The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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48 THE WOLVERINE FEBRUARY 2020 MICHIGAN BASKETBALL U-M fell behind early, but played the Spartans tough the rest of the way before MSU pulled away late. "It did excite me a little bit, just be- ing from here," Johns said about find- ing out he'd be in the starting lineup minutes before tip-off. "Starting here is pretty cool, but I wanted to keep a level head and not do too much." The Izzone, Michigan State's stu- dent section, was brutal (as expected) to the kid who chose the Wolverines over the hometown Spartans. He re- ceived the majority of the 'boos' when he was announced as a starter with the rest of his teammates. "That was great," Johns said with a smile. "I love it. I love that stuff. It's like a fire — you take it, you embrace it and everything, and I just love it. "It's supposed to get under people's skin or whatever, but I think when you're a true competitor, it really just fires you up." Johns added two rebounds and a steal while playing a career-high 30 minutes in the loss. "Coming back here, I think he did fine," U-M senior center Jon Teske said of Johns' performance. "He did a great job of stepping in for Isaiah again, and you can see his athleticism. He can knock down threes, get into the paint; he's very strong down low. "He's only going to get better from here. He's only a sophomore." Johns, who was averaging 4.9 points and 4.0 rebounds per contest as of Jan. 20, notched his breakout perfor- mance against Iowa in early Decem- ber, scoring 12 points and grabbing eight rebounds. Eight days later, on his birthday, he notched eight points, nine rebounds and two assists in an overtime loss to Oregon. He made his first career start against UMass Lowell Dec. 29 and notched a solid six points and four rebounds in 21 minutes. But there is still room for improve- ment. Johns was shooting only 25 percent from long range, joining his teammates in struggling from long range, especially on the road. "I think we hesitate a lot with our threes [on the road], second guess ourselves," Johns said. "I think we need to be more confident in our shooting. "It's a mental thing, so we've just got to stay mentally strong, mentally composed, and the more we do that, the more our shots will fall." — Chris Balas ROAD TEAMS STRUGGLING IN BIG TEN PLAY Heading into late January, the Wol- verines had an opportunity to make up some ground in the Big Ten race. The Wolverines were 2-4 in conference play but had faced the toughest sched- ule in the Big Ten to that point with six games against teams listed in KenPom. com top 40, and four of them on the road — Michigan State (No. 7), Iowa (No. 15), Minnesota (No. 32) and Illi- nois (No. 36). They also beat Iowa and Purdue (No. 17) at home. Five of their next six games, mean- while, were to be home games — Penn State, Illinois, Rutgers (at Madison Square Garden in New York), Ohio State and Michigan State — with the only true road game against a 7-11 Ne- braska team (as of Jan. 20). U-M stood 11th out of 14 Big Ten teams as of Jan. 20, but seemed primed to move up quickly. Road teams were an unbelievably poor 7-42 through the Jan. 19, while home teams not named Nebraska and Northwestern (the two outliers in a conference currently pro- jected to send a record 12 teams to the NCAA Tournament) were an amaz- ing 39-3 in conference play. The top 12 teams had an astounding 117-10 over- all home record, a staggering number. Michigan might well have won one or both of the Minnesota and Iowa games with Livers, but such are the breaks. The Wolverines were one of five conference teams that had yet to win a true road game this year (0-5), joined by Indiana (0-3), Maryland (0-4), Nebraska (0-5) and Minnesota (0-6). "I didn't know about what the Big Ten was like last year, but I recall back when I was playing, it was never easy to win a Big Ten game on the road," head coach Juwan Howard said after the Iowa loss. "Now, you look at the numbers this year, and it's like, 'Yeah, a lot of Big Ten teams have been hav- ing challenges throughout the season trying to win on the road.' I don't have answers for it — I don't." He wasn't the only one. Michigan State, for example, was 4-0 with a very favorable Big Ten schedule before go- ing to Purdue and getting shellacked by 29 points. Ohio State destroyed Penn State 106- 74 in December and lost 90-76 in State College Jan. 18, and as one outlet re- ported, in one sequence, PSU won at home by seven over Maryland, which won at home by 16 over Indiana, which won at home by 12 over Ohio State, which won at home by 32 over Penn State. The oddest part about it — this wasn't a trend across all conferences; just the Big Ten. As Pomeroy noted, the tendency was entirely different across the country. "I'm seeing/hearing lots of people note how tough it is to win on the road this year, but the Big Ten is not the entire world," he tweeted. "My home court advantage (HCA) model says HCA is as low as it's ever been, and home teams have won just 59.6 percent of conference games so far … the third lowest of all time." It needed to hold true, though, if U-M wanted to get back in the Big Ten race. Michigan State was 6-1 through its first seven, while Illinois and Rut- gers both got off to 5-2 starts to cre- ate some distance a third of the way through the conference season. — Chris Balas MISCELLANEOUS NOTES All statistics as of Jan. 19 • Senior center Jon Teske's 2.06 blocks per game are tied with Michigan State ju- nior forward Xavier Tillman and Wisconsin junior forward Nate Reuvers as the fifth most in the Big Ten. • U-M's 90-83 loss at Iowa Jan. 17 was its fourth Big Ten setback of the year; last season's Wolverines didn't drop their fourth conference game until a loss to Michigan State Feb. 24 after beginning the campaign with a 13-3 league record. • Michigan's showdown with Rutgers Feb. 1 at Madison Square Garden in New York will mark the second time the Maize and Blue participated in the Big Ten's Su- per Saturday showdown, which annually features a league wrestling/basketball doubleheader. The Wolverines took part in the debut event, defeating Penn State 79-72 at the historic venue on Jan. 30, 2016. • The Maize and Blue's 84-78 triumph over Purdue Jan. 9 was the program's first double-overtime win since March 20, 2006, when it defeated Notre Dame 87- 84 in the postseason NIT. • Freshman guard Franz Wagner aver- aged 7.6 points per game in his first six collegiate outings (from the Nov. 27 win over Iowa State through the Dec. 11 loss at Illinois), but has since tallied 12.5 per contest from that point on (spanning the Dec. 14 setback to Oregon to the Jan. 17 defeat at Iowa). — Austin Fox