Kornacki: Ball Movement Leads to Balanced Scoring in Win vs. Illinois

By Steve Kornacki

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Midway through the fourth quarter, Wolverine forward Hailey Brown swished a three-pointer to give her 14 points as her team began pulling away from Illinois.

At that point in Wednesday night's (Feb. 19) action, guards Akienreh Johnson and Amy Dilk each had 15 points, and so did post player Naz Hillmon.

That was incredible balance for a University of Michigan women's basketball team striving for just that.

"Each given night can be any player's star game on the points," Dilk said after the 80-59 win. "But we're all capable of scoring. So, having a balanced attack in a game like this is (important)."

Wolverine coach Kim Barnes Arico said, "I think that's probably the strength of our team. It's something we've really been emphasizing all year long. And I think our players realize that with Naz not 100 percent, too, that they've got to be able to contribute and make plays."

She added that Brown, Dilk and Johnson are all doing that.

Michigan (17-9, 8-7 Big Ten) trailed by eight points early, but didn't panic and made the defensive adjustments required while clicking beautifully on offense to break a two-game losing streak.

They're all big games with only three remaining before the Big Ten Tournament. Seeding for the conference tourney and then making the NCAA Tournament are all hanging in the balance during the stretch run.

And the Wolverines are attempting a strong finish while at far less than 100 percent.

Hillmon went for her ninth double-double of the season, recording 15 points and 10 rebounds

The Wolverines lost No. 2 scorer Kayla Robbins to a torn ACL one month ago, and then her replacement, Danielle Rauch, broke her left (non-shooting hand). Top scorer Hillmon has been playing with an injury, and hadn't looked much like herself again until this game with the Fighting Illini.

"We didn't know how Naz was going to feel coming into the game with her injury," Johnson said. "She's been in and out the last couple days of practice, and so she gave us a lot of confidence going into the game by saying, 'Don't force me the ball.' She gave us the confidence to make the outside shots and open up the floor for her to get a couple easy buckets.

"We're going through a lot, and a lot of teams are going through what we're going through. But we have to remain mentally strong and stay positive."

So, others were going to have to step up, and now they are.

However, even before the injuries, the Wolverines looked for more balanced scoring this season. Katelynn Flaherty, Michigan's career scoring leader, has been gone for two seasons now. Hallie Thome, another 2,000-point scorer who finished No. 2 on that career list, was a senior last season.

Barnes Arico noted: "That's kind of been our thing all year -- that we have more balance than we probably have had in the last few years."

She altered preparation for the Illinois game to focus on a struggling offense that netted just 60 and 41 points in the last two losses to No. 19-ranked Northwestern and at Rutgers.

"It's something we've been working on all year," Barnes Arico said. "There have been a few games where we really struggled offensively, but we had a really busy week with four games in 10 days.

"The preparation in that time was on the opponents and not on us. But, we actually got back to, 'Hey, it's got to be about us. We've got to work on our offense and really try to move the basketball, and work on making shots.'

"And I thought yesterday, we really worked hard on that, and today was the end result."

With 5:06 remaining to play and the Wolverine lead up to 14 points at that juncture when they had three at 15 points and Brown with 14, Barnes Arico began substituting. Hillmon also contributed 10 rebounds for her ninth double-double of the season. The only one of that balanced scoring quartet to score again was Johnson, who finished with a game-high 22.

The trey she nailed with 3:40 to play felt good. Johnson nodded her head while hustling back on defense. It was a moment of satisfaction in a game where Michigan got clicking after a slow start.

"In the first quarter, we never really lost our composure or lost our head," said Johnson, the senior co-captain who also tied her career high with six steals. "It was like, 'We're going to be good.' So, we did a good job of moving the ball tonight and making passes."

"We passed the ball six or seven times on that possession. Amy Dilk then drove down the middle and found me wide open for the three, and after six or seven passes, you've got to knock that one down. So, that the team had that confidence in me to take that shot with the last five or six seconds on the shot clock, really gave me a lot of confidence. So, I had to give it back to them."

Good ball movement, with numerous passes on most possessions, was central to the shooting success that brought about 50-percent accuracy (26-of-52) from the field and a splendid .474 (9-of-19) clip on three-pointers.

There was a play where Dilk caught a pass, lost her balance a bit, recovered, and fired a pass off her back foot to Johnson, who found Hillmon down low for an easy bucket.

"Hailey threw me a pass that I had to go up and get," said Dilk, "and AK flashed in and got open, and passed it to Naz, and that was a huge play."

That put Michigan up, 59-50, and Dilk drilled in a three-pointer on the next possession, and it was a matter of pulling away from that point forward. It was 39-17 for the Wolverines in the second half.

"We watched a lot of film from our game against Rutgers (a 62-41 loss) and we weren't passing the ball like we know we can," said Dilk. "So, we had drills in practice where we made the extra pass, and were taking four or five passes before the shot. We did a great job of doing that."

Nolan
In her 4th career start, Maddie Nolan turned in a career-high seven points with six boards and four assists

Dilk and Johnson both had five assists and freshman guard Maddie Nolan, now a starter, had four assists to go with seven points and six rebounds in a real solid, all-around effort.

Barnes Arico leaned on that starting lineup, with all five between 30:54 and 38:46 in playing time, and they responded by scoring all but seven of Michigan's points.

Every one of those players scored when needed. It was balance about as good as balance gets. And so the Wolverines came back to win a game they could not afford to lose -- no piece more important than the other, no piece failing to contribute.