MINNEAPOLIS — Despite riding a three-game conference win streak, the No. 24 Michigan women’s basketball team needed a confidence booster. The Wolverines needed confirmation that they were more than a team that can beat unranked opponents, yet still fall to anyone ranked in the top 25, as they’ve done in each of their previous five chances.
Wednesday night on the road against No. 23 Minnesota, Michigan finally got that confirmation in a 70-65 back-and-forth win. Despite flashing brief spells of the same mistakes that sank them in past ranked matchups, the Wolverines overcame those struggles to squeak past a tough ranked team away from home.
“I think we’ve really tested ourselves … this entire season,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “We played against two No. 1 opponents already and we’ve had an incredibly challenging schedule. So we’ve been close a lot of times. And I keep telling these young players that they have to go through it a little bit to come out the other end. … So for us to be able to get the victory tonight was nice and a credit to their hard work.”
Playing a gauntlet of five top-10 opponents — including then-No.1 South Carolina and No. 1 UCLA — in the Wolverines’ non-conference and early Big Ten schedule, Barnes Arico sounded a bit like a broken record. After each loss, she reiterated that each game was a valuable learning experience for arguably the youngest starting roster in the country. But when Michigan dropped a home game on Jan. 8 to then-No. 9 Ohio State in the fourth quarter, those words started falling flat.
But Wednesday night in Minnesota, Michigan brought some life back.
“That’s why we came to Michigan, is to play the best of the best and to test ourselves against what is the best basketball in the country,” freshman guard Syla Swords said. “So whether it’s a No. 1 team, a No. 25 team, we’re going to show up and play Michigan basketball with that. And just coming together in those big moments … is just showing the strength of schedule and how we’ve grown from that.”
Issues like fourth-quarter defense, foul trouble and inconsistent scoring have contributed to the Wolverines’ shortcomings in ranked matchups thus far. For the first time against a ranked opponent, though, Michigan overcame those lapses to win.
Michigan seemed poised to collapse with foul trouble relegating some of its leading scorers to the bench, particularly when the Golden Gophers attacked inside — eerily similar to the Wolverines’ games against Oklahoma and the Buckeyes. But Michigan lasted the rest of the game without a single player fouling out.
“I thought our discipline in the second half was outstanding,” Barnes Arico said. “ … I think we communicated better. We were able to switch things that we weren’t able to do in the first half.”
With freshman guard Mila Holloway, senior guard Jordan Hobbs and junior center Yulia Grabovskaia playing disciplined with four fouls apiece in the fourth quarter, the Wolverines successfully prevented another old issue from flaring up.
Simply put, the Wolverines’ ranked opponents have outscored Michigan in the fourth quarter by an average of 10 points before Wednesday night. Fourth-quarter defensive lapses opened the door for their opponents to make runs where late in games, each run could ultimately be the difference-maker.
Minnesota went on a few runs throughout the game, with a critical 9-0 stretch to end the first half acting as the Gophers’ first separator. An 8-0 run late in the third quarter flipped a four-point Michigan advantage to a Minnesota one. But the Wolverines ensured that it was the Gophers’ last, finally flipping the script.
Limiting Minnesota to just 11 points in the final frame, Michigan forced eight critical misses and generated three steals. Remaining disciplined on defense, the Wolverines only gifted the Gophers four free throw attempts down the stretch, forcing Minnesota to earn each point the hard way. In their most recent ranked game against the Buckeyes, Michigan gifted Ohio State 12 attempts at the line in what ultimately yielded a 31-20 fourth-quarter deficit and seven-point loss.
Getting its first ranked win doesn’t mean that Michigan will beat every ranked team it faces from here on out, but the Wolverines are beginning to turn lessons learned into actions taken on the court. So for now, Barnes Arico and Michigan will celebrate their first ranked win while overcoming their top-10 ghosts.
The post Michigan turns the page, picks up first signature ranked win against No. 23 Minnesota appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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