Fans will not see a lot of Ms covered up heading to the arena Wednesday, but either way it is the return of The Rivalry when the No. 8 Michigan Wolverines play in Columbus against No. 13 Ohio State women’s basketball.
Last season, the Buckeyes came back from a 16-point deficit to overcome the Wolverines. Now, there is important Big Ten Tournament seeding on the line, on top of the usual rivalry bragging rights.
To learn about the top-10 edition of the Wolverines, Land-Grant Holy Land reached out to Ace
Anbender from The Bucket Problem. Anbender talked about Michigan’s surprise loss to Iowa, who to watch out for that is not Syla Swords, Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway, The Rivalry and more.
Land-Grant Holy Land: Michigan has not really had a bad loss this year until they played Iowa over the weekend. What happened to the Wolverines offensively that led to the one-sided Hawkeyes victory?
The Bucket Problem: Iowa took better advantage of Michigan’s lineup limitations than any other opponent by a country mile. Neither of Michigan’s centers shoot from outside the paint and the team almost always has a second non-shooter on the floor.
The Hawkeyes sagged way off the non-shooting threats, packed the paint, and played really aggressive on- and off-ball defense against the three primary scorers. They also completely neutralized Michigan’s fast break by pretty much abandoning the offensive boards.
Iowa’s Kylie Feuerbach did a phenomenal job defending Olivia Olson one-on-one and she could overplay Olson’s favorite curl cut to the high post because there was always help waiting if Olson tried a backdoor cut instead.
Michigan was pretty much stuck taking contested midrange jumpers and committed 24 turnovers because Iowa could double-team with impunity and jump passing lanes. Second-chance opportunities were hard to come by and tough to convert with so much traffic down low.
Michigan shot poorly and took terrible care of the ball even accounting for Iowa’s strategy but the Hawkeyes laid down a blueprint for defending this squad. I’m not sure every opponent can replicate it — OSU has a very different style and lineup — but that game raised a lot of concerns.
Te’Yala Delfosse, who Iowa was daring to shoot, hit a couple second-half threes after U-M was already trailing by double digits and that’ll hopefully give her the confidence to force defenders to respect her jumper.
LGHL: Outside of that blemish, Michigan still looked the closest to dethroning UCLA, if that’s at all possible. How have you seen this team grow from the 24-25 campaign to this season?
TBP: Olson has developed into a potential All-American despite a drop-off in three-point shooting that’s slowly turning around as the season goes on. Mila Holloway went from a point guard who made a lot of first-year mistakes to a reliable floor general and three-level scorer. That’s taken the offense from good to really good.
Defensively, Michigan has improved across the board. Center Ashley Sofilkanich is undersized at 6’3″ but still a much better paint presence than Yulia Grabovskaia, who transferred to Washington. The sophomores have all made gains on that end of the floor and they don’t have the pressure of taking on the opponent’s best guard because U-M now starts one of the best perimeter defenders in the country.
Michigan also got better at the full-court press, which has generated a lot of turnovers and helped the good-but-not-great halfcourt defense by draining the shot clock before opponents can get into their sets.
LGHL: Fans know about the sophomore starting trio of Syla Swords, Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway but who else is there to watch out for on this team?
TBP: Thank you for this opportunity to wax poetic about Brooke Quarles Daniels, aka BQD, aka “Q. DANIELS, BRO” because of how her name appears on Statbroadcast. Quarles Daniels is listed at 5-foot-7 and doesn’t have a position that can be easily defined; she’s not the point guard but you definitely wouldn’t call her a shooting guard — she’s only attempted three three-pointers this season and missed all of them.
She’s a menace. A phenomenal defender who warps around screens and sticks in the pocket of ballhanders on every inch of the floor, she makes up for her lack of shooting by leading the team in offensive rebounds. Again, she’s maybe 5-foot-7, and Michigan is the No. 6 offensive rebounding team in the country.
According to Bart Torvik’s stat database, she’s the only power conference player in the country with an offensive rebounding rate over 12% and a steal rate over 5%. “Unique” is a term that gets used too much; she is unique.
BQD will be tasked with defending Jaloni Cambridge. I haven’t looked forward to a one-on-one matchup with more anticipation this whole season.
LGHL: What is the ceiling for this Michigan team this season?
TBP: The Wolverines have come achingly close in three losses to potential one-seeds (UConn, UCLA, and Vanderbilt), losing each matchup by three points and having the ball with a chance to tie at the end of all of them. With some matchup luck, they could make the program’s first Final Four.
I’d be pleasantly surprised if they got that far. They haven’t shot the ball well enough on threes and free throws to give me confidence in a really deep tournament run, especially when they have trouble with teams that have big, skilled post players — which is usually what separates the very best WBB teams.
This team should make the second weekend of the tournament. How far they advance beyond that will come down to who they face and whether they’re shooting the ball at least adequately. Their best hope in that regard is Syla Swords going nuclear like she did down the stretch against UConn in that near-upset.
LGHL: I know that when people talk about The Rivalry, they are talking about football. However, these teams have played some classics over the last few years. How does the subset of women’s basketball fans for the Maize and Blue see this rivalry?
TBP: Michigan State is probably always going to be the primary rival in both men’s and women’s basketball but this is starting to get a similar feel to the MBB rivalry, which gets particularly intense when both teams are good. For my part, I remain incredibly salty that program legend Naz Hillmon’s 50-point game came in a loss to the Buckeyes, and I know I’m not alone.
Michigan has done a frankly terrible job of supporting and promoting women’s sports, something you can date back to the disgraced Bo Schembechler believing Title IX would destroy the sport of football. As a result, it’s taken far too long for the WBB program to even be a regular NCAA Tournament team, and they’ve lagged far behind their usual rivals in both competitiveness and attention.
That’s changing fast under Kim Barnes Arico but there’s still a long way to go — they’re still struggling to fill seats at the Crisler Center for anything but the biggest games and there’s a serious lack of local coverage of the team.
As those things change, I expect the intensity of the rivalry to ramp up.
