Michigan Basketball: Grading the Wolverines win against Rutgers
Michigan basketball beat Rutgers on Thursday night and here are the grades for the Wolverines from their 10th Big Ten win.
It’s hard to say that any victory in the Big Ten conference is routine, but it sure felt that way Thursday night for Michigan basketball.
The biggest drama at the end of the game was whether or not Rutgers was going to cover the nine-point spread which it did.
Yet, Michigan put the game away early in the second half by building a 15-point lead and just suffocating the Scarlet Knights with their defense on the way to a 71-64 victory.
The Wolverines got another solid win over rankings, a team projected to make the NCAA tournament and here are the grades for U-M:
Wings
Franz Wagner: A
The biggest difference between the Wolverines and Scarlet Knights was Franz Wagner, who looked as much like an NBA player last night as he has all season. Franz scored 20 points on nine shot attempts, got to the free-throw line six times and grabbed seven rebounds. He also dished out three assists and was active all night on defense even though he had just one steal. His play seems to get better by the game and it’s been really fun to watch his progression.
Livers didn’t have a great game shooting the ball from deep, but he’s been dynamite all season, so we’ll give him a pass. He did score seven points but despite going 0-for-4 from deep, he found other ways to pitch in with six rebounds and three blocks.
Chaundee Brown: B+
Brown only played 12 minutes and scored six points, while getting four rebounds in the win. He made a shot from 3-point range and made 3 of 4 free-throw attempts, but there’s no doubt that he deserves more than 12 minutes a game. That’s something the coaching staff will need to work out going forward because he’s just too good a player to play so little.