Entering Friday night's game, the Fighting Illini had won nine straight games against the Wolverines. The streak didn't hit double digits.
For the time since Jan. 10, 2019, the No. 3 Michigan men's basketball team (27-2 overall, 17-1 Big Ten) beat No. 10 Illinois (22-7, 13-5) by a final score of 84-70
The Wolverines came out of the gates looking a little bit stiff, and its half-court offense was slightly disorganized. On the road against a top-10 team, though, that's not entirely unexpected. Where they did find early success, however, was in the paint.
The biggest beneficiary of this form of attack was sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr., who finished the first half with 13 points and five rebounds. This game meant a little bit extra for Johnson, because in his freshman season last year, he wore the Illinois orange. The Illini faithful showered him with boos all night, but Johnson didn't seem to mind. He collected four offensive rebounds, knocked in a 3-pointer, and got the the free-throw line six times in the first half alone.
Both teams were struggling from beyond the arc, which benefitted the Wolverines. They have enough size to reliably score points without much of a 3-point threat, and the Illini were clearly having trouble navigating Michigan's interior defense.
The Wolverines took a 22-16 lead thanks to an 11-0 run with 9:45 to play in the half, and they didn't relinquish it before halftime.
Michigan and the Illini largely mirrored each other in the first period: Both squads had 17 rebounds — including seven offensive — and both teams made 13 field goals with three 3-pointers. Michigan gained its only separation at the free-throw line, knocking down nine of them compared to Illinois' two. As a result, it entered the break with a solid 38-31 lead.
Michigan opened up the second half with a newfound intensity. It made six of its first seven shots in the second half, five of which came in the paint. Illinois clearly hadn't come up with a satisfactory plan to mitigate the Wolverines' physicality at halftime, and Michigan took a 51-41 by the first media timeout.
Illinois is too good of a team to let a 10-point deficit at home snowball into a blowout that quickly, and as expected, the Illini jumped right back into the game. Illinois forward David Mirkovic took advantage of a smaller Roddy Gayle Jr. for an easy bucket, and an offensive rebound kickout to freshman phenom Keaton Wagler brought the score back to 53-48.
The Illini could only hold on for so long, though.
Dribbling casually on the right wing, junior guard Elliot Cadeau lulled the defense into a trance. But on the other side of the court, junior center Aday Mara was sneaking to the rim. Cadeau calmly threw the ball toward the backboard, and the 7-foor-3 Mara slammed it home. On the very next possession, Mara collected an offensive rebound and muscled through a foul to convert an and-1. Just like that, the Wolverines had a 66-52 lead.
Michigan wasn't done there. Freshman guard Trey McKenney entered the game and airballed a 3-pointer, hearing about it from Illinois' student section. With a short memory, McKenney smoothly knocked down back-to-back triples to extend the Wolverines' lead to 18 points at 72-54 with just under eight minutes to play.
The game was slipping away from the Illini.
The next few minutes were crucial for Illinois, because if it wanted to make a comeback, it needed to start as soon as possible. But the Illini just didn't have it in them. The Wolverines kept their lead hovering around the 20-point mark, and with under four minutes remaining, they held an 18-point margin.
The fight was over from there. With the 84-70 win, Michigan clinched sole possession of the Big Ten regular season title, and improved its case for the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. After the loss to No. 1 Duke last week, the Wolverines are making sure that no one is counting them out just yet.
