Michigan Plays Its Best Game Of The Year, Handles Indiana
What a game for the Wolverines. Michigan going on the road and beating Indiana in Bloomington by 18 points is exactly what this program needed. Michigan now has a quad-one win after handing the Hoosiers their first home loss of the season.
Before the game started, I outlined three players that needed to step up in order to win in Bloomington — Hunter Dickinson, Caleb Houstan and DeVante' Jones — and did they ever.
Dickinson finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and four assists to lead the way for the Wolverines. He was extremely efficient going 9-for-12 from the floor, including 3-for-4 from behind the long line. To put it bluntly, he showed why he's an All-American today.
Houstan also had another outstanding performance. The freshman looks to have finally found his shot as he knocked down five of seven three pointers against the Hoosiers. He moved well without the ball, shot it with confidence and looked like Michigan fans thought he would when he arrived in Ann Arbor. Houstan also added six rebounds and had several nice defensive efforts against some pretty big, versatile Hoosiers.
And finally there's Jones. He only scored seven points but he played smart and had some very timely big plays all day long. He finished with seven assists, including two or three beautiful dimes to Dickinson and also grabbed four boards and even recorded a block. He did have four fouls for the first time in over a month, but one of them was an extremely questionable charge call early in the first half.
Finally, Michigan looks to be playing up to its potential. Beating an Indiana team that was 12-0 at home is not a good win, it's a great win. If the above trio can continue to play at today's level, with random solid performances like the one from Terrence Williams II, who scored 10 points and knocked down both of his three-point tries, this team is going to win a lot of games moving forward.
