Illinois' Brad Underwood Credits Michigan as Wolverines Win Big Ten in Dominant Fashion

The Wolverines were clearly the better team on the court.

Ron Johnson-Imagn Images

Michigan had already won at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, but after a thorough, dominant win in Champaign on Friday night, the Wolverines are your outright Big Ten champions — with two games left to be played.

The Wolverines were the better team in the first half, but the second 60 minutes it clearly showed. Michigan walked out of State Farm Center with a 84-70 win, and that final score didn't do the game justice.

Michigan dominated the paint and out-rebounded one of the best rebounding teams out there. The Wolverines' trio of bigs were on another level and Illinois had no answers.

Illinois coach Brad Underwood applauded Michigan after the game.

“I’d like to congratulate Michigan," Underwood said. Whoa, they’re good. My hat’s off to Dusty [May] and that crew. They were the better team tonight. I hope we get the opportunity to play them again once or twice. 

“But yeah — they owned the paint. The game was dominated there. I thought Morez [Johnson] in the first half was the best player on the court. His offensive rebounding, his activity, and then the second half Aday [Mara] was better than good. So, my hat’s off. We’ve been very, very good all year on exploiting mismatches. They’re pretty good.

"...“But they’ve won a lot of games and they’re very, very good. They’re as good a basketball team as maybe I’ve seen in this league in my nine years. Tom Izzo’s first Jaren Jackson [Michigan State] team was pretty good, but this one’s really good.”

Ron Johnson-Imagn Images

Underwood said the loss wasn't on his team, but more so on him. While Underwood took the loss better than some coaches — Mick Cronin — the fact is Michigan was just a better team. As Underwood later said, Michigan took its belt off and beat Illinois' behinds with it.

“My hat’s off to them. They’ve earned it, and they deserve the opportunity to hoist that trophy, and they did that tonight,” Undeerwood said. “The lesson was learned. They took the belt off and beat our behinds with it.

“Credit to their personnel. It’s really good. We got some mismatches based on some of their substitutions, but for the most part, probably as many challenges as we’ve had exploiting mismatches. They played harder than we did. They played nastier than we did.”

Underwood speaks more in-depth on Morez

After one season playing for Illinois, Morez Johnson transferred to Michigan to continue his career. Fans lined up in the State Farm Center, shouting at Johnson, holding up 'clown' signs of him — but that didn't fluster the dominant big.

Instead, Johnson tied Aday Mara with 19 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds. While some didn't think Johnson made the right choice playing for Michigan, it worked out well with Johnson hoisting a Big Ten championship.

Ron Johnson-Imagn Images

“I don’t have any emotions. He’s a good player,” Underwood said. “That’s the new world. I love Morez to death. He’s a terrific, terrific young man. He left for the reasons he left for, which you would have to ask him. But we do what we do in our program. We’re the best development program in the country … all the stuff we did, there’s a reason he played before he broke his hand. He was an important piece to our team last year and our success. He’s a next level guy, and he showed that tonight. 

“The first half, everything was in the three-foot radius of the rim, and Morez just owned it. Morez got every ball. The physicality, the hit. We all know Morez … the first play of the game, it’s let me see how hard I can hit Mirk [David Mirkovic] and he just launched him. That physicality has got to be matched back. We’ve done that at times … but we have to come up with balls.”

Michigan's next game will come at Iowa on Thursday.