The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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38 THE WOLVERINE MAY 2019 "It finally hit me today," Zack No- vak, the captain of Michigan's 2012 team that captured U-M's first Big Ten title since the mid-1980s, said outside the locker room. "This is the third straight time I've followed them to the Sweet 16. That's pretty amazing." They got there with two wins to start the tournament, including the eighth first-game win in nine at- tempts under Beilein. The first oppo- nent was a familiar foe — Montana, the team U-M vanquished in the first round last year on its way to the title game. They won like they had all year, dominating with defense. Michigan held Montana to 33.3 percent shoot- ing and 25.0 percent from long range in a 74-55 drubbing. The Wolverines shot well from the floor (49.0 percent) and the free throw line (19 of 24, 79.2 percent), but it was the defense that made the difference … again. Montana coach Travis DeCuire ex- haled deeply before addressing the media in the postgame. "That's a good basketball team we played tonight," he said. "I credit the Michigan defense. They did what they do. They make it very difficult to get good shots, and I thought for a while we were doing the same thing, but then it just kind of snowballed on us a little bit and it got away." The Grizzlies got some good looks, but they weren't in their comfortable spots. That was the result of U-M defenders sticking to the scouting report. Montana made a few shots to start the second half, cutting a 13-point deficit to eight right off the bat before the Wolverines made a 10-0 run of their own. That was critical, Beilein said. "Talk about a bounce back," he said. "I thought it was down to 10 … it was eight right away, and we re- sponded. It was huge. Some of those points were not pretty points, but we just got points, and then having [sophomore guard] Jordan Poole and Charles Matthews hit threes back to back gives you a little space. We need those guys to do that." Both Matthews and Simpson were lockdown on defense, as usual. They held the Montana guards in check, and they prevented action to the rim. When the Grizzlies did start mak- ing a few shots, U-M switched it up. They also played well in the second half on offense, Matthews scoring 22 total points and Brazdeikis 14 to lead the way for four double-digit scorers. "They're a very physical basketball team, and they adjust well," DeCuire said. "Once we started knocking a couple down, they took some things away and changed how they de- fended those actions, which forced us to change." The same was true in a round of 32 win over Florida. Head coach Mike White had an inkling, but the Wol- verines were even better than adver- tised in holding the Gators in check during a 64-49 U-M victory March 23. Michigan jumped out to a 15-6 lead with some great offensive posses- sions to complement the smothering defense. To their credit, the Gators didn't fold. They battled back to tie, but U-M pulled away late in the first half and early in the second. White admitted he was thrilled to be down only four points at the break given how many empty possessions they had. But U-M continued to come at his Gators in waves, and it was overwhelming. "A big factor in playing from be- hind is that you're playing the top- ranked defensive efficiency team in the country," White said. "We saw firsthand how tough, physical, con- nected that defense is. They are ter- rific. "I'm not going to sit here and say we played poorly. We did some good things, just didn't do enough. They guarded at a really high level, as they do." Especially Simpson, who White noted was hard to appreciate how good he was by watching film. He finished with nine points, nine as- sists and nine rebounds, and was the catalyst on both ends. The Wolverine defense held Flor- ida to just 28.6 percent shooting in The defensive prowess of junior point guard Zavier Simpson was evident throughout the sea- son and especially the NCAA Tournament. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL