Michigan Basketball: Grading Wolverines against Northwestern
Michigan basketball notched an impressive win against Northwestern Sunday and here are the grades for the Wolverines.
You wondered how Michigan basketball would respond against another ranked team and in a game with first place on the line in the Big Ten.
And against 19th-ranked Northwestern (at the time) Sunday night, the Wolverines weren’t just good, they were dominant. They bullied the Wildcats on the boards and on the defensive end, but also shot the heck out of it from 3-point range.
Following the win, Michigan basketball is now up to 10th in the AP poll and 6th in the NET rankings. U-M is now 9-0 and 4-0 in the Big Ten.
Juwan Howard played eight different guys at least eight minutes and by the end of the game, the bench was cleared. We will focus on those top eight guys and here are the grades for Northwestern.
Wings
Franz Wagner: A
It’s hard to imagine Franz Wagner playing much better than he did Sunday, especially on the defensive end where he shut down Pete Nance, while also getting five blocks and two steals. I have to say, Wagner has developed into a much better defender on the ball than I thought he would be and he’s turned into a weapon on that end of the floor. His 3-point shot has started to fall (37 percent over the last 3 games) and outside of making just 4 of 10 shots, he was near perfect.
Being able to bring Brown off the bench is such an incredible luxury. Hunter Dickinson is going to be Big Ten Freshman of the Year but Brown is going to have a good shot at Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year especially if he has more games like Sunday’s. Brown scored 14 points in 16 minutes, was 5 of 9 from the field and 2 of 5 from 3-point range. He did a great job attacking the basket and even grabbed three rebounds. His versatility, defense and shooting ability are so invaluable and it’s hard to critique what he did against Northwestern.
Livers put in a solid performance scoring 10 points, grabbing five rebounds and dishing out three assists. He and Wagner combined for eight assists and the ball movement was an absolute thing of beauty. But when you surround a low-post scorer like Dickinson with Livers, Wagner, Brooks, Mike Smith and Brown — guys who can all shoot from deep — there isn’t much you can do. Livers was solid — he just wasn’t spectacular.