Michigan basketball loses Jett Howard to injury, but survives Minnesota, 60-56

In a season defined thus far by adversity, Michigan basketball found itself with its back to the wall yet again on Sunday afternoon.

The Wolverines trailed the entire first half against Minnesota. And to make matters worse, with about two minutes before halftime, standout freshman Jett Howard went down with an ankle injury and had to be helped off the court. But instead of getting rattled, the Wolverines rallied, led by co-captain Hunter Dickinson.

U-M used a 13-3 spurt covering about six minutes at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second to pull away from Minnesota, then held on for another tight win, 60-56, at Crisler Center.

CHEDDAR TIME: How Will Tschetter found his voice on Michigan basketball's defense

Dickinson, who had a game-high 23 points and just missed his fourth consecutive double-double with nine rebounds, said he doesn't believe there is such a thing as an ugly win.

"I agree with Hunter," said Michigan coach Juwan Howard, laughing when asked the same question. "I think all Big Ten coaches would agree with Hunter. This might be the first time all the coaches in the Big Ten agree with Hunter. Because in the Big Ten ... the ball is not always going to fall for you offensively.

"Defensively, sometimes you just have to win in the mud."

Kobe Bufkin had 12 points and four rebounds while freshman Dug McDaniel added 10 points and eight rebounds for Michigan (11-8. 5-3 Big Ten).

Sluggish start

The Wolverines appeared to be sleep-walking to start the matinee as they missed nine of their first 10 shots. Minnesota's struggling offense, which mustered just 39 points against Purdue on Thursday, used that opportunity to mount an early lead.

The Golden Gophers went up 8-0 on 3-pointers by Jamison Battle and Dawson Garcia sandwiched around a Joshua Ola-Joseph slam.

The Wolverines made just two shots in the first nearly eight minutes of the game, both of which came off of set in-bound plays from McDaniel to Bufkin; the first a mid-range jumper, the second a wide-open layup.

"This was a must-win game, so changes had to be made," McDaniel said. "I was just telling my guys to wake up. We were playing very slow, lackadaisical and I just let them know we had to have a sense of urgency or we're going to lose this game."

A Tarris Reed Jr. slam dunk from Jett Howard on a pick-and-roll with 12:02 left in the first half was Michigan's first offensive set that led to a basket and made it 16-8. Minnesota pushed it to a 20-10 lead before U-M tightened the screws on defense.

The Golden Gophers (7-11, 1-7) made just one of their final 13 shots from the floor over the final 9:51 before halftime, including a streak of 10 straight misses. U-M held Minnesota to 40% shooting (23-for-57) from the floor and 26% (6-for-23) on 3-pointers.

"That's one of those victories where we learned a lot from competing in the Maryland game," Howard said. "We gave up six offensive rebounds instead of 15, so that's a big improvement. Defensively, opponent shot 40% from the field, Maryland shot 41, so that's an improvement.

"Defensively, I give credit to how hard our guys played and dialed into what we worked on these last two days."

That allowed U-M to weather a slow start before Will Tschetter made a spinning layup, McDaniel hit a midrange jumper and Dickinson made consecutive buckets — after starting the afternoon 0-for-5 from the floor — to cut the deficit to 20-18.

Howard goes down

It was a rather innocent play when Howard went up to contest a shot with 2:16 left to play in the first half; but he rolled his left ankle as he landed and went down in a heap of pain.

The freshman wing, who had struggled through 15 minutes on 0-for-5 shooting, stayed down for a few minutes before he was helped off the court, without putting any weight on his foot, by the trainers. He sat on the bench for a few moments before he made his way to the tunnel and then to the locker room shortly after a Dickinson jumper tied the game at 23 heading into the half.

A Michigan team spokesman said Howard was undergoing exams during the break and that he was ruled out for the second half. Howard sat on the bench in the second half but was wearing a walking boot.

"I don't have any information to give you on Jett other than, as you saw, he was in a boot," Juwan Howard said. "He came back out there in the second half to support his teammates, which is great, but I feel sorry for the young man."

Meanwhile, Dickinson was just getting going. He hit a right-handed bunny off the glass to give Michigan its first lead of the day, 27-26, before hitting a turnaround in the lane on the next trip down. The Wolverines were up 31-26 when Joey Baker had a breakaway, but got caught between a dunk and a layup and missed the wide-open look at the rim.

Minnesota got out in transition the other way and hit a 3-pointer to make it 31-29. After a McDaniel 3-pointer a few minutes later gave Michigan its three-point lead back, Dickinson got an offensive rebound and made the put-back plus the foul to extend the lead to 39-33 with 12:33 to play.

"A lot of teams try to take advantage of our mishaps," Dickinson said, "so we were out there just trying to stay solid as much as we could and make them beat us and not us beat ourselves."

Michigan never trailed again, though Minnesota stayed within striking distance. After a Dickinson layup made it 43-35, the Golden Gophers scored five straight on a drive by Battle and a 3-pointer by Garcia to get back within three.

Ta'lon Cooper led Minnesota with 15 points and 10 rebounds, followed by 14 points from Battle and 13 from Garcia.

After Bufkin and Battle exchanged baskets, Michigan's next six points came via three trips to the line from Dickinson, who made all six attempts. Minnesota got it back to five with less than four minutes to play, but a Terrance Williams II layup followed by a Bufkin floater extended Michigan's lead to a game-high nine.

Minnesota cut it to three late, but Battle was whistled for an intentional foul against Tschetter on an inbounds play in the final 40 seconds gave Michigan a two-possession lead.

"It was really big because now we're 5-3, we're still right there," Dickinson said. "Teams want to count us out, you know, but 5-3 is 5-3 and we're not going to apologize for it."

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball loses Jett Howard, beats Minnesota, 60-56