The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 — 11 

Michigan fends off second-half 
surge, defeats Nebraska 80-75

JACK CONLIN
Daily Sports Writer

As the final buzzer sounded at 
Crisler Center on Sunday, the No. 12 
Michigan women’s basketball team 
appeared to let out a collective sigh 
of relief.
After fending off a second-
half surge from the Cornhuskers, 
Michigan (20-5 overall, 10-4 Big 
Ten) defeated Nebraska (14-11, 6-8), 
80-75, to earn its fourth-straight 
win. Strong showings from a cast 
of Wolverines allowed them to eke 
out a close victory despite a valiant 
comeback effort from the Huskers. 
“Nebraska is a really good team,” 
Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico 
said postgame. “We knew they were 
going to be a challenge … but I was 
really proud of the way we got down 
and battled back.” 
The Wolverines looked up to that 
challenge from the onset. 
After trading blows in the first 
quarter, Nebraska drew a charge 
call that fifth-year wing Leigha 
Brown clearly disagreed with. On 
the subsequent defensive posses-
sion, Brown stripped the ball from 
Huskers guard Maddie Krull, then 
found sophomore guard Jordan 
Hobbs with a no-look pass in tran-
sition. 
Hobbs made her shot and was 
fouled, leading to an and-1 opportu-

nity that gave the Wolverines an 8-5 
lead and ignited the home crowd. 
The basket sparked another pro-
ductive showing from Hobbs, who 
finished with 10 points and five 
rebounds. Her finish on the pass 
from Brown was one of many early 
highlights that gave Michigan the 
breathing room it needed to survive 
Nebraska’s third-quarter rally. 
In a departure from recent out-
ings, Michigan appeared deter-
mined to play offense through their 
post players early on, looking past 
Brown to the paint on numerous 
possessions at the front end. Gradu-
ate forward Emily Kiser and junior 
forward Cameron Williams each 
received a majority of early offen-
sive touches, and freshman forward 
Chyra Evans had another strong 
showing off the bench. 
Evans, in particular, proved to be 
an important piece overall. Late in 
the third quarter, with the Wolver-
ines down 48-46, she made a layup 
in the paint to tie the game up. On 
the ensuing Nebraska possession, 
she stole an errant pass and assisted 
on a 3-pointer by freshman forward 
Alyssa Crockett to force a Huskers 
timeout.
While Michigan’s game plan 
clearly focused on interior scoring, 
though, Nebraska’s was the opposite 
— attack from deep. Much of that 
success came in the second quarter. 
During that stretch, the Huskers 
knocked 
down 
four 3-pointers 
that 
drowned 
out any of the 
Wolverines’ 
own 
offensive 
success, leaving 
Nebraska down 
just 36-31 at the 
half.
In a duel of 
two 
top-three 
defensive units 
in the Big Ten, 
the 
pressure 

on both sides took center-stage 
throughout 
the 
second 
half. 
Michigan challenged Nebraska 
on the back end in the first half, 
forcing 11 turnovers and holding 
the Huskers to just 31 points. 
But the Wolverines’ strong 
pressure, particularly on the 
interior, faded in the third quar-
ter. Michigan let up a series of 
easy baskets inside to start the 
period, struggling to account for 
the Huskers’ off-ball movement. 
Meanwhile, Nebraska found a 
groove on defense, forcing a num-
ber of Michigan turnovers to put 
itself right back in contention. 
“I think it’s just our ability to 
lock in for, you know, five min-
utes here and five minutes there,” 
Evans said. “Instead of one (or) 
two minutes … I feel like that’s 
where we allowed them to get the 
most runs, when we weren’t really 
locked in.” 
Late in the third quarter, with 
the game up for grabs, a series of 
high-energy sequences turned 
the tide for the Wolverines. After 
the quarter’s media timeout, 
Brown, Evans and Kiser exhibited 
strong individual efforts to quash 
the Nebraska comeback effort 
— notching steals, rebounds and 
tough scoring finishes to prevent 
the upset.
“I 
think 
it’s 
experience,” 
Barnes Arico said. “Leigha Brown 
and Emily Kiser really. They never 
seem to get frazzled or riled up. I 
think one is experience and two is 
the schedule that we’ve played. I 
think that’s prepared us for these 
moments because we’ve been in 
so many of these situations during 
the course of the season.” 
That late effort proved to be the 
difference for Michigan. When 
the dust settled, the Wolver-
ines’ composure overshadowed 
the Huskers’ second-half surge, 
powering Michigan to its fourth-
straight win.

Sports

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

SportsMonday: Indiana shows Michigan what it could have been

JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Writer

The night began with a deafen-
ing crowd whipping Crisler Cen-
ter into a frenzy. It ended with a 
rising “Let’s Go Hoosiers” chant 
filling an empty stadium while 
despondent Michigan fans made 
their way for the exits. 
Another big game, another 
missed opportunity. This one 
will sting, even worse than oth-
ers: The Wolverines coughed up 
an 11-point lead and were held 
scoreless across the game’s final 
five minutes. They had a prime 
opportunity to secure a mar-
quee victory that would bolster 
their meager NCAA Tournament 
resume. Instead, as junior center 
Hunter Dickinson said following 
the game, the team’s momentum 
“evaporated.” 
It stings even more consider-
ing the opponent. That’s because 
Indiana posed as a living, breath-
ing blueprint for how Michigan 
could have revived its season. 
On Jan. 11, the struggling Hoo-
siers sunk to their nadir in Happy 
Valley, suffering an 85-66 loss 
against Penn State. Indiana — 

pegged as favorites to win the Big 
Ten in the preseason media poll — 
was suddenly nosediving toward 
the bottom, just a half game up on 
last-place Minnesota. The Hoo-
siers teetered at 10-6 overall and 
1-4 in league play. 
Things in Bloomington were, 
to put it mildly, unraveling. 
“Our guys are a little down 
right now, and they should be,” 
Indiana coach Mike Woodson 
told reporters after the loss. 
“They got smacked in the face 
tonight.” 
But something inspiring hap-
pened: After getting smacked, 
Indiana peeled itself off the mat 
and fought back. 
Since that harrowing moment, 
the Hoosiers are 8-1. They have 
surged to sole possession of sec-
ond place in the Big Ten and have 
beaten three other top teams in 
the conference: Purdue, Illinois 
and Rutgers. Led by forward 
Trayce Jackson-Davis and guard 
Jalen Hood-Schifino, Indiana is 
the team that everyone expected 
it to be. Sometimes, it just takes 
time. 
That’s the refrain that Michi-
gan coach Juwan Howard has 
stressed over the last two months, 

as the Wolverines have struggled 
to find their own footing. In that 
same 
preseason 
poll, 
Michi-
gan came in at third. Things, of 
course, haven’t played out that 
way. 
Michigan’s nadir is eerily simi-

lar to Indiana’s. On Jan. 29, the 
Wolverines took the floor inside 
the Bryce Jordan Center and 
couldn’t stop a nosebleed. Penn 
State waltzed to an 89-69 romp. 
By that point, Michigan had tee-
tered for weeks; by the end of the 

game, it looked as if the Wolver-
ines were about to fall completely 
off the cliff. 
And yet, just like Indiana did, 
Michigan punched back — for a 
moment.
In the ensuing game, the Wol-
verines notched their best win 
of the year, winning in Evanston 
against a Northwestern team 
that is destined for the NCAA 
Tournament. Then, they took 
care of business at home against 
Ohio State and Nebraska, compil-
ing their first three-game win-
ning streak since the season’s 
inception. 
But against Indiana — after 35 
minutes of inspired basketball 
— Michigan reverted to its old 
ways. 
“This team has definitely got-
ten better,” Howard insisted. “… 
At the end of the day, I trust we’ll 
continue to stay tight as a group 
and still have the trust. We have 
six (conference) losses, eight 
(conference) wins and we’ll keep 
plugging away because there’s a 
lot of season left.” 
Indiana managed to get back 
on track earlier in the season 
than Michigan, mounting a turn 
around in January. The Wolver-
GRACE BEAL/Daily

ines didn’t have the same fate. 
Still, it wasn’t impossible. 
Saturday, the sold-out crowd 
jammed inside Crisler Center 
latched onto the fever, roaring 
along as Michigan stormed out to 
a double-digit first-half lead. The 
players and coaches certainly 
believed, speaking ad nauseam 
about the heightened sense of 
urgency. 
The path back toward conten-
tion had materialized. Hold onto 
the lead against the Hoosiers 
and Michigan heads to Madison 
on Tuesday riding a four-game 
winning streak to face a strug-
gling Badgers team. Then the 
Wolverines come back home for 
another rivalry clash with Michi-
gan State, a series that the two 
teams have split of late — with 
the advantage going to the home 
team. 
Suddenly, you have a win 
streak — and a turnaround — that 
looks a lot like Indiana’s. If Mich-
igan needed a blueprint, all it had 
to do was look across the way 
towards the Hoosiers’ bench. 
But now? 
Dickinson said it best: 
“We’re kind of back to the 
drawing board.”

Michigan’s offense makes early 
exit in loss to Indiana

PAUL NASR
Managing Sports Editor

With the game on the line in the 
Michigan men’s basketball team’s 
62-61 loss to No. 18 Indiana, the 
Wolverines’ offense disappeared, 
not scoring in the final 5:12 min-
utes of play and missing its last 
seven shots. 
And after the game, junior cen-
ter Hunter Dickinson still didn’t 
know where it went. 
“I don’t know man, I really 
don’t know, I don’t know,” Hunter 
dejectedly repeated when asked 
to explain the offensive struggles 
down the stretch. “That last five 
minutes was kind of a blur, I don’t 
really know what happened.” 
No matter how blurry things 
looked to Dickinson, Michigan’s 
offense clearly wasn’t the same as 
the game entered its critical final 
stretch. The tempo, the aggression, 
the efficiency it displayed through-
out most of the game — all of it 
vaporized. The Wolverines’ scor-
ing was last seen in a Dickinson 
hook shot using his non-dominant 
right hand with just over five min-
utes left. 
Running down the court, Dick-
inson stared at his right hand in 
celebration. But that hand, and 
all of Michigan’s, became bone-
chillingly cold. So cold that Dick-
inson was left repeating himself in 
despair, over and over again after-
ward. 
“That was hard, that was hard to 
play through, that was hard to play 
through,” Dickinson said of the 
final five minutes. 
The Wolverines had an especial-
ly hard time executing. Relying on 
fast-paced play early, Michigan fal-
tered when the game settled down 
and it was time to run sets consis-
tently. The culprit wasn’t just mini-
mal cohesion, but also the group’s 
connection with the game plan. 

“Organization was a big rea-
son why (in) some of the sets we 
weren’t able to get to what we were 
asking from the offensive end,” 
Michigan coach Juwan Howard 
said. “Because there are times 
when guys want to go ahead and 
do it how they want to do it, or they 
see how the defender’s playing and 
they feel that this is the best way 
how to run the set. … That’s a learn-
ing process that the players have to 
get better with.”
When the Wolverines did cre-
ate space in that stretch, it fur-
ther highlighted how alien their 
offense became from their scor-
ing throughout much of the game. 
Sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin 
missed an open layup in the 
paint en route to zero second half 
points, while freshman guard Dug 
McDaniel had a late drive attempt 
vehemently rejected off the back-
board by Indiana forward Trayce 
Jackson-Davis. 
And those looks — as unsuc-
cessful as they became — were an 
anomaly. For most of the game’s 
final five minutes, Michigan didn’t 
create any real chances.
With just over a minute left and 
after multiple Hoosier turnovers, 
the Wolverines’ absent offense got 
another chance to reestablish itself. 
Instead, it was stagnant yet again. 
Freshman wing Jett Howard and 
junior forward Terrance Williams 
II exchanged 
multiple 
passes on the 
same side of 
the court as 
the rest of the 
offense stood 
and watched. 
Williams then 
forced a pass 
to a double-
teamed Dick-
inson and the 
ball 
couldn’t 
get to him. 

No post touch to Dickinson. 
No off-ball movement. No shot 
opportunities. And no semblance 
of an offense. 
“Whatever we were doing 
wasn’t working,” Dickinson said. 
“Whether it’s executing or just 
running the plays right, it wasn’t 
a good all-around effort by us out 
there. We need to execute better 
down the stretch if we’re gonna 
win a tough game like that.”
Despite the offenses’ early 
exit, Indiana kept giving Michi-
gan’s offense chance after chance 
to re-assert itself into the game. 
Jackson-Davis’ 
missed 
free 
throw while leading by one with 
12 seconds left served as the 
final invitation. A quick timeout 
bought the Wolverines time to 
draw up that grand entrance. A 
team hungry for a ranked win 
looked ready to cash-in. 
None of that mattered. By 
then, Michigan’s offense was 
long gone, and it was unable to 
find it again. Not in the final 
five minutes. Not through its 
rehearsed sets. Not in that final 
timeout. 
The final play resulted in a 
heavily-contested, off-balanced 
shot by Jett. It ended up nowhere 
near the rim as the clock expired, 
seemingly joining the Wolver-
ines’ offense. 
Gone in a flash.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

‘Call your friends, tell them I’m back’: Frank Nazar III makes debut statement at ‘Duel in the D’

DETROIT — Sitting in his post-
game press conference, freshman 
forward Frank Nazar III wasted 
little time to share his feelings on 
his return to hockey. The Mt. Cle-
mens product quoted Eminem:
“‘It’s why they call me Slim 
Shady — I’m back.’ ”
After making his debut Friday 
night in East Lansing against No. 
15 Michigan State, Nazar netted 
his first goal and point of the sea-
son at a much needed time in Sat-
urday’s ‘Duel in the D.’ After a goal 
by Dylan Duke midway through 
the second period leveled the game 
at 2-2, Nazar coasted on that new-
found energy to score, putting the 
No. 5 Michigan hockey team into 
the lead.
Though the Wolverines ceded 
a goal late in the third to send the 
game into overtime, Nazar’s goal 
was not simply a statement of his 
game, but of the journey it took for 

him to even find his way into the 
contest. Shaking the rust off quick-
ly, Nazar confidently rejoined a 
unit missing key pieces, refusing to 
miss a beat in a 4-3 overtime win.
“He’s a kid with a lot of confi-
dence, but he’s a thinker,” Michi-
gan coach Brandon Naurato said. 
“He’s a student of the game and (I) 
just wanted to let him know that 
you don’t have to light the world on 
fire in game one, so he just waited 
until game two.”
Despite the momentous occa-
sion, Nazar received not only the 
clearance to play, but a full-blown 
green light. Nazar competed on 
the second line and second power 
play unit for Michigan, demon-
strating his talent and impact. On 
a night when the Wolverines were 
down first-line freshman forward 
Adam Fantilli, Nazar received a 
rapid top-six promotion.
Training 
wheels 
weren’t 
required. 
Nazar jumped at the opportu-
nity to play. Though many players, 
no matter how seasoned, can often 

require a transitional period to 
get up to speed, Nazar didn’t hold 
back. 
Not that he had the choice, 
though. After a raucously violent 
first game of the series, Saturday’s 
‘Duel’ played out as advertised: a 
gritty, physical matchup that could 
make any player sweat. Yet, Nazar 

stood tall amid it all. 
“To me, that’s what I’m here to 
do,” Nazar said. “I want to play and 
play in these big games. … I’m glad 
I got put in and I’m glad (Naurato) 
believed in me and (I) went out 
there and helped the team win.”
The most important part of 
Nazar’s game might not even 

be what’s physically on the ice 
though. After an extended break 
from competition, the temptation 
to sit back and watch — to defer — 
could have been alluring. After all, 
it’s a challenge to physically and 
mentally attune to a rivalry game 
even for players who’ve partici-
pated all season.
Instead, Nazar displayed what 
made his game so seamless — the 
mental transition.
Collecting a Spartan turnover 
in the neutral zone, Nazar cap-
tained a 3-on-1 opportunity in 
the offensive zone. With fresh-
man forward Gavin Brindley and 
senior forward Philippe Lapointe 
calling for the puck on their right-
handed strong sides, the chance to 
pass presented itself.
And Nazar almost bit.
“I was kind of looking for the 
shot, but I was also thinking pass,” 
Nazar said. “At the end, I kind of 
fumbled it. (I was) thinking too 
much pass, so I kind of faked it and 
then I was just able to get a hold of 
it and sneak it in top shelf.”

Skating the fine line between 
a fake pass and a fumbled puck, 
Nazar opted to shoot, rifling 
the puck top-shelf past goalten-
der Dylan St. Cyr. In a play that 
could’ve materialized any number 
of ways, Nazar trusted himself — 
and goal or not, that speaks more 
volumes about his play than any-
thing else. 
Back again, indeed.
Nazar’s impact, while evident 
tonight, will be needed for Michi-
gan ahead. His blend of playmak-
ing, scoring and skating ability 
has the chance to ignite a Michi-
gan lineup that has continuously 
searched for secondary scoring. 
Saturday night, the Wolver-
ines got a taste of what Nazar 
can bring to the table and what it 
took for him to return to it. Nazar 
knows his journey, because it’s just 
begun. And as Nazar recapped his 
night inside Detroit’s Little Cae-
sars Arena, he left it to Eminem to 
tell the story:
“So it’s like ‘call your friends, 
tell them I’m back.’ ”

ICE HOCKEY

GRACE BEAL/Daily
JOSÉ BRENES/Daily

JOHN TONDORA
Daily Sports Writer

KATE HUA/Daily

