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Opening a two-game homestand, the No. 16 Michigan Wolverines ran past the No. 19 Northwestern Wildcats, 85-66, on Sunday at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor.
Moving to a perfect 9-0 (4-0 Big Ten), the performance vaulted Michigan up to No. 10 in the Monday AP Top 25 poll.
The Wolverines’ bench played a significant role in the victory, outscoring Northwestern’s, 23-20, marking the seventh time this season Michigan’s reserves have produced more than the opposition.
Tallying at least 26 points in each of the first five contests, the Wolverine bench had cooled off a bit lately, scoring no more than 13 points in the last three games, producing just six against Penn State on Dec. 13 and Maryland on New Year’s Eve.
Not surprisingly, the resurgence of this unit correlated with senior swingman Chaundee Brown, Jr. rediscovering his shooting stroke.
Held scoreless in two of his three prior outings, Brown, a transfer from the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, poured in 14 points against the Wildcats, his third-highest total of the campaign.
Ten of Brown’s points came in the opening 20 minutes, tying him with sophomore Franz Wagner as the team’s leading scorer at the break, and he finished 5-of-9 from the floor, including 2-of-5 from three-point range.
Now averaging 9.7 points-per-game, Brown ranks fifth on the team in this category, just 0.2 behind classmate Eli Brooks.
With six players contributing at least 8.7 points nightly, led by freshman Hunter Dickinson’s 16.9 and senior Isaiah Livers’ 13.9, Michigan’s depth has been one of the main reasons for their success thus far.
“It’s awesome, the ball doesn’t stick, all of us are unselfish and we know what each other like to do,” Brown said. “Anybody can have a big night, doesn’t matter. The past two nights it was Franz, I feel like Eli did well tonight, Mike (Smith) did well, Hunter, as usual, always does well. Myself, T-Will (Terrance Williams), B-Johns (Brandon Johns, Jr.) gave great bench energy. Isaiah is a really tough guy, he’s been bothered the past couple of days by an injury, but he’s been really fighting through it and I give props to him for playing in this game because he knew we really needed him.
“We got so many pieces, it’s hard to stop everyone. Plus, the offense that we run, an NBA-style offense, Coach Howard offense, it’s really hard to guard.”
While the Wolverines feature several players who can score the basketball, it is on the defensive end where the team prides themselves.
One of eight Big Ten programs holding the opposition to fewer than 70 points on average, this was apparent against Northwestern, as the 66 points Michigan limited the Evanston-based outfit to were their fewest of the season and their first time not reaching 70.
“Just dialed in and locked in, really,” Brown said. “We watched a lot of film on Northwestern, we knew that they were a really good team. They beat a lot of ranked teams, we just studied their film and Boo Buie, (Pete) Nance, we knew what they liked to do, and we shut them down.”
Finishing 0-for-6 from the field, Buie, a sophomore, did not appear in the scoring column for the first time in 2020-21. Nance, a junior and product of Revere High School in Richfield, Ohio, could only muster 10 points, his third-lowest mark of the season.
Sunday’s triumph was the Wolverines’ first matchup against a ranked foe and, despite being the only unbeaten team in the conference, were still slotted below two other Big Ten programs in Monday’s AP Poll.
With three of their next four tilts also against teams in the Top-25, the schedule will begin to pick up and Brown thinks it is important the team keeps the chip on their shoulder that helped them reach this point.
“I feel like we still got to win some more games, but, like I said, I feel like they don’t give us a lot of respect still. They’re still talking about other teams in our conference, I’m not going to say their names, that are better than us or think they’re better than us. We just got to keep our head down and keep grinding.
“We know we still have more work to do, we’re not satisfied with 9-0.”
Rounding out their quick home swing, Michigan will next battle the No. 16 Minnesota Golden Gophers (10-2, 3-2 Big Ten) on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. EST on the Big Ten Network.