Tag: Michigan Wolverines Basketball

How to watch Wisconsin basketball vs. Indiana

After the postponement of their Sunday game against Penn State due to COVID-19, No. 8 Wisconsin has had the entire week to prepare for Th…

After the postponement of their Sunday game against Penn State due to COVID-19, No. 8 Wisconsin has had the entire week to prepare for Thursday’s matchup against the Indiana Hoosiers at the Kohl Center.

Related: Wisconsin basketball falls in the latest AP poll, stays in top 10

This break has been Wisconsin’s first extended time off since the beginning of December, which could serve well in resting the starting five that has seen a lot of minutes down the stretch. It will also allow Greg Gard and the Badgers to have more time to prepare for another deceptively good Big Ten matchup.

Although the Hoosiers are 2-2 in conference play, they are 7-4 on the year with notable wins against Providence, Butler and Maryland. Indiana is led in points and rebounds by forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, who is averaging 20.3 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.4 assists a game. He will be a troublesome matchup for Wisconsin’s Micah Potter and Nate Reuvers that have been extremely inconsistent in the Badgers’ last few games.

This matchup is the start of a stretch of more difficult games for Wisconsin, so it will be vital for them to get started with a victory on Thursday. After the game against Indiana, the Badgers will play on the road against No. 10 Michigan and No. 15 Rutgers.

How to watch Wisconsin basketball against the Indiana Hoosiers on Thursday night.

How to watch:

Matchup: Indiana Hoosiers at Wisconsin Badgers

Where: Kohl Center in Madison, Wis.

When: Jan. 7, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. CST

Where to watch: FOX Sports 1 (FS1)

  • Announcers:
    • Play-by-Play: Adam Amin
    • Analyst: Stephen Bardo

Where to stream: FOX Sports GO app, or online at foxsportsgo.com

Where to listen: Badger Sports Network on the iHeartRadio app, or Satellite on SiriusXM 83

  • Announcers:
    • Play-by-Play: Matt Lepay
    • Analyst: Mike Lucas

D’Mitrik Trice paints his masterpiece against Michigan

D’Mitrik was dynamic

Over the past few weeks, D’Mitrik Trice had done a lot to help the Wisconsin Badgers, but he did so in an unselfish way. Yes, the Wisconsin way IS the unselfish way. Trice was playing exactly the way Greg Gard wanted him to. The Badgers’ turnover numbers remained very low, but their assist numbers had been steadily climbing. The assist-turnover differential kept moving in the right direction. The wins piled up. The wasted possessions went down. Wisconsin turned a tenuous season into a positive and productive one.

Yet, for all the ways in which selflessness is great, and for all the valid reasons it is important to distribute the ball and set up teammates, there ARE times in a basketball player’s life — and a basketball team’s season — when someone has to step up and be THE MAN, the guy who is not only unafraid to take big shots, but good enough to make them. Ball movement and five-as-one cohesion are great and absolutely necessary; they are central, not peripheral, to the development of an elite offense. Yet, for an offense to fully realize its potential, it needs some bad-a** brother-truckers to hit daggers in opponents’ faces. It needs players to create their own shots at times and provide instant offense in the face of good defense.

This is something D’Mitrik Trice had not done on a large scale — at times, yes, but not as a regular feature of his season.

Thursday night against the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor, Trice played the “eff you” offense this team had not shown very much in 2020.

Trice hit daggers. He popped Michigan — to use the familiar Kevin Harlan phrase — “RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES!” He dished out a modest four assists on a night when Wisconsin created only 10 assists as a team, on 29 made buckets. This was not a night for high assist totals and facilitating the offense. This was the night to be an alpha dog, a mean sonofagun, and punk a good defensive team on its own floor in Ann Arbor.

D’Mitrik Trice became THE MAN… and now Wisconsin seems to have a much, much higher ceiling of potential entering the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments.

Just look at this: 10 of 16 from the field, 5 of 6 on 3-pointers, 28 points, all on the road, all against a hot defensive team (which held Rutgers and Purdue to 7 of 34 on 3-point shooting in two recent road wins), and in the face of Zavier Simpson, one of the toughest players in the Big Ten.

Being unselfish is good, but any basketball player knows that sometimes, he has to be selfish and take the shots great players take.

D’Mitrik Trice took — and made — those big shots. That’s what an alpha dog does. That’s what a player does on a team capable of making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Jared Berggren, Josh Gasser salute Greg Gard after Michigan win

Wisconsin alums express support for the 2020 Badgers and their coach

What a journey the Wisconsin Badgers and Greg Gard made over the past few weeks. When they defeated Michigan State in the Kohl Center, they saved their season, preventing it from falling off a cliff. It was a huge win, but it was more a matter of survival than authoritatively asserting dominance and superiority.

This win on Thursday night against Michigan? This was what superiority truly felt like. This was not the Michigan State win, in which Wisconsin barely scored anything over the final seven and a half minutes but held on because the defense kept the Spartans in lockdown. This was a game in which Wisconsin committed only two turnovers in the second half, none in the final 9:29 of regulation. This was a game in which Wisconsin hung 81 points on a Michigan defense which held Rutgers and Purdue to a combined 7-of-34 shooting line from 3-point range in its previous two games, both on the road. Wisconsin went into Ann Arbor against a very hot team playing lights-out defense… and torched that defense for 40 complete minutes. In terms of shooting percentages from the field, 3-point range, and the free throw line, UW could not have asked for a better performance. The Badgers’ slash line on Thursday against the Wolverines was majestic: 54-48-80. Steph Curry would not do much better than that — maybe at the foul line, sure, but not on field goals and threes.

Wisconsin has transformed itself. You can’t now say the Badgers were winning games and scoring lots of points only because they were playing a lot of home games. They went on the road and dismantled Michigan’s defense. This was a conquest, not merely the survival we witnessed against Michigan State.

Proud Wisconsin Badgers who went through the program and know how resilient Greg Gard is had glowing things to say.

First, Jared Berggren spoke to the Badgers’ ability to endure their darkest moments, not panic, and find solutions in the midst of the many disruptions this team had to go through:

Josh Gasser, another beloved stalwart of Wisconsin hoops — one of many dozens of players who carried the torch forward from one team to another in this very prosperous century — also weighed in:

This season has, in so many ways, shown what makes Wisconsin basketball special. The Badgers — not just in 2020, but on many occasions over the past 20 years — will look very inelegant. They do try the patience of the fan base. Yet, after 28 to 30 games, they’re in the top four of the Big Ten, with a solid NCAA Tournament seed and a decent shot at the Sweet 16. They’re not always a Goliath, but they’re almost always an above-average team of hard-working athletes who figure out solutions to the problems which arise.

If not 99 percent, at least 95 or 96 percent of the 353 Division I programs in America would kill to have Wisconsin’s level of consistent success. This season has embodied how hard it is for the rest of the Big Ten to knock Wisconsin into the gutter. These Badgers have carried on a proud tradition in Madison, and the alumni of the program certainly recognize this.

Jared Berggren’s and Josh Gasser’s public tweets are a nod to these players, who — in several years — will probably commend another batch of Badgers who will be asked to sustain this winning culture even longer…

and will probably succeed in the attempt.

Wisconsin 81, Michigan 74: the Badgers revealed a new identity

Where did this come from?

The Wisconsin Badgers’ improbable metamorphosis into a high-level offensive force — that is what they have become, whether you want to admit it or not — contains a lot of surprises. D’Mitrik Trice scoring 28 at Michigan, against a good defense? Wow. Aleem Ford and Micah Potter scoring 18 points apiece in the same game, on the ROAD? Get out of here. That really happened? Wisconsin shot 48 percent on threes, on the road, against a non-Nebraska, non-Northwestern Big Ten defense? Incredible.

One could go up and down the list of amazing Wisconsin feats from Thursday night’s 81-74 win in Ann Arbor against the shocked Wolverines, but to me, one fact rises above all the others: Wisconsin assisted on just 10 of its 29 made field goals.

Think about that for a moment.

Wisconsin’s offense had been so good in recent weeks in large part because the assists had been going up, up, up, and the turnovers had stayed down, down, down. D’Mitrik Trice was distributing the ball better. He was making wiser, more accurate reads of the defense and producing superior decisions. He improved his floor game and gave the Badgers’ offense a lot more cohesion. This always made sense as the pathway toward improvement for the 2020 Badgers: Develop the fundamentals. Make better decisions. Screw up less often. Get out of your own way. No, don’t expect incredible shooting performances, but limit the mistakes and don’t give away so many possessions. See what can happen with a cleaner, more blended style of play.

It worked. That improved level of efficiency — more assists, limited turnovers — definitely brought out a new dimension of this team.

What was so remarkable about the Michigan game and that fact about UW assisting on just 10 of 29 field goals is that the Badgers didn’t have to set up everything in their halfcourt offense with passing and ball movement.

Do you realize the significance of the 10 assists on 29 made field goals statistic? Wisconsin just showed — Trice in particular — that this offense can CREATE ITS OWN SHOT.

That is a thunderbolt, as surprising as anything I have witnessed in this team this season.

What did we see with our own two eyes through November and December and January and most of February? We saw an offense which generally could not create its own shot and generally could not get to the foul line 20 times per game. (Against Michigan: 15 free throws, so that part still remained intact.)

Suddenly, though, against Michigan — hardly the weakest defense Wisconsin has seen this season, and in truth, probably one of the better ones — the Badgers didn’t just reveal a fully-functioning offensive unit. They displayed the ability to create shots without always passing. No, this doesn’t mean Trice and the rest of the offense should try to play more hero-ball in March, but it does show that I underestimated the capacity and capability of this offense to create its own shot.

Coaches — Greg Gard included — generally want an assist-to-made-basket ratio much higher than 1-to-3. Yet, for one night, a (roughly) 1-to-3 assist-make ratio was a good thing. Wisconsin can create its own shot now. That isn’t something a team wants to completely rely on in March — good shots being created by good ball movement are always better than one-on-one shots if given a choice to pick between the two — but it’s important to be able to create something from nothing against strong defense in the cauldron of the NCAA Tournament.

Wisconsin is a lot more equipped for March than any of us could have imagined not just four weeks ago, but four DAYS ago.

This performance against Michigan answered a lot of questions about the 2020 Badgers. All the answers were perfect.

Michigan, like Ohio State, solved its problems

Michigan prepares for Wisconsin

Michigan and Ohio State can’t stand each other, but the two teams have made strikingly similar journeys on the basketball court this season. As the Wisconsin Badgers prepare to face Michigan on Thursday night in Ann Arbor, it is worth noting the path the Wolverines and Juwan Howard have traveled this season.

Ohio State and Michigan both defeated North Carolina in non-conference play, but at the time of those wins for the Buckeyes and Wolverines, no one could have imagined how hard or how far North Carolina would fall this season. Ohio State’s and Michigan’s collections of non-conference wins looked better at the time of those games than they do now. However, this is not to say that OSU and Michigan didn’t accumulate meaningful accomplishments. Ohio State’s win over Kentucky still looks very good, if not better, than it did before. It looked like an okay win in early February, but now, at the end of February, Kentucky is playing its best ball of the season.

For Michigan, a win over Gonzaga still looks great. The win over North Carolina has obviously faded in value, but the dubya over the Zags is still a huge bright spot for UM in non-conference competition. Given how well Michigan and Ohio State functioned as collective units in November and December, their shared January swoons were surprising.

Both teams fell multiple games under .500 in Big Ten Conference play, leading many (including myself) to wonder for a brief period of time if they would slide all the way out of the NCAA Tournament field and into the NIT.

Ohio State regrouped from losing six of seven games to climb back to .500 in the Big Ten. Michigan was once 4-7 in the Big Ten but has now won five straight games to move to 9-7 in the league, entering this Wisconsin clash on Thursday.

We all wondered how Juwan Howard, a Michigan man and an NBA veteran, would adjust to the college game. He had some high-quality returning players on this Michigan roster, inherited from John Beilein: Zavier Simpson, Jon Teske and Isaiah Livers lead this group. Nevertheless, Michigan was in free-fall; Livers was hurt; the team needed direction from its leader.

The Wolverines found that. Howard has therefore given Michigan fans a lot of belief that he is the right man for this program. We will see how he fares against Greg Gard and the Badgers on Thursday night.

Wisconsin’s hot offense meets Michigan’s fierce defense

Wisconsin-Michigan

Remember when Wisconsin’s offense struggled and seemed to have a firm ceiling of 61 to 64 points per game? Remember when the idea of Wisconsin scoring more than 65 points seemed hard to entertain? Those days seem so long ago. Wisconsin has been hanging 70 or more on the board for the past few weeks. The Badgers have found their best groove on offense this season, peaking at the right time of year.

Thursday night in Ann Arbor, this Wisconsin offense will face a significant challenge: the Michigan Wolverines’ defense.

Michigan is playing lights-out defense, making Thursday’s game a clash of two formidable forces.

How great has Michigan’s defense been the last two games? I could spend a lot of time using colorful adjectives, but why do that when the numbers themselves make their own very powerful and resonant statement?

In its last two games, both on the road, Michigan held Rutgers and Purdue to a combined 47 of 126 shooting clip from the field, or 37 percent. Michigan held the Scarlet Knights and Boilermakers to a 7 of 34 shooting line on 3-pointers, just above 20 percent. Michigan limited Rutgers and Purdue to a combined 21 free throw attempts in those two games, an average of 10.5 attempts per game. Michigan forced as many turnovers — 21 — as the number of free throw attempts it allowed in those two games.

You can’t get much better than that. Michigan is contesting shots. Michigan is running teams off the 3-point line. Michigan is not fouling too much, especially in the act of shooting. Michigan is forcing some turnovers, albeit not a ton. Coach Juwan Howard has his players extremely focused. Howard knows his team does not have a ton of offensive upside; defense, as was the case with John Beilein’s teams in recent years at Michigan, is the main engine for the Wolverines.

Wisconsin’s offensive renaissance is something we have detailed in various articles earlier this week. Michigan’s defense wants to bring that rebirth to a halt. This is what makes Thursday’s game so compelling.

This is why we watch.

Purdue and Michigan live on the other side of the Big Ten coin

Thoughts on Purdue and Michigan

Some things have not changed in the Big Ten this basketball season. Michigan State is at the top. Nebraska and Northwestern are struggling. Maryland and Minnesota are inconsistent. Yet, many aspects of this conference are different. Rutgers and Illinois are near the top of the league. Penn State could make the NCAA Tournament. Fresh faces are moving up the ladder in the conference.

If some teams are moving up, that generally means other teams have to move down. If the rise of Rutgers and Illinois forms half of this portrait of displacement and reshuffling in Big Ten basketball, the decline of two other teams forms the other half.

Enter Purdue and Michigan.

If it feels very weird to see Illinois and Rutgers near the top of the Big Ten standings in late January, it feels equally weird to see Purdue and Michigan buried in 10th and 11th place on the morning of Wednesday, January 22. Both teams are two games under .500 in the conference, though Purdue (3-5) has played two more league games than Michigan (2-4).

How dependable have Purdue and Michigan been in recent years? The Boilermakers were a top-four seed at the Big Ten Tournament in each of the past six years. Purdue double-byes at the Big Ten tourney weren’t as regular as Wisconsin double-byes, but almost. Michigan reached each of the last three Big Ten Tournament championship games, winning two. The program lost its way in 2015 and 2016, but has been a major national factor in five of the past seven college basketball seasons, with two national title game appearances, three Elite Eights, and five Sweet 16s.

These two programs are annually expected to be in the mix as Big Ten title contenders, but right now, they aren’t. Both will need to author a significant — and rapid — turnaround if they want to have the slightest chance to make things interesting in early March. Purdue, with five conference losses, has — one could argue — already played its way out of the conversation.

If you want to understand why Rutgers and Illinois have thrived this season, one must start with an examination of how Steve Pikiell and Brad Underwood have made huge forward strides in cultivating players while making necessary self-adjustments in how they go about their business. Yet, the improvements of unlikely Big Ten contenders can’t be mentioned without noting the fall of Purdue and Michigan. We will see if the second half of the season brings renewed clarity from the Boilermakers and Wolverines.

10 for 20: Michigan basketball

Michigan basketball in the 2020s

The big question facing Michigan basketball in the 2020s is not whether the Wolverines will do well. A program which has made two of the past seven national championship games and has a highly popular head coach who himself played in two national title games at Michigan — Juwan Howard — should be able to succeed at a reasonable level. One should see some Sweet 16s and some high NCAA Tournament seeds for Michigan.

The better question is: Will Michigan be able to stay at the top for a long time, with minimal interruption? The best question: How will Howard try to do this?

I ask that last question because as great as John Beilein was and is, the former Michigan head coach was not a conventional college basketball coach. Beilein came to Michigan from West Virginia (and before that, Richmond and Canisius), where he used unorthodox defenses with less-than-overpowering athletes to overachieve.

Yes, Trey Burke was an elite, NBA-level player, but that is an exception, not the rule, to Beilein’s tenure at Michigan. He was still winning games because his defenses were in the right position and his teams limited cheap giveaways to the opposition. When Michigan went to the national title game a second time, in 2018, the Wolverines had only one good shooting game, the regional semifinal against Texas A&M. They shot the cover off the ball in that game, making 14 of 24 threes. It’s easy to win when everything is going well, but Michigan shot poorly on threes in the other four games it played in that NCAA Tournament before the national title game.

Michigan was 5 of 16 on threes against Montana, 8 of 30 against Houston, 4 of 22 against Florida State, and 7 of 28 against Loyola-Chicago in the Final Four. That’s 24 of 96, or 25 percent, but Michigan’s defense answered the bell every time.

Can Michigan maintain that identity under Juwan Howard? Can Michigan improve recruiting to the extent that it can get easy baskets and not endure horrid perimeter shooting performances? We are all interested in whether Michigan maintains a high standard, but how Michigan operates is the mystery which will determine what the Wolverines do in the 2020s.

College basketball’s biggest storyline thus far

USA TODAY Sports’ Scott Gleeson breaks down the biggest story in college basketball this season.

USA TODAY Sports’ Scott Gleeson breaks down the biggest story in college basketball this season.