The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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JANUARY 2024 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 37 sophomore forward Will Tschetter said of his thoughts while McDaniel was hitting shot after shot. "He rattled off 4 threes in a row in the second half, which was pretty sick. That dude's just a gamer. You know what to expect from him every single time he touches the floor for game day." The Wolverines have needed each and every one of the plays McDaniel has made this year. But Michigan hasn't gotten consistent offensive perfor- mances from others — McDaniel is av- eraging 6.8 assists per game in wins and 3.4 in losses — so interim head coach Phil Martelli is torn on how to feel about McDaniel's offensive explosion. "It's a catch-22 to me," Martelli said before Michigan played Indiana Dec. 5. "His performance was spectacular, for sure. But as you go back and watch, was it that we weren't able to create offense elsewhere? You're not getting that ev- ery single night, but it was spectacular, particularly on the road. Those were big buckets. And at the end of the day, I scratched my head — I didn't know that he had taken 21 shots. "The seven guys that are getting in can all score the ball. So, we have to learn offense that equals that kind of balance and not just lean on spectacular play. "We are not game planning — and I don't mean this in a smart ass way — but we are not game planning for him to get 30 against Indiana, because one thing Indiana can really, really, really do is guard the ball. It's a terrific defense that they have. "And now, he puts himself at the top of everybody's scouting report, so now does he become a distributor, and when he distributes, who confidently picks up that ability to score the ball?" In that Dec. 5 game against Indiana, a 78-75 loss that dropped the Wolverines to 4-5 and below .500 for the first time since 2009-10, McDaniel shot 3 of 14 from the field, finishing with 13 points. Michigan held a six-point lead with under nine minutes to go, was up one with less than four minutes remaining and tied with a minute left, but it didn't make enough shots or get a satisfactory amount of stops down the stretch. "That's who we're riding with," Mar- telli said. "... He's playing a lot of min- utes, asked to guard the other team's ball-handler and, you know what, he was like a boxer. And today, he got knocked down. He'll get up — he didn't get knocked out, but he got knocked down. "Hopefully, with Jaelin playing a little bit more, a little bit more [as he returns from injury], we can cut his minutes down. Maybe some of it is fatigue at the end." McDaniel also missed a trio of key free throws in the final three minutes. "We're all human; we're all going to make mistakes," Tschetter said. "I don't know if he felt that pressure, but we all make mistakes." McDaniel is still growing, and he needs help around him, but he was huge with 26 points and 7 assists in a win over St. John's Nov. 13, and 20 points and 8 dimes in a victory over Stanford Nov. 23. As Tschetter added, "He's going to win us a ton of games. We need him." ❏ McDaniel's year-over-year improvement has been impressive. Michigan's sophomore point guard was averaging a team-high 18.6 points and 5.1 assists per game through the first 10 games. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL