Hillmon Responds to Challenge With Huge Game Against Northwestern
1/8/2019 11:55:00 PM | Women's Basketball, Features
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Freshman forward Naz Hillmon got a pep talk from Wolverines women's basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico prior to facing Northwestern, and the response of the team's top reserve was something to see.
Hillmon scored a team-high 21 points, matched center Hallie Thome for the team rebound lead with 11, and showed all the confidence and determination required to help the University of Michigan pull out a 79-78 overtime win Tuesday night (Jan. 8) over a tough Wildcat team.
"I talked to her a little bit today," said Barnes Arico, whose team is 11-5 overall and 2-2 in the Big Ten Conference. "'You know, you are an incredible basketball player. You need to go out there and dominate this game.' And she did. It was hard to take her off the floor down the stretch, and she impacted the game. She helped us go on that run. She's really a special player."
Hillmon had been in a scoring rut in three previous Big Ten games, totaling just 19 points in them, but played up to her potential against the Wildcats.
"Every time I come up here (to press conferences)," Hillmon said, "I talk about the confidence that my coaches and teammates put into me. And now I can talk about my coaches challenging me. After the Purdue game, there were some things that I did that I could've done better and changed the outcome."
Hillmon had just six points and two rebounds in Saturday's (Jan. 5) 71-70 loss against the Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Then she registered her third double-double, eighth double-figure scoring effort, and was so tough to stop that she drew six fouls against the Wildcats.
"I just remembered those mistakes that I had and knew I was going to change them in this game," said Hillmon. "So, as much as my teammates and coaches give me confidence, they also challenge me to be better than the last time, and that really helped me in this game."
There is a confidence in Hillmon -- who won a gold medal with the USA Basketball U18 team this past summer -- that is unmistakable.
If she misses a shot from the field, she doesn't flinch.
If she misses a free throw, she doesn't hang her head. She just grabs the carom and goes back up hard with another shot.
Nothing seems to rattle her confidence -- which is extremely rare in freshmen.
Brown (from left), Hillmon and Thome combined for 51 points and 25 rebounds against the Wildcats and made 20 of 26 shots from the field.
"She's locked in," said Barnes Arico. "I mean, she misses a free throw, and she went and got an offensive putback and drew the fifth foul on their best post player."
Hillmon, nicknamed "Nazilla" by Thome, rebounded her own missed free throw before going up with a shot and drawing the fifth foul from Wildcat forward Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah. She again made the first of two free throws, and she finished 5-for-11 at the line, falling short of her respectable .650 free-throw percentage entering the game.
She was 8-for-11 from the field, though, and is now at 70.8 percent in that category to lead the Big Ten.
Hillmon, who has quick feet, great instincts and a powerful 6-foot-3 frame, is going to be a special player for the Wolverines.
"She's a baby, she's a freshman," said Barnes Arico. "We're fortunate that she's in our program, and she's just tremendous. And as good as she is at basketball, she (also) is as a person, and I think her teammates just absolutely love her. She's just great to be around, and she's just such a positive influence."
The two-time finalist for Ohio's Ms. Basketball at Gilmour Academy in Cleveland is averaging 11.9 points to rank second on the Michigan team behind Thome (12.9) and 6.6 rebounds to lead the squad.
And she's doing all of it in only 19.9 minutes per game. Hillmon is 16th in conference rebounding and 23rd in scoring despite just scratching the surface of her capabilities.
Hillmon made it 77-74 for the Wolverines late in overtime with a sensational play that began with her making a steal at midcourt and feeding point guard Amy Dilk as a two-on-two break ensued. Dilk drove and missed the shot, but Hillmon cleaned it up by grabbing the rebound and going up to score.
"I know that we needed to score," said Hillmon, "but it just was such a blur. Throughout the entire game, I was getting putbacks and trying to get to the basket. So, I just try to keep that same mindset.
"That's why I didn't worry myself or do something out of my character."
It was determination, plain and simple.
Hillmon is making better than 70 percent of her field goal attempts.
"Yeah, yeah," said Hillmon, nodding her head. "It was. I tried not to stray from anything I'd done in the past."
Hillmon also tied the game at 67 with just over two minutes remaining in regulation by driving to the basket with authority to score on a crisp pass from Dilk. That bucket erased the six-point deficit that had Michigan on the verge of a defeat it couldn't afford.
Starting forward Hailey Brown (13 points, three rebounds) and senior guard Nicole Munger (16 points, three rebounds) also were go-to players in this game along with Thome (17 points, six rebounds). But they showed complete confidence in going to Hillmon on critical plays.
"She's proved it in practice," said Munger, "and she has the confidence in herself. So, when someone has confidence in themselves, there's no reason not to have confidence in them. We see the work she puts in and everyone on this team puts in. There's no reason not to be confident -- she makes plays."
Brown chuckled and said, "I mean, I'm the one who threw the ball to her. I knew even if it was a bad pass, she would come to get it. If she missed, she would get the rebound. So, that just explains our confidence in her. Munger talked about it. Every day we work together, you see it. If you prove that, that's how you build your team chemistry, and that really showed today."
Barnes Arico, when asked for the source of her confidence in Hillmon, smiled and said, "Holy cow! You know, she just has a tremendous ability to affect the game. And she can affect it on the offensive end. She can affect it on the defensive end. She can affect it with her ability to rebound the basketball."
Hillmon had scored more, with 24 points against LIU Brooklyn and 22 against Detroit Mercy, and she equaled her 11-rebound previous best against Morgan State, but this effort came against a Northwestern team fresh off a win against a ranked Michigan State team.
Hillmon scored Michigan's final basket in overtime, and Munger scored the game's final points by swishing two free throws with 51 seconds remaining. When Northwestern guard Jordan Hamilton's short, off-balance shot cutting in from the baseline didn't fall in the final seconds, the Wolverines earned a crucial victory.
They're now .500 in the Big Ten, instead of two games under. And that's critical with games at No. 9 Maryland on Saturday (Jan. 12) and at No. 17 Iowa (Jan. 17) on the immediate horizon. Michigan is 7-0 at Crisler Center, where it beat then-No. 12 Minnesota by 16 points on New Year's Eve, but has to show it can pull out some conference road wins to contend with the leaders and vie for a repeat NCAA Tournament berth.
Hillmon saw to it that her team goes into consecutive tough road games in the right mindset and with some momentum. She took the challenge issued by her coach and put on her first dominating performance in a Big Ten game.
