Anyone who’s followed the Michigan women’s basketball team for the last few years has seen the varying success of combo guards adjusting to the starting point guard role. Last season, it was former guard Lauren Hansen initially and later on, former guard Laila Phelia mixed in some reps. The year before, former wing Leigha Brown brought the ball up. It’s been since 2022, a season in which the program reached all-time heights, since the Wolverines have had a “true” starting point guard. That year, they had two in Amy Dilk and Danielle Rauch.
This year, whether the Wolverines would attempt to transition another experienced off-ball guard was still unknown entering the team’s preseason exhibition. Particularly in a program not known for starting freshmen, senior guard Jordan Hobbs seemed like an option.
But when freshman guard Mila Holloway’s name was announced in Michigan’s starting lineup against Northwood, it marked a return to the Wolverines’ point guard identity of old. Gone are the growing pains of transitioning someone back into a position they haven’t played in years — for Holloway, those growing pains will only be felt from the transition to the next level.
“It’s definitely been a lot, just knowing I have to take on a bigger role,” Holloway said Sunday postgame. “It’s obviously higher intensity in college. More to know, you fill bigger shoes, honestly, but I feel like it’s been a great transition, being able to pick up, obviously, coaches and my teammates helping me fit into my role.”
In her first game, those growing pains were on display, but flashes of excellence were as well.
Stepping up in her debut, Holloway scored 15 points, the second-most on the team behind fellow freshman guard Olivia Olson. She opened the scoring for Michigan with the first five points of the game, and then streaked to the basket for a tough and-1 floater to separate the Wolverines early.
“She is super shifty,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “She can get to the rim. She’s a great passer, high IQ kid, and she can knock down the three. That’s really hard to guard.”
However, Holloway still showed room for improvement. Besides those early five points, two other “fives” stood out on the stat sheet: Holloway’s five turnovers and five fouls, resigning her to the bench with over six minutes to play.
“We got to keep her out of foul trouble,” Barnes Arico said. “… And I think her foul trouble really clogged things up for us too. Because of how shifty she is, she would have drawn more fouls, and I think that would have opened things up for us.”
Picking up her fourth foul less than two minutes into the second half, Holloway’s discipline will be an emphasized point of improvement throughout the season, because Michigan appears better with her on the floor. With foul trouble relegating her to the bench, the Wolverines’ offense was far more restricted.
Michigan’s offensive approach is to run fast, and that all starts with Holloway. The Wolverines want to either start with an outlet off a defensive rebound and push in transition, or have Holloway utilize her shiftiness to penetrate the paint and facilitate the offense from inside, dumping a pass down low or kicking it out for a quick shot. With Holloway out of the game, those options decrease — and so did Michigan’s scoring rate against Northwood.
“I challenge Mila on every possession to either advance the ball,” Barnes Arico said. “… If you have (Olson) and (freshman guard Syla Swords) running on the lanes, that’s really hard to stop. So if she can advance it, advance it. If you can’t, then I want her to try to get a paint touch. So I want her to get in the paint with two feet in the paint, and then play out of that. If that all breaks down, then we can get some kind of offense.”
Holloway’s shortcomings in the exhibition — turnovers and fouls — were seemingly ‘freshman’ mistakes due to a lack of experience at the collegiate level, rather than a lack of expertise at her position. Her aggression on the court both attacking the basket — her fifth foul was a charge — and defending needs to be more disciplined. But again, discipline is something that can be learned with more minutes.
So if Michigan is able to keep its floor general in the game, her command is likely to improve as she gains more experience. And for the first time since 2022, the learning curve for the Wolverines’ starting point guard won’t be fitting a player into a new position.
The post Mila Holloway flashes early success as first true starting point guard in years appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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