Submitted by matty blue
on January 10th, 2021 at 10:36 AM
[Ed: Ace: Bumping matty blue again. All photos by JD Scott/MGoBlog.]
COVID. That’s it. That’s the intro.
Okay, fine, i’ll continue. We knew that this was going to be a weird season, a ‘let’s cross our fingers and hope it all works out’ season. Putting aside the obvious incongruity of even having a season when a meaningful portion of schools are limiting and / or eliminating in-person instruction, once it started you knew there’d be hitches. UConn and Baylor were all set to play a hugely-anticipated game this past Wednesday. It was scratched because of the euphemistic “COVID concerns within the programs,” one of which turned out to be Baylor Head Coach Kim Mulkey.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) Naz Hillmon scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds and No. 15 Michigan continued its school-best star with a 70-50 win over Illinois on Sunday. Akienreh Johnson.
BTN+
Ann Arbor, Mich. –
Sam Haiby led Nebraska with 27 points and nine rebounds, but a furious fourth-quarter rally fell short in a 64-62 women’s basketball loss at unbeaten and No. 15 Michigan at the Crisler Center on Thursday night.
Trailing 60-49 midway through the fourth quarter, the Huskers got a three-pointer from
Isabelle Bourne to spark a 9-0 run. Bourne, who finished with nine points, added another basket before Haiby got a steal and layup to pull the Big Red within 60-56. The Huskers got another stop before
Bella Cravens knocked down an elbow jumper to bring Nebraska within 60-58.
THE OVERVIEW
There are three Big Ten games today, two of which will have an impact on the teams directly behind Michigan in standings (Iowa just beat Rutgers, Illinois-Purdue at 6) and one with delightfully little relevance to the conference title picture (MSU-Nebraska). No matter how those play out, Michigan can maintain first place in the conference by holding serve at home on Sunday against the surprise of the season thus far, Northwestern, which is in the four-team pack one game behind M in the loss column.
This game marks the first time in 175 meetings between Michigan and Northwestern that both programs enter the game ranked in the polls.
Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images
The No. 15 Northwestern Wildcats (4-1, 2-1 Big Ten) have a little bit more Big Ten play under their belts than the No. 16 Michigan Wolverines (6-0, 1-0 Big Ten) do, but they are coming off Thursday’s heartbreaking upset loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, while Michigan had no trouble taking care of business against the Wisconsin Badgers, 92-49, on the same day.
The defending Big Ten regular season co-champion, Northwestern came into this season with very high expectations. The Wildcats have solid wins over the Minnesota Golden Gophers (Dec. 14) and Purdue Boilermakers (Dec. 17), but the unranked Cornhuskers’ Sam Haiby made a layup at the buzzer to take them down.