Michigan and Iowa’s basketball team split last season’s two-game series and combined to score more than 170 points in each.
Several of the Wolverines’ top contributors this season, such as returning starters Isaiah Livers, Franz Wagner and Eli Brooks, are familiar to Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery. But others, like transfers Mike Smith and Chaundee Brown, have quickly garnered McCaffery’s attention ahead of Thursday’s top-10 matchup in Ann Arbor.
Smith, who led the Ivy League in scoring last season with Columbia, is averaging 8.6 points and 5.4 assists while shooting 47.6 percent from 3-point range for the third-ranked Wolverines, while Brown continues to be a viable weapon off the bench.
“It is the grad transfers,” McCaffery said Tuesday of Michigan’s emergence this season. “You have three starters back who are tremendous. Livers and Wagner are all-league players. Eli Brooks is terrific and they are all veteran guys. But you add a guy who led the league in scoring and take Wake Forest’s best player (Brown), those guys are 21-22 years old and you plug them in with that other group. Now you are bringing (Austin) Davis off the bench with Brandon Johns — a fifth-year senior and another veteran guy, and this is a very veteran group. They don’t make mistakes; they don’t turn it over. They really do a great job sharing the basketball. They got a lot of guys scoring, but they move it and they defend.”
Of course, the Wolverines also added 7-foot-1 freshman center Hunter Dickinson, who is coming off his seventh Big Ten Freshman of the Week award after averaging 16.0 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in the two wins over Rutgers and No. 4 Ohio State.
“Dickinson is tremendous,” McCaffery said. “He is as good — he could be the top freshman in the country right now. He’s good in the low post; he is a good passing big man. He runs well, is physical. but like every game in this league, you’re going up against somebody like that.”
After a four-game stretch from Jan. 21 through Feb. 4, No. 9 Iowa allowed 78 or more points in each. While it shored up its defensive deficiencies lately, allowing 63.5 points per game during its current four-game win streak, Thursday on the road against a Michigan team ranked No. 7 in offensive efficiency on KenPom will be a more formidable challenge . The Hawkeyes follow with showdown Sunday at OSU, which is No. 3 in offensive efficiency.
“We are playing at two of the best teams in the country, two of the best offenses,” Iowa All-American center Luka Garza said. “It is really going to test our defense. I think the biggest thing for us is to continue this consistency on the defensive end that we have had in these last couple games.”
As far Michigan’s success in year two under head coach Juwan Howard, McCaffery said it isn’t unexpected.
“He’s got a terrific background,” McCaffery said. “I don’t think anyone should be surprised when you look at his resume that he’s done well there. He put the time in this business to be ready when his coaching opportunity came, and he’s proven that he was.”
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