Coming off stirring rallies, Michigan and Texas Tech meet in the fifth-place game of the Battle 4 Atlantis on Friday night in Paradise Island, Bahamas.
Michigan (4-2) advanced with an 83-78 win over Stanford on Thursday. Dug McDaniel scored half of his 20 points in the final 6:38, and he also had eight assists.
The Wolverines trailed by seven points early in the second half before going on a 22-2 run, highlighted by three straight steals that produced breakaway baskets by McDaniel, Olivier Nkumhoua (16 points) and Tarris Reed Jr. (11 points).
Terrance Williams II added a 3-pointer during the surge on his way to finishing with 17 points. He made 4 of 5 shots from beyond the arc.
The Wolverines thrived in the up-tempo game, hitting 59.3 percent of their shots from the floor and 8 of 18 (44.4 percent) from deep.
The game flipped, however, thanks to strong work at the defensive end in the second half.
After allowing Stanford to hit 62.1 percent of its shots in the first half and 7 of 12 from long-range, Michigan held the Cardinal to 39.4 percent marksmanship in the second half, including 5 of 15 on 3-point attempts.
“First half we knew we weren’t pressuring defensively. We know from the scouting report to pressure up,” Reed said. “As soon as we applied it, the whole momentum of the game changed.”
Texas Tech (4-1) came from 15 points down in the final 11:31 of the second half to record a 72-70 win over Northern Iowa.
Pop Isaacs culminated the rally with a game-winning floater, a bank shot with 0.8 seconds left. He finished with 18 points.
Joe Toussaint led the Red Raiders with 21 points.
Like Michigan, Texas Tech credited its defense, which forced seven turnovers in the final 11 minutes. Darrion Williams (10 points, nine rebounds) had two steals during the stretch, including one after which he fed Toussaint for a 3-pointer that tied it 64-64 with 5:05 left.
“We had a different level of togetherness to us in the way we were defending that last seven minutes,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “Even when there were mistakes made, there was a lot of ownership to it.”
–Field Level Media