigan women’s basketball
team back in its 66-60 loss to Ohio
State on Saturday night. Throughout
the game, the Wolverines secondary
scorers
struggled
to
create
any
offense.
“They were definitely disruptive,”
Brown said. “They clogged the paint a
lot so it was hard to get some looks at
the rim.”
When Michigan lost to the Buckeyes
on Jan. 9, sophomore forward Naz
Hillmon was the only consistent
source of scoring, finishing with 24
points. Senior forward Kayla Robbins
complemented Hillmon early on, but
foul trouble forced her to sit the final
seven minutes of the first half and she
couldn’t get back into a rhythm upon
her return.
In the second half of that game,
with
nobody
providing
offense
outside of Hillmon, Ohio State was to
stage a fourth-quarter comeback and
win a game Michigan controlled for
its majority.
Which takes us to Saturday.
Once again, Hillmon got going early,
scoring six first-quarter points, while
four other players added a basket
each, and the Wolverines took a two-
point lead into the second quarter.
But in the second, nobody could
create besides her as she scored seven
of Michigan’s 10 points in the quarter.
Driving lanes were closed for
sophomore guard Amy Dilk and senior
guard Akienreh Johnson, forcing
them to try to generate offense from
the perimeter. The open 3-point shots
that Brown had made a living on in
the past two games disappeared —
she only attempted one in the second
quarter.
“They always wanted to stop our
dribble penetration and kind of clog
the paint so we couldn’t get anything
in to Naz or Hailey or (freshman
center Izabel Varejão), so that was
pretty
tough,”
sophomore
guard
Danielle Rauch said. “(They) clogged
the paint, and then some of our shots
weren’t falling on the outside so it got
tough.”
By halftime, no Michigan player
besides Hillmon had made more than
one field goal and the Wolverines
trailed by six. Ohio State had all the
incentive it needed to focus solely on
her and force other players to beat it.
“They’re so long and athletic, it was
kind of hard to get the skip passes
and the extra passes like we did the
first time,” Johnson said. “Our ball
movement was very stagnant.”
Hillmon struggled in the third
quarter while drawing even more
attention, scoring just four points
at a 40 percent clip. Michigan’s
offense looked lost early on — they
committed turnovers on their first
three possessions of the half — before
Brown and Johnson got going.
Johnson was finally able to find
space in the paint and knocked down
open jumpers. Brown got to the line
twice and connected on a 3-pointer
late in the quarter. Both scored six
points in the third quarter as the
Wolverines cut a 12-point Buckeye
lead to just four entering the fourth.
“We just knew that they were
double-teaming Naz so we had to
make ourselves available,” Johnson
said. “We started cutting and moving
without the ball. And then we started
setting more screens, actually running
plays, getting people open shots.”
Brown hit an early triple in the
fourth quarter and Rauch made a pull-
up jumper two possessions later to tie
it, but after that the secondary scoring
once again dried up. Ohio State
focused more on the perimeter and
the open shots that Michigan did get
didn’t fall. By the time a player besides
Hillmon scored again, the Buckeyes
led by eight with two minutes left in
the game.
And when Johnson finally got
an open 3-pointer to fall with two
seconds left — her first basket of the
fourth quarter — it didn’t matter.
There were no smiles.
Only frustration they couldn’t get
those shots earlier.
JACK KINGSLEY
Daily Sports Writer
bounced out
Michigan loses shot at first ever Big Ten title
Michigan’s Big Ten
Tournament run
81-75
The Wolverines beat Nebraska on Thursday
behind a resurgent Naz Hillmon.
67-59
Michigan pulled off an upset over second-
seeded Northwestern thanks to a 3-point
barrage.
66-60
Ohio State ended Michigan’s run after
fourth-quarter comeback falls short.