The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/279958
OLYMPIC SPORTS finished in the top half of the final Big Ten standings. Michigan came into the Big Ten Tournament on a two-game losing skid — a tough 74-70 loss to Iowa and a 77-62 setback to Big Ten cham- pion Penn State — to earn the No. 7 seed and a first-round matchup with No. 10 seed Indiana. Junior forward Cyesha Goree dom- inated inside against the Hoosiers, shooting 9 of 15 from the field to fin- ish with a game-high 18 points to go along with 11 rebounds and five assists. Goree was the catalyst in the 82-57 win over Indiana, but her play in- side opened things up for the rest of the team, and four other players fin- ished in double figures. Junior guard Shannon Smith chipped in 16 points, junior guard Nicole Elmblad had 15, sophomore guard Madison Ristovski added 12 points and freshman point guard Siera Thompson scored 10 points in the win. "It was special," head coach Kim Barnes Arico said. "I thought the players stepped up and did a tremen- dous job. We played well together as a team, and it is a great first-round win." The first-round victory set up a showdown with in-state rival Michi- gan State — the No. 2 seed — in the quarterfinals. In the two teams' lone regular-season matchup this season, the Spartans squeaked out a 79-72 win in Ann Arbor Jan. 12. The Wolverines used a 15-2 run in the first half to build a 25-13 lead 13 minutes into the game, but Michigan State climbed back into the game, cutting the lead to three (31-28) at halftime. After a back-and-forth second half, the Spartans used a late-game surge to take the lead with less than a min- ute to go, closing out a 61-58 win to bounce the Wolverines from the tour- nament. No. 3 seed Nebraska went on to win the tournament title. Ristovski scored a team-high 18 points, hitting 4 of 7 three-point shots, in the loss. "We came out very aggressively, and we scored a lot of buckets in Senior Val Driscoll and the Wolverines defeated Indiana 82-57 in the quarterfinal round of the Big Ten Tournament, but then fell to Michigan State 61-58 in a semifinal matchup. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS