Chris Hunter’s slam dunk electrified the Crisler Arena crowd. That is, until fans’ attention shifted to the scene at the free-throw line.
With nine minutes remaining in Wednesday’s game against Northwestern, Daniel Horton drove the lane and rose for a floater. The shot was off the mark, and Horton fell to the ground hard, landing awkwardly on his ankle. Following Hunter’s putback dunk, officials called a timeout, and Michigan coach Tommy Amaker ran onto the floor immediately to check on his senior point guard. Horton stayed on the ground clutching his ankle but eventually was helped back to the locker room.
“I was very concerned that it was a pretty severe injury,” Amaker said.
Much to Crisler’s delight, Horton emerged from the locker room and returned to the bench at the 7:32 mark. But just as he sat down, another Wolverine received a scare.
As junior forward Brent Petway battled for a loose ball, he took an elbow from Wildcat Vedran Vukusic right in the mouth. Petway, too, made his way to the locker room, but, he did not return to the court.
“It’s not even loose, it just got knocked backward,” Petway said of his tooth, which caused two cuts above his mouth. “I tried to move it up, and it won’t move. It’s like it’s sturdy.”
Both players were fine in the locker room after the game. Horton planned to practice yesterday, and Petway received dental treatment following Wednesday’s game.
Who-kusic?: Vukusic, Northwestern’s senior forward and the Big Ten’s leading scorer, looked to be on pace to increase his scoring average after a hot-shooting first half. The Croatia native shot 5-for-7 from the field and tallied 13 points. His crafty play and ability to hit the open jumper single-handedly kept the Wildcats in the game despite Michigan shooting 76 percent in the first half.
But Hunter had different plans coming out of halftime.
The senior led the defensive effort that forced Vukusic to settle for a 1-for-10 performance from the field in the final stanza. Along with fellow senior Graham Brown, Hunter continually frustrated Vukusic, making him take poor shots.
“I just wanted to be active with him,” Hunter said. “(I wanted to) use my length to try and bother him a bit.”
Said Amaker: “I thought Chris Hunter, in particular, and his minutes off the bench were tremendous . his energy guarding Vukusic was terrific.”
Learning the hard way: With 12:11 left and the game well in hand for the Wolverines, Amaker was not done coaching. After freshman point guard Jerret Smith tried dribbling through a half-court trap for the second time, Amaker immediately called a timeout. Amaker’s eyes were fixated on Smith for the majority of the timeout.
“I was trying to do too much today, and he was just trying to calm me down.” Smith said. “I hadn’t seen that kind of press before, and I didn’t know what to do, so I was just trying a lot of different things. He just told me to stick with the gameplan.”
Smith – who had four turnovers at the time – responded with an assist to Hunter, followed by a steal that led to a coast-to-coast lay-up.
Aside from Smith’s four turnovers, Michigan committed just 10 more, compared to 21 assists – the third game this season in which the Wolverines totaled over 20.
On the other side, the Wildcats committed 18 turnovers compared to just 10 assists. They had entered the game with the Big Ten’s best assist-to-turnover ratio.
Beware of a hungry Gopher: In Minneapolis on Saturday, Michigan will look to get above the .500 mark in conference play for the first time this year.
There, the Wolverines will face a hungry Minnesota squad, which remains the only winless team in the conference. The Gophers are coming off a heartbreaking near-upset of No. 25 Iowa on Wednesday, which they lost by four in triple overtime.
But Michigan knows it will be up against a desperate Gopher team that can cause havoc on the defensive end.
“We have to prepare very well for Minnesota,” Horton said. “They do some trapping that we don’t usually see.”
Horton said he believes seeing similar looks from Northwestern on Wednesday should help the team feel confident that it can get its first road win of the conference season.
“To face that type of defense and have 22 assists (Wednesday) says a lot,” Horton said.
Tomorrow
Michigan at Minnesota
8 p.m.
Williams Arena
ESPN-Plus