Juwan Howard typically shows Michigan its defensive numbers the day after a game. After Sunday’s game against Ohio State, in which the Wolverines allowed 87 points, Howard waited.
“I held it and held it in my back pocket until the time I felt was right to inspire a better defensive effort than what we gave against Ohio State,” Howard said.
When he finally revealed the numbers and ran the tape, the message was received. Michigan was dominant defensively on Thursday against Iowa, stifling the country’s top offense in a 79-57 victory.
Michigan’s defensive game plan was to defend Luka Garza, the country’s top scorer, one-on-one and stick to Iowa’s bevy of accurate 3-point shooters. Simple to understand; very hard to execute.
That was essentially Michigan’s approach to last season’s first meeting with Iowa, and while Michigan won, Garza scored 44 of Iowa’s 91 points. Garza dropped 33 in the rematch, won by the Hawkeyes.
Michigan didn’t have Hunter Dickinson then. In the practices leading up to Thursday, Howard blew his whistle any time Dickinson got out of position defensively. Even if it didn’t result in a basket for Michigan’s scout team, Howard knew Garza would deliver.
Dickinson, a freshman, made it known early in the game that he was up for the challenge of guarding his friend. And when he went to the bench with foul trouble, his teammates Austin Davis and Brandon Johns Jr. proved capable as well.
“Austin and Brandon did a fantastic job of just battling -- trying to make every catch hard, challenge every shot, do whatever they can to…make Garza work for every bucket.”
Garza shot 6-for-19 from the field and scored 16 points, 11 below his season average. Iowa’s offense forces most opponents to pick their poison. If the question entering Thursday was whether to slow Garza or limit Iowa’s 3s, Michigan’s answer was “yes.” The Hawkeyes were just 6-for-19 from deep.
Iowa’s 57 points were the program’s lowest since scoring 53 in the 2019 Big Ten Tournament, also a lopsided loss to Michigan.
After Thursday’s defeat, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery had no interest in discussing the details. Asked what led to his team’s offensive dysfunction, he only said, “It wasn’t dysfunction.” Iowa, fourth in the country in assist rate, had just four assists against Michigan. Asked about the cause for that low number, McCaffery said, “That question’s been asked and answered.”
Michigan forced Iowa’s perimeter players to score off the dribble. The Hawkeyes had some success at that in the first half, but couldn’t sustain it. Dickinson and Davis (three fouls each) gave up some fouls on Garza, but Iowa still shot just 11 free throws.
Against Ohio State, Howard thought his team “got more into scoring than getting stops.” For a Michigan team that had proven to be elite defensively for much of the season, it was unacceptable.
“You know Coach Howard wasn’t playing about that,” Michigan senior forward Isaiah Livers said. “Yeah, we came out of Columbus with a ‘W’ but our defensive numbers were terrible. We went over ‘em, looked at each other and shook our heads, because that’s not us.
“We knew Iowa was going to come into our house, the highest-scoring Big Ten team, and we knew it was the perfect challenge. It felt like it was set up this way on purpose for us to prove ourselves. We took the challenge.”