14 — Wednesday, February 17, 2021 Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Michigan bests Nebraska in first meet after pause Livers at forefront of Michigan’s success The instant that junior Natalie Wojcik powerfully stuck the landing of her dismount from the balance beam, Michigan gymnastics coach Bev Plocki’s arms both shot like rockets into the air with palms open and fingers spread. A perfect 10, she visually proclaimed for all to see. “She is so beautiful in that event, and we have judged her at a 10 so many times in practice,” Plocki said. “And it’s so amazing to see her put together that routine. When she stuck the dismount, she didn’t give the judges any opportunity to take anything. So I knew that it had to be a 10.” The judges table did not disappoint and awarded Wojcik with a full 10 points, adding the exclamation point to a dominant win for the No. 8 Wolverines over Nebraska on Monday afternoon. Michigan’s 197.650 to 195.300 win was expected, but it also answered a lot of open questions regarding the Wolverines’ form following the University’s 14-day practice pause and the team’s 24-day break from competition. Michigan impressed many with a win over then-No. 4 Minnesota on Jan. 22, but a multi- week stoppage posed to halt its momentum. The Wolverines made sure they picked up where they left off. “I give a lot of credit to our captains and the athletes, they’re very motivated,” Plocki said. “We have tried very hard to focus on the things that we’re grateful for. And we’re grateful for the opportunity to have the support resources that we did to help us and guide us with some of our conditioning and our to help our bodies (while we couldn’t be together). And when we came back, we were able to put together a practice plan to ease them back into normal routines and just tried to build a lot of confidence and remind them how good they are and what they’re capable of doing.” Michigan came out strong and never looked back, winning each round, convincingly. *** The meet began with Michigan on vault and Nebraska on bars. Every Wolverine who vaulted earned a score of at least 9.800, with Wojcik and junior Abby Brenner earning high scores of 9.875 and 9.900, respectively. Meanwhile, the Cornhuskers struggled on the bars with only junior Kynsee Roby earning above a 9.775. Michigan ended the first round with a lead of 49.375 to 48.900, and the margin only grew from there. Nebraska’s scores improved on the vault as the teams swapped events in round two with freshman Danielle Press earning a noteworthy 9.875, but twin 9.900’s from Brenner and Wojcik on the bars served to quell any thoughts of a comeback. This trend continued in the third round, when Wojcik earned her 10.000 on the beam, effectively ending the match before the final round even began. “I have been working to earn the perfect 10 for such a long time now, and I’m so happy to have made that happen,” Wojcik said. “The best part of it, by far, was seeing my teammates jumping up and down after I finished my routine and getting to celebrate it with them.” Wojcik’s words are very fitting in a match that was a celebration of team unity. Monday was the Wolverines’ annual “Flip for Chip” meet, which sees the team honor the late father of former Michigan gymnast Cailee Hills. “Chip Hills really is the root of our positive mindsets, our resilience and confidence,” sophomore Gabby Wilson said. “And so really being able to channel his energy, even though he isn’t with us, just being able to carry that and continue that for generations at Michigan is super important and was continued tonight.” There is perhaps no meet where the attitude the Wolverines take from Hills’s legacy could be more appropriate. Coming off less-than-ideal circumstances in which some worried about rust, Michigan responded with a perfect 10.000 and an event sweep — a textbook display of resilience. Isaiah Livers knew it would happen. The Michigan men’s basketball team had gone 23 days between games and two weeks without so much as touching a basketball. Inevitably, when the Wolverines returned, the discourse would revolve around any alleged rust. So, Livers took the initiative to try to avoid any side effects of the prolonged break. “That’s why I was outside, doing jump ropes, doing everything necessary to stay in shape,” the senior forward said. “A lot of other guys were too. We had a program, we all stayed true to it. … We didn’t want to have any built-in excuses.” In Sunday’s emphatic 67-59 comeback victory against Wisconsin, those efforts paid dividends with Livers setting the tone. Through the first 20 minutes, the team’s rust was evident. Michigan looked the part of a team that last played on Jan. 22, its first half performance littered with mental errors, poor shot selection and jellied legs. Livers, though, did what he could to help keep the Wolverines afloat, scoring 13 of Michigan’s 27 first half points. “I knew I was gonna come out and be aggressive cause I wanted to keep in that rhythm,” Livers said. “But other than that, I just wanted to lead my team.” He did exactly that. By the time the final buzzer blared, Livers had contributed a game-high 20 points on 8-of-16 from the field and 4-of-7 from beyond the arc. He added seven rebounds and finished as a plus-11, the second-highest mark on the team. At this point, 111 games and 91 wins into what is fast becoming an illustrious collegiate career, this level of play has become routine for Livers. He has notched 20 points in three consecutive games and scored double-figures in seven straight. Ho-hum. “We keep it simple,” Wolverines’ coach Juwan Howard said of his team’s offensive strategy against the Badgers. “We kept it simple. Simple plays.” No one embodies that philosophy more so than Livers. Livers’s points come within the flow of the game. Rarely does he force up an ill-advised shot or hoard the ball on an isolation. On a Michigan offense overflowing with talent, Livers has found the perfect balance. “I took advantage of that tonight,” Livers said. “I was just doing with what the system tells me to do. Coach Howard puts me in a spot to score, I go score the ball. If not, then I try to create for someone else, create so they can get a shot, get a drive.” Livers has made drastic strides to his offensive game since the COVID-19 pandemic cut his junior campaign short. He has increased his production while also sharpening his efficiency. Last year, Livers averaged 12.9 points per game on 9.9 shot attempts. This year, he’s scoring 15.1 points per game on 10.5 attempts. He is shooting 49% from the field and a lethal 46% from deep, compared to 45% and 40% last season. Livers’s refined repertoire also features a blend of jump shots and points in the paint. When the Wolverines stared down a 12-point halftime deficit on Sunday, Livers recognized that he needed to emphasize the latter. “They were the most aggressive team in the first half,” Livers said. “We had to come back out in the second half, we had to drive them. I thought we settled for a lot of shots. We got to the basket more in the second half and that kind of changed momentum.” It’s no coincidence, then, that Livers notched the first basket of the second half on an off-ball cut, slicing down the lane and receiving a pass in stride for an easy lay-in. Livers treated the layoff as a quasi-All Star Break, using the time to look in the mirror. He poured over reams of film, re-evaluating his performance and searching for ways to improve alongside assistant coach Saddi Washington. “Just kind of tips and advice, opinions so when I get back, I can just add it to my game,” Livers said on Friday. “I want to help my team as best as possible, especially in the future.” One area for potential improvement that Livers and Washington found was on the glass. Though Livers is averaging a career-high 6.1 rebounds per game — up from 4.0 last year — he aspired for more. Against Wisconsin, the 6-foot- 7 Livers grabbed seven rebounds, besting a stout Badgers frontcourt of 6-foot-11 Nate Reuvers and 6-foot-10 Micah Potter. The duo combine for nearly 10 rebounds a game, yet neither managed to grab a rebound on Sunday. After the game, much was made in the press conference about the team’s turnaround and freshman center Hunter Dickinson’s latest 15-rebound, five-block spectacle. There was little mention of Livers. But perhaps that’s the point. For Livers, at this stage in his career, this is just another day at the office. And as the Wolverines continue to assert themselves as bona fide championship contenders, they can rely on Livers to lead the way. JACOB COHEN Daily Sports Writer JARED GREENSPAN Daily Sports Writer BECCA MAHON/Daily Natalie Wojcik’s perfect 10 was the highlight of the Wolverines dominant win over the Cornhuskers. ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily Isaiah Livers’s consistency has played a pivotal role in Michigan’s success this season. In comeback win, Michigan shows its championship mettle MADISON — Shutdowns in college bas- ketball may be a temporary phenomenon, but enough of them have happened by now for an expectation to form. Teams come out lacking offensive sharpness. Their shooting touch is gone. Defensively, they miss assignments. After all, no one has ever pre- scribed sitting locked in an apartment for 14 days as an effective midsea- son practice strategy. And for the open- ing 20 minutes Sunday afternoon at the Kohl Center, Michigan was no exception. In the first half, the Wolverines shot an anemic 34.4% from the field. Their offensive strategy seemed to consist of passing the ball around for 20 seconds and then letting someone play hero ball. Only senior forward Isaiah Livers was remotely effective in the role. On defense, they made Wisconsin look like the antithesis of the team that lost, 77-54, in Ann Arbor a month ago. To put it simply, Michigan looked pret- ty normal. Losing on the road to a top-25 team after not playing a game in 23 days isn’t a crime. Clemson — an excellent, 13-5 team — lost its first three games after its COVID-19 outbreak by an average of 24 points. 12-4 Oregon lost its first two games back to a pair of teams that rank outside of the top 100 in KenPom’s adjusted efficien- cy metric. But this Michigan team isn’t normal. It’s a national championship contender. Anything less than a Final Four appearance would be a disappointment. That’s the statement the Wolverines made Sunday afternoon. “I’m grateful, I’m blessed to be on a team like this,” Livers said. “Coach (Juwan) How- ard kinda touched on it, he talked about how it’s just special to have guys who go on a pause and then come back, go on the road to Wis- consin, who’s playing great right now, and just be locked in and be together. I think we’re the most connected team.” A month ago, it was Livers who called this iteration of Michigan his “favorite” that he’s been a part of. Livers, if you’ve lost track, was on the team that finished as national runner-up in 2018. A year later, he and the Wolverines started 17-0 — the best mark in program history. So when Livers, of all people, says this team is special, you listen. You listen and then you watch. You watch them outscore Wisconsin by 20 in the second half. You watch them identi- fy their issues in the space of a 15-minute halftime break and come out an entirely different team. You watch them in a situ- ation they’ve seldom been in — tied with five minutes to go — and handle it like it’s a weekly occurrence. Through it all, you realize you’re watching a team answer the one question it hadn’t been asked: How well does it handle adversity? “Winning a game like this on the road does a lot,” Howard said. “It says a lot about the character of this group.” More importantly, it says a lot about its March credentials. From here on out, adver- sity is inescapable. On the schedule in the last five games of the season are No. 4 Ohio State and No. 15 Iowa. Last week’s cancellation against No. 6 Illinois will likely be resched- uled, too. All three are in the KenPom top 10. After that comes the small matter of the NCAA Tournament. Only one team in the past decade has won a national championship without a single-digit scare in the dance. On Sunday, Michigan proved that such nerve-wracking games won’t phase it. “I think this was a great experience for us,” freshman center Hunter Dickinson said. “We haven’t had too many close games, usually they’re 10 points or more. I think this will be really beneficial to us at the postseason when the games are not as separated in points.” So no, Michigan still hasn’t played a top-10 adjusted efficiency team. And yes, its three biggest challenges of the regular season may lie ahead. But what it has done is overcome a situation it hadn’t faced all season. And that’s enough to call these Wolverines national championship contenders. Mackie can be reached at tmackie@umich. edu or on Twitter @theo_mackie. THEO MACKIE LUKE HALE/Daily By defeating Wisconsin on the road after a 23-day break, Michigan solidified itself as a championship contender.