The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1396591
paign, with the squad winning the Big Ten regular-season title and advanc- ing to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight, after being picked to finish sixth in the league during the preseason. During the postseason run, U-M was without star forward Isaiah Livers — the team's second-leading scorer — who suffered a stress fracture on his foot after the team's first Big Ten Tour- nament contest, but was still right on the verge of a Final Four appearance. Howard and Co. inked the nation's No. 1 2022 recruiting class and could be even more improved this com- ing season, with the trajectory only pointing up from here. Most Improved Female Team Field Hockey U-M fizzled out at the end of the 2019 season, losing in its Big Ten and NCAA Tournament openers. Then came a long offseason, which spanned 15 months with the 2020 campaign being pushed back until the spring of 2021. By the time the Wolverines took the field once again, they were much improved. The Maize and Blue breezed through the regular season, finish- ing 10-2 overall and 6-0 in confer- ence play while winning the Big Ten title. They went on to outscore their three Big Ten Tournament opponents — Michigan State, No. 4 Iowa and Ohio State — by a combined tally of 9-1, before earning the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Wolverines opened up the event with a 2-0 win over Bucknell, which set up a showdown with No. 3 seed Lou- isville. U-M won a thriller, with junior Katie Anderson converting in the sixth round of the shootout to propel the Wolverines to the national title game. The Maize and Blue mounted a comeback against No. 1 seed North Carolina, overcoming a two-goal deficit to force overtime, but fell just short, 4-3, against the Tar Heels, who claimed their third straight national championship. The Wolverines finished the 2020- 21 season with a 15-3 record — the program's most wins since posting a record 21 in 2017 — and swept the Big Ten regular-season championship and tournament title for the fifth time in program history. U-M reached the NCAA championship game for the third time since 1999 and first since winning it all in 2001. BEST INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES Best Male Individual Performance Myles Amine Wins Big Ten Wrestling Title The sixth-year senior 197-pounder had been the Big Ten runner-up at 174 pounds (2018, 2019) before finally tak- ing home a conference crown this past season. At the Big Ten Championships, he took down previously unbeaten Ne- braska star Eric Schultz, winning a 7-3 decision in the final. Amine scored a pair of takedowns in the first period, finishing on a single leg in the match's opening minute and add- ing a double leg roughly a minute later. The wrestlers traded escapes early in the second and third periods before Amine notched a counter takedown in the final 15 seconds of the bout to seal the deal. That win improved Amine to 6-0 on the season. He became the first U-M wrestler to capture a Big Ten title since 2018 and the first to do so at 197 pounds since Tyrel Todd in 2009. He went on to place third at the NCAA Champion- ships, the fourth top-four national show- ing of his career. Best Female Individual Performance Naz Hillmon Drops 50 On Ohio State Junior forward Naz Hillmon had a special performance in Michigan's first loss of the season at Ohio State Jan. 21, breaking the Michigan bas- ketball scoring record with 50 points, the most points by a men's or women's player in U-M history and the school's first-ever 50-point game. Hillmon scored 64.9 percent of U-M's (77) points, and her 20 made field goals also set a program record. She also brought down 16 rebounds in what was one of her 15 double- doubles on the year. Hillmon was shining when it mattered most, too. The Wol- verines were down 66-54 at the end of the third quarter and 14 points at one point in the stanza, but Hillmon led the comeback charge, scoring 31 second-half points to help U-M to a 69-67 lead with 3:07 to play in the fourth. However, Michigan ended up falling, 81-77. B e f o r e p l a c i n g t h i r d a t t h e N C A A Championships, Myles Amine won U-M's first Big Ten wrestling title since 2018. PHOTO BY SAM JANICKI Naz Hillmon became the first Wolverine — male or female — to score 50 points in a game, when she did so in a loss to Ohio State. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL AUGUST 2021 THE WOLVERINE 45