ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Dug McDaniel got things started for Michigan on Saturday night.
Tarris Reed Jr. helped close the deal.
With their season on the brink, the Wolverines' followed one freshman’s lead and then watched another apply the finishing touch.
And amid everything else that happened Saturday night at the Crisler Center, where Michigan capped an emotional night with an 84-72 win over archrival Michigan State, there was this takeaway, too: Where those two freshmen go from here will say a lot about where Juwan Howard’s basketball program is headed.
Even if it’s not back to the NCAA Tournament this spring — Saturday’s impressive second-half served notice that Michigan certainly isn’t throwing in the towel — this was important.
Maybe a bit reassuring as well, to see a team that has coughed up a handful of games late come up big in the clutch Saturday night. And to see the youngest team in the Big Ten — one of the youngest in the country, for that matter — grow up a little on the court at the same time.
“Sometimes, we all expect freshmen to be able to play well every time, all the time,” said Howard, who probably understands that better than anyone as the founding member of the Fab Five a generation ago. “But it takes time to grow into this game.”
Dug digs in
Time was running out Saturday, they all knew that, after back-to-back losses at home to Indiana and at Wisconsin last week.
But it was McDaniel, the freshman point guard, who provided the early spark against the Spartans, with three quick buckets in the first 90 seconds, including a corner three and a pick-pocket steal of MSU’s Tyson Walker that led to a fastbreak layup.
“When he set the tone the way he did,” Howard said, “the guys really rallied behind Dug.”
He’d go on to finish with a career-high 18 points while adding four rebounds and four assists without a turnover in 39 minutes Saturday. It was a far cry from his early-January debut in this rivalry in East Lansing, where McDaniel — who’d been hospitalized with an illness just prior to that first meeting, went scoreless in 26 minutes in an ugly 59-53 loss.
But I already knew (this) was going to happen," said Reed, who is McDaniels’ roommate. "We talked about it last night, talked about it earlier this week: What happened at Michigan State, and how he didn't play as well. … I knew he’d come out with fire. I wasn’t even surprised.”
Neither was McDaniel, who looked — and later sounded — like he wanted to make a statement Saturday.
"My mindset was I owed them this game," McDaniel said. "Last game there were some health issues. But my mindset was, ‘I gotta let them know that I’m here.’"
Freshman's finish
For Reed, it was more about letting everyone know he was here to stay in the end. And the fact that the 6-foot-10, 260-pound freshman was out there on the court for the final 12 minutes Saturday spoke volumes.
He’d been relegated to the bench at crunch time in previous losses, partly due to his poor free-throw shooting. But against Michigan State, with junior forward Terrance Williams II still sidelined by a knee injury and Jett Howard hobbling off the court early in the second half with an ankle injury, Michigan had to turn to the bench for bigger minutes.
And this time, Juwan Howard decided to let his two-big lineup roll, sticking with a quintet that featured McDaniel and Kobe Bufkin in the backcourt, Joey Baker on the wing and Reed working alongside Hunter Dickinson up front.
It worked, as Michigan dominated in the paint down the stretch to pull away. Reed scored all of his season-high eight points in the second half, and he added three offensive rebounds, three blocked shots and a steal in the final 7 minutes.
“We wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for him,” McDaniel said.
Reed’s rebound of Baker’s missed three-pointer and the and-1 putback over Joey Hauser tied the game at 63-all with 6:58 left. Reed, who finished with a game-high 10 rebounds Saturday, added a tip-in follow on Michigan’s next possession. Then he converted another three-point play with 2:55 to play when a double-teamed Dickinson found him rolling to the basket. And it was Reed’s weak-side block of Hauser with 1:30 remaining that set the stage for Dickinson's three-point dagger at the other end.
“Tarris is just scratching the surface,” Juwan Howard said. “I see the confidence. It’s increasing. It’s getting better.”
The free throws are, too, everyone insists, though Reed finished just 2-for-5 from the line Saturday, with one of those makes a banked-in effort. And while redshirt freshman Will Tschetter again drew the starting nod in place of Williams, this time it was Reed who finished the game, unlike Tuesday in the loss at Wisconsin.
“It was pretty special,” Reed said. “I’m not gonna lie: I was a little surprised that, even though I missed two free throws before, Coach trusted me in the game.”
But he did, and Howard’s faith was rewarded because his advice was heeded.
“It’s just me playing at my own pace, talking to Coach and slowing down,” Reed said. “I'm going to improve. but I'm just a freshman. I'm still learning on the fly. And everything is coming so fast and so quick at me. But it has been slowing down a little bit, so it should be getting better.”
We’ll see how much better, and how quickly, over these next few weeks as Michigan chases the postseason. The Wolverines have four regular-season games left and three of them are on the road, starting with Thursday’s trip to Rutgers. And as Reed acknowledged after Saturday's win, “We’re still in a bad position, a tough predicament right now."
Still, even if this late-season bid falls short for Michigan, there’s something to be gained for the future. And if Saturday’s win was “a little momentum-booster,” it was also a sign there’s something to build on here.
It’s too early to know what next year’s roster will look like, obviously. Will Dickinson decide to return for his senior season? Will Jett Howard go the one-and-done route and head off to the NBA? Bufkin’s draft stock is rising, too, for that matter. And Michigan almost assuredly will jump into the portal looking for help on the wing.
But McDaniels, who was pegged for a backup role this season before grad transfer Jaelin Llewellyn went down with a torn ACL in early December, has shown he’s capable of being a Big Ten starter at the most important position on the floor. And a big-game performance like Saturday night — McDaniels played all 20 minutes in the second half — only confirms he can be a difference-maker going forward.
Reed, meanwhile, is a raw talent with tremendous upside, as that final 10 minutes against the Spartans spotlighted at both ends of the floor.
“I have a lot of tricks in my bag that a lot of people don’t expect me to do out there,” Reed said, smiling. “When I get to 100 percent showing my offensive skill set … dangerous.”
There's a danger in making any long-term projections in college basketball, of course. And one game won't dramatically alter this season's fate for Michigan. But the freshmen did "show something," as McDaniel said, and that shouldn't go unnoticed.
