Walton, threes carry Michigan
INDIANAPOLIS — Derrick Walton Jr. stuck to the plan Friday.
He kept running the Michigan offense against an aggressive Oklahoma State defense and eventually things fell into place. Again.
Walton scored 26 points and had 11 assists, and the Wolverines made a schoolrecord 16 three-pointers in an NCAA Tournament game to get past Oklahoma State 92-91 in the first round of
the Midwest Regional.
“We haven’t played a team that got up into us in a minute. It’s hard to simulate that in practice,” Walton said. “In the second half, I settled down. I wanted to make the right play consistently.”
Coach John Beilein had no complaints.
Seventh-seeded Michigan needed every point it could muster in a game that ended with a parade to the freethrow line, a buzzer-beating three-pointer and an opponent that refused to go away.
The difference: poise and emotion, the same components that helped Michigan (25-11) overcome last week’s harrowing plane mishap to sweep four games in four days at the Big Ten tournament.
Early Friday, it looked like Michigan’s momentum was waning. The Wolverines looked out of sync and out of sorts in the first half.
But rather than change the game plan, Walton followed the script, steadied his team and the shots started falling.
While Michigan made only five shots inside the arc in the second half, it went 11 of 15 from three-point range.
Walton wound up 6 of 9 on threes, and Zak Irvin made four more in front of his hometown crowd and finished with 16 points.
“You go 11 for 15, that’s hard enough to do in a gym by yourself,” first-year Oklahoma State coach Brad Underwood said. “We shot 55 percent in the NCAA Tournament and just lost in the first round, outrebounded an opponent 40-21 and you lose.”
Juwan Evans scored 23 points and Jeffrey Carroll had 19 to lead Oklahoma State (20-13), but the nation’s eighth-highest scoring team just couldn’t keep up with Michigan’s three-point barrage.
The 10th-seeded Cowboys finished the season with four straight losses and haven’t won an NCAA game since 2009.
Michigan erased a sixpoint, second-half deficit with a run of four threes, the last from Walton with 12:28 to go to take a 62-61 lead. The Wolverines made three more in another flurry to take a 76-68 lead with 6:47 to go.
But the Cowboys rallied, cutting the deficit to two twice in the final eight seconds, only to watch the Wolverines close it out at the free-throw line.
“Shooting the ball from three is part of our package,” Beilein said. “Today, we were really good at hitting the open man. We valued every possession.” Frank Mason III scored 22 points and had eight assists as top-seeded Kansas won its opening game of the NCAA Tournament for an 11th straight year with a victory over UC Davis. Freshman Josh Jackson, making his return after a one-game suspension for an accumulation of embarrassing incidents, added 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting for the Jayhawks (29-5). Chima Moneke scored 20 points to lead the 16th-seeded Aggies (23-13), who were in their first NCAA Tournament.
With star big man Chris Boucher cheering in a bulky knee brace from the sidelines, Tyler Dorsey scored 24 points to lead four players in double figures, and No. 3 seed Oregon (30-5) beat 14th-seeded Iona (22-13). The Ducks showed they have depth and sheer athleticism to make a special March run, just as coach Dana Altman hoped this week when he challenged role players to make larger contributions in shot-blocker Boucher’s absence. Nick Ward scored 19 points to help Michigan State atone for last season’s early NCAA Tournament disappointment with an opening-round victory over Miami. The ninth-seeded Spartans (20-14) trailed by as many 12 points in the first half before blitzing past the stunned Hurricanes (21-12) the rest of the way, using a 20-2 first half run to take control for good.