The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 — 11
Michigan falls to Ohio State, 81-79, in
dramatic offensive showdown
JACK CONLIN
Daily Sports Writer
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s not easy
to beat a team three times in one
season.
Adjustments, changing circum-
stances and added motivation cre-
ate different outcomes in repeat
matchups, often making back-to-
back-to-back victories a daunting
task.
But on Friday, the No. 17 Michi-
gan women’s basketball team (22-9
overall, 12-8 Big Ten) allowed No.
14 Ohio State (24-6, 13-6) to do just
that. The Wolverines fell just short,
81-79, to the Buckeyes, ending their
Big Ten Tournament run after
a back-and-forth battle. Despite
trailing by eight points at halftime,
Michigan clawed back late thanks
to a strong, well-rounded offensive
attack before missing a game-tying
shot on the game’s final play.
“I think this was an unbelievable
basketball game,” Wolverines coach
Kim Barnes Arico said postgame.
“Like a really great basketball game
that we were in a position to win.
So I think that gives our team con-
fidence that we can compete with
anybody in the country.”
From the game’s onset, it was
clear that Michigan was prepared
to keep pace with Ohio State’s
offense. Two crisp passes put the
ball in sophomore guard Jordan
Hobbs’ hands, who scored a con-
tested three. A foul was called on
the close out, Hobbs made her free
throw and the Wolverines were up
4-0.
In response, the Buckeyes hit
a contested 3-pointer of their
own, bringing the score to 4-3 just
moments into the game. The strong
offensive showings on both sides in
those opening moments continued
on throughout the game: the two
teams traded layups, deep shots
and free throws to keep the margin
incredibly tight throughout much of
the first half, though it ended 47-39
in Ohio State’s favor.
For the Buckeyes, forward Cotie
McMahon led the way — scoring 28
points to keep Ohio State on top. At
times, Michigan looked outmatched
on the interior, with McMahon and
junior guard Rikki Harris scoring
with ease on inside baskets.
“She’s a kid that goes a hundred
miles an hour downhill,” Barnes
Arico said of McMahon. “(She)
is one of the best players in our
league.”
Overall, the Buckeyes’ efficient
shooting kept Michigan behind
throughout most of the game. But
at the other end, the Wolverines
put together a strong offensive per-
formance to keep pace up until the
final moments.
In each of the first two matchups,
Michigan struggled to overcome
Ohio State’s suffocating full-court
press. It was only logical, therefore,
that the Buckeyes would employ the
coverage to some extent in Friday’s
matchup.
Unlike
those first two
matchups,
though,
the
Wolverines
looked
pre-
pared.
Michigan
turned
the
ball over nine
times, a nota-
ble
decrease
from their 27
giveaways
in
each of the first
two matchups.
The
Wolver-
ines moved the ball well through-
out, finishing with 16 assists in as
clean of an offensive performance
as they’ve had in recent weeks.
Leading the way for their
offense
was
fifth-year
wing
Leigha Brown, who finished with
19 points. But the effort didn’t end
with her: four Michigan players
finished with double digits.
The Wolverines appeared up to
the task of remedying the errors
behind those two regular season
losses. As the game looked to be
getting out of hand in the third
quarter, a couple of game-chang-
ing and-1 baskets from Brown
and senior guard Maddie Nolan
brought the game back within
just one point midway through
the third.
But just like in the first half,
inconsistent defense made over-
taking Ohio State a struggle.
The Buckeyes attacked the paint
consistently in the second half,
drawing fouls and challenging
Michigan with physical, gritty
offensive possessions.
“I think defensively we don’t
want to give up 81 points a game,”
Barnes Arico said. “So if we can be
a little bit better on the defensive
end, we’re always a work in prog-
ress.”
Then, with just over six min-
utes left, the Wolverines finally
took the lead. Brown kicked to
Nolan in the corner, who put them
up 70-68.
Just as Michigan looked to gain
some control, though, McMa-
hon played spoiler. She picked
off a Michigan pass with three
minutes left, scoring a fast-break
layup to regain the lead. Then, on
the subsequent offensive posses-
sion, she drew a tough foul and
hit both her free throws — putting
Ohio State back on top.
The Wolverines kept fighting,
however, but it wasn’t enough.
With seconds remaining, Brown’s
miss on a contested layup decided
the game — leaving the Wolver-
ines just short and sending them
home from the Big Ten Tourna-
ment after just two games.
Sports
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
SportsMonday: Michigan is a Tournament-caliber team.
But it doesn’t deserve to make it.
JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Writer
On Sunday, when Greg Gum-
bel reads off the names of the 68
teams that will have qualified for
this year’s men’s basketball NCAA
Tournament, Michigan will be
waiting, its ears perked. But, bar-
ring a magical run in the Big Ten
Tournament,
the
Wolverines
won’t like what they hear — no
mention of their name.
Based on their overall body
of work, that’s the fate that they
deserve. Because Michigan is an
NCAA Tournament-caliber team
without the requisite resume to
land them an oh-so-coveted spot.
There is a prevailing irony here.
If the Wolverines are to make the
Big Dance, no one would want
to play them. As they showed
throughout February — after post-
ing a 6-2 record to claw their way
back into contention — they can be
potent.
Junior center Hunter Dickin-
son is playing like an All-Ameri-
can again. Sophomore wing Kobe
Bufkin is ascending into a potential
first round pick in this year’s NBA
Draft. Freshman point guard Dug
McDaniel is blossoming. Fresh-
man wing Jett Howard is healthy.
There are pieces here — along with
a grit and a tenacity that often
seemed absent amid maddening
early season struggles.
But all of that is likely to be ren-
dered moot. See, Michigan entered
the final week of the regular sea-
son needing one win — either in
Champaign against Illinois or at
Assembly Hall over Indiana — to
place itself on solid footing for a
berth regardless of its the Big Ten
Tournament results. Win one of
those two games, then win a game
in the Big Ten Tournament, and
a March Madness berth seemed
likely.
This is where the distinction
between an NCAA Tournament
team and an NCAA Tournament-
caliber team grows most apparent.
And, against Illinois and Indiana,
Michigan lived up to its identity as
the latter.
A team that belongs in the field
holds onto a seven-point lead in
overtime or converts on one of two
opportunities to win a game at the
buzzer. In Champaign, Michigan
did neither, resulting in a crushing,
bitter double OT loss — the sort
of defeat that still gnaws at your
psyche when you wake up the fol-
lowing morning.
One game later, the Wolverines
were at it again, their season once
again on the line in Bloomington.
An NCAA Tournament team holds
onto an 11-point second-half lead
and draws up a play at the end of
the regulation that doesn’t end in a
rushed 3-point attempt by a center.
Again, Michigan blew the lead and
dialed up a bad play, resulting in a
loss that — coupled with the last
one — is even more excruciating,
one that will sting even more.
This is what Tournament-cal-
iber teams do: They hang around,
pull you in, enthrall you with
their capabilities for short spurts.
They get your hopes up, make you
believe.
And then, on a dime, they show
their other half — poor decision-
making, careless ball-handling,
porous defense, errant shots. And
then, they lose.
“Tough overtime game,” Dick-
inson said afterwards, speaking
over the joyous Senior Day festivi-
ties taking place postgame inside
Assembly Hall. “It’s really tough
out there. When you play so hard,
make a lot of winning plays, every-
body on the team just making so
many winning plays, playing so
hard out there. You feel like you
almost deserve one of these. But
you know, that’s just sometimes
the way basketball goes.”
Michigan finds itself residing in
Bizarro World. A March without
the Wolverines feels a tad dysto-
pian, the program having asserted
itself as a second-weekend staple.
And yet the cruel reality is that
Michigan shouldn’t even sniff the
field — it has just three Quad 1
wins (none against top-tier oppo-
nents), three true road wins and a
damning Quad 4 loss. Its metrics
— ranked 39th in KenPom, 53rd
in the NET — are nothing to write
home about. The eye test, at this
SELENA SUN/Daily
point, becomes irrelevant.
“We’re in a great position now
starting a new, second part of our
season,” Michigan coach Juwan
Howard maintained after Indi-
ana. “You now have an opportu-
nity to hold up the trophy. And it’s
going to take one game at a time.
We don’t look ahead. We’ll find
out tonight as far as who will be
our next opponent. And we’ll be
prepared. We’ll be preparing to go
to Chicago to compete.”
But his optimism may very well
be painting too bright a picture.
With the regular season over,
Michigan is out of time to render
itself anything else but what it’s
already shown itself to be. It does
not belong in the NCAA Tourna-
ment. Will it contend next week
in Chicago, maybe win a game and
put a scare into one of the confer-
ence’s top teams? Sure. It probably
will.
Because that is what Tourna-
ment-caliber teams do. And that’s
what Michigan is.
But with March in full swing,
and the regular season officially in
the books, that’s not enough.
Despite rewriting the narrative,
Michigan fails to find a way in third
loss to Ohio State
LYS GOLDMAN
Daily Sports Writer
MINNEAPOLIS — It was a
completely different game.
In the No. 17 Michigan wom-
en’s basketball team’s first two
matchups against No. 14 Ohio
State, the Wolverines fell victim
to recurring mistakes — particu-
larly turnovers and an inabil-
ity to break the full-court press.
Both games progressed in simi-
lar fashion, too, with Michigan
starting hot before the Buckeyes
reclaimed control and never
looked back.
On Friday, however, in the
rivals’ third clash of the year —
this time with a Big Ten Tourna-
ment semifinal appearance on the
line — it wasn’t more of the same.
Michigan turned the ball over
just nine times, a stark contrast
to the 27 turnovers committed in
each of the first two games. The
Wolverines essentially negated
Ohio State’s efforts in its full-
court defense through successful
press breaks — so much so that
Buckeyes coach Kevin McGuff
recognized the diminished effec-
tiveness and quickly scaled down
their use of the press. And Fri-
day’s game was tight from the
start, featuring no opening runs
and timeout turnarounds.
“I’d say the difference was
their energy,” Ohio State forward
Cotie McMahon said postgame.
“No team wants to lose three
times in a row, let alone twice. So
we knew coming into this game
they’d be a whole different team
just coming in, definitely taking it
play by play for them.”
The
Wolverines
might’ve
looked like a whole different
team, and they certainly didn’t
succumb to the same failures
as those previous losses. They
played one of their most complete
games of the season, arguably
their best overall performance of
this year’s conference play.
But despite all the differ-
ences, there was one big similar-
ity between Michigan’s first two
meetings with the Buckeyes and
this one: the final outcome.
“Great basketball game, sorry
to be on the losing end of it,”
Michigan coach Kim Barnes
Arico said. “… Just really proud
of our team and just the way that
we battled. I thought we probably
played harder than we’ve played
all season long, and that’s a great
sign moving into tournament
time.”
The
Wolverines
battled
through all 60 minutes, putting
themselves in a position to win
or tie on their final possession.
In addition to their notably low
turnover numbers, they out-
rebounded Ohio State with 36
boards to 32, shot 43% from the
field and finished with 16 total
assists.
Heading into the quarterfinal
contest after squeaking by Penn
State on Thursday, Michigan
knew it had to bring its best in
order to compete.
“It’s March, right?” junior for-
ward Elise Stuck said after beat-
ing the Nittany Lions, looking
ahead to the clash with Ohio
State. “We’re going to have to
come with everything we have.
It’s tournament play.”
Graduate guard Emily Kiser
echoed that sentiment, answer-
ing emphatically when asked to
talk about the looming matchup
against the Buckeyes.
“I’m pumped right now,”
Kiser said Thursday. “To have
them for a third time — I mean,
to let a team beat you twice, to
get that chance to play them a
third time and a rival at that in
a Big Ten Tournament setting,
it’s going to be a battle tomor-
row, but hopefully we just want
it more.”
The Wolverines backed up
those
pre-game
sentiments
on the court. They absolutely
looked like they wanted the
win, and they absolutely looked
like they came with everything
they had. But at the end of
the day, Michigan just wasn’t
able to “get over the hump,” as
Barnes Arico put it.
In a completely different
game against the same team
that beat them twice prior,
Michigan still couldn’t find a
way to win.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Adam Fantilli hat trick leads Michigan past Wisconsin, 7-4
It’s not often that a hockey game
comes down to a duel between two
skaters.
A goaltender battle, sure. But a
mano-a-mano encounter like the
one that took place between fresh-
man forward Adam Fantilli and
Wisconsin forward Mathieu De St.
Phalle on Saturday is a rare sight.
For 58 minutes, Fantilli and De
St. Phalle traded blows, record-
ing a hat trick and three points,
respectively. But thanks to a go-
ahead goal by graduate forward
Nolan Moyle, the No. 4 Michi-
gan hockey team (22-11-3 overall,
12-10-2 Big Ten) pulled away from
the Badgers (13-23, 6-18), 7-4, in
the final minutes to advance to the
Big Ten Tournament semifinals.
“I’m really happy with the indi-
vidual success,” Fantilli said. “But
obviously, the two wins are the
biggest part of the weekend, right?
We’re trying to win a champion-
ship here.”
And while Moyle’s goal gave
them that second win of the week-
end, Fantilli put the Wolverines in
position to win in the first place.
Led by Fantilli, Michigan came
out of the gates hot. Following a
three-minute stack of high-quality
shifts, Fantilli found sophomore
forward Mackie Samoskevich on
the rush. Samoskevich then fed
freshman forward Rutger McGro-
arty cross-ice, allowing him to
score on a wide-open net.
Yet De St. Phalle quickly recre-
ated his performance that gave
Michigan hell on Friday night, in
the process also recreating the
close game that ensued. After
blocking a pass to keep the puck
in the offensive zone, he located
forward Cruz Lucius with a high-
pressure, cross-ice assist on the
power play to tie the game.
“They’re just good players,”
Michigan coach Brandon Naurato
said of Lucius and De St. Phalle’s
line. “They possess the puck, they
make plays in tight areas with no
space and they can all score.”
But if he wasn’t on the ice, De St.
Phalle couldn’t make that impact
on the game. So starting seven sec-
onds after De St. Phalle went to the
penalty box for hooking with 6:24
left in the second period, Fantilli
took over.
Within just seven minutes of
game time, Fantilli scored three
unanswered goals. First pinballing
a power play goal off Badgers
defenseman Luke La Master out-
side the right dot, then cleaning up
a rebound and finally firing a deep
wrister from the right point, he
single-handedly built the Wolver-
ines a 4-1 lead.
“If you watch those goals, like
even Adam’s third one, it’s a high
end shot from outside the top of
the circle — those shouldn’t go
in,” Naurato said. “But every guy
on that line won a race or a battle
before that. They’re playing the
right way and getting rewarded
for it.”
Perhaps resting on the laurels
of Fantilli’s hat trick for a moment,
though, Michigan gave Wisconsin
ample opportunity to badger its
way back into the contest — and
De St. Phalle took it. Scoring his
fourth and fifth goals of the series
within a five-minute span, he
brought the Badgers within one
entering the second intermission.
“(De St. Phalle) always found
himself around the net, in the
right spots,” Fantilli said. “The
puck found his stick and it found
the back of the net.”
Still riding the momentum that
De St. Phalle provided after the
break, Wisconsin soon completed
the comeback. Three minutes into
the third period, forward Carson
Bantle finished off a rebound in
front of the net to even the contest
at four goals apiece.
But with neither star able to
break through again in the next
15 minutes, the Wolverines had
to turn to someone else to break
the stalemate. So they turned to
Moyle.
Switching late-game onto the
same line with freshman forward
Frank Nazar III for the first time
all year, Moyle drove to the net
while Nazar sent a backhand pass
in his direction. He quickly lifted
the puck just over the glove of
Wisconsin goaltender Jared Moe
to give Michigan the lead for the
last time — before it added two
more goals to ice the victory.
“Maybe it’s just our team,” Nau-
rato said. “… It’s not good for my
blood pressure, but we’re finding
ways to win. We just beat them by
three goals, so it’s positive. I don’t
care if it’s 3-0 or 7-4.”
ICE HOCKEY
NOAH KINGSLEY
Daily Sports Editor
KATE HUA/Daily
KATE HUA/Daily
MEN’S BASKETBALL
SELENA SUN/Daily
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