LeVert, Donnal lead Michigan to 78-68 win over Illinois

IL led 37-34 at half time, but MI came out with hot shooting in the second half to pull away for the win. When they hit us in the mouth, we didn’t respond.

The Michigan basketball team has struggled to get consistently post play this season, but Mark Donnal came up big off the bench on Wednesday against IL. Through 13 games this season the leading scorer for the Wolverines has been Caris LeVert who is scoring 17.3 points per game and 5.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists.

Donnal, LeVert, junior guard Zak Irvin, sophomore swingman Duncan Robinson and sophomore guard Aubrey Dawkins drilled 3-pointers during the opening nine minutes of the second half as MI built a 59-48 lead with 10:53 to go.

“(Derrick) Walton is back, LeVert is a play-maker and (Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman) has plays it a little as well and he was great against us past year in Chicago”, Groce said. With 14:28 remaining and MI leading 45-44, he knocked down an open look from the wing to push the lead up to four. But that did not carry over against the Wolverines (11-3, 1-0) at the State Farm Center. He jumped up to the board for an offensive rebound and then tipped it in for his first points of the game. Donnal was averaging 3.9 points and 2.1 boards per game and generally saw the court for less than 10 minutes.

“A player has an illness and is recovering from that”, Groce said.

They allowed the Wolverines to shoot 10 of 24 on 3-pointers, including 7 of 14 in the second half. “We played well defensively, so I think everyone fed off of each other”.

“We’re known for slow starts in the second half”, said Kendrick Nunn, who led the Illini with 23 points.

DÉJÀ VU: This is the second consecutive year MI and IL opened Big Ten play against each other.

Groce, who recruited LeVert to Ohio University when the skinny 6-foot-5 guard was a senior at Pickerington (Ohio) Central High School, but did not extend a similar scholarship offer – or a phone call – after accepting the IL coaching position in March 2012, deemed the performance “terrific”.

But Wednesday, Donnal didn’t just surpass his career-best 13 points from last season’s non-conference loss to SMU.

“He was (Michael) Finke all week, and we couldn’t stop him”, MI coach John Beilein said of Donnal portraying Illinois’ redshirt freshman.

In his comments afterwards, Groce remained positive in expressing the belief that the Illini can somehow change a shortcoming that has been consistent throughout an 8-6 season. After looking at film of the MI game they’ll be getting ready to travel to Ohio State, where they’ll play at 4 p.m., Sunday.