By Aidan Joly
The Wolverines certainly looked the part on Saturday, as they have done for much of the year.
Following Saturday’s 30-point, 86-56 destruction of UCLA, Michigan is in line to earn the No. 1 ranking in the country for the first time this season when the new rankings come out on Monday.
It was a slow first 20 minutes of the game for Michigan. It only led by two at the half, 40-38, and didn’t take advantage of opportunities it had to pull away in the final handful of minutes in the first half.
The second half was different, though. The Wolverines got the lead from two to 21 in a matter of less than 12 minutes into the second half and carried it all the way to its 10th 30-point win of the season, all the while improving to 14-1 in the Big Ten and 24-1 overall. It is set to take over the No. 1 spot in the country after Arizona’s two losses on Monday and Saturday since the latest AP rankings came out.
All in all, Michigan outscored UCLA 46-18 in the last 2o minutes. It shot an incredible 78% from the field (18-23) in the second half while making four of its six threes, compared to UCLA’s 25.9% (7-27). Yaxel Lendeborg, coach Dusty May’s prized addition for this season, finished with 17 points on 4-8 from the field, but was 7-10 from the free throw line and grabbed eight rebounds along the way. Morez Johnson had 15 points on a perfect 6-6 from the field, while Nimari Burnett had 12 on 5-9 from the field.
And now, Michigan seems to have another major weapon coming off the bench, one that has introduced itself more and more in the past two weeks. L.J. Cason had 13 points on 5-8 shooting off the bench in just 20 minutes of play and now has scored in double figures in three of Michigan’s last four games – in the other game he had eight against Ohio State. In that time, he has averaged 12.8 points per game. If he can prove to be a weapon down the stretch and into the NCAA tournament, that is just another guy that teams have to plan for.
The key to this Michigan team has been finding ways to win even if did not play a complete game. There has been a faction of those nervous about the Wolverines and feel they are vulnerable for a loss – and sure, all teams are – but it’s tough to see many legitimate reasons to be nervous about them. Even if they don’t play particularly well, the main examples being a 74-72 win against lowly Penn State on Jan. 6 and an 87-75 win against Northwestern this past Wednesday – it still wins the game. The competition in the later rounds of the NCAA tournament will certainly be tougher than the likes of Penn State and Northwestern, but if the Wolverines have that X-factor, they can beat anybody.
A critical portion of the schedule is coming up – it will go to Purdue on Tuesday, followed by a neutral site game in Washington, D.C. against Duke on Feb. 21, then gets a break with a home game against Minnesota on Feb. 24 and finally go at Illinois on Feb. 27. All in all, four of Michigan’s final six regular season games come against ranked opponents.
There will be plenty of tests, but it feels like Michigan should be able to overcome them. If they can keep winning, the squad will be playing its best ball heading into the NCAA tournament.
As for the other game I attended today: lots and lots of credit goes to Todd Simon.
Bowling Green took down rival Toledo at the Stroh Center 80-70, a win that puts the Falcons in a tie for fourth in the MAC. It moves them to 7-6 in the league and 16-10 overall. It was also Simon’s 50th win as Bowling Green’s coach.
The Falcons have not been to the NCAA tournament since 1968. The MAC is a very top-heavy league with Miami (Ohio) as the last undefeated team in the country and is in the top 25, 11-1 Akron and 10-3 Kent State. Those are the top three teams with a sizeable gap before you hit the rest of the league, but the Falcons are one of those teams that can take advantage should something weird happen in Cleveland.
AJ Hoops 