Michigan rips through Northwestern, sets program record for best start in history

Michigan Basketball set a program record for the best start in the history of the school on Sunday night when they moved to 17-0 on the season in an 80-60 win over Northwestern at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor. It was 90s Night at the arena and the Wolverines simply ran Northwestern off the court with plenty of heat checks and explosive moments in the vein of NBA Jam.

The man of the night was Zavier Simpson, who in the first meeting between these two teams back in December, had one of the worst nights of his career. Sunday was the antithesis of that, scoring a career-high 24 points with Northwestern electing to let him shoot when he was open like the first meeting. It went much, much worse for them.

Jon Teske also had a huge night from the floor with a double-double of 17 points (3-for-5 from three) and 11 rebounds. Charles Matthews and Ignas Brazdeikis chipped in with 13 and 11 points of their own, respectively. Jordan Poole was the only Michigan starter to not score double-digits with seven points on the night.

The Wolverines started and closed the first half with a pair of 10-0 runs to take a 50-28 lead into the locker room and send the Crisler crowd into a frenzy heading into the break. Michigan was 21-for-31 from the floor (67.7 percent) and shot 50 percent from the floor, most of which was done by the power trio of Simpson, Teske and Brazdeikis.

The scoring would cool down the second half with Michigan only scoring six points in the first nine minutes of the half while still holding onto a 56-41 lead with 11:09 to go in the game. However, Michigan would pick it back up and at one point extend the lead to 24 points before ultimately winning by the final score given above.

Next up for the Wolverines is a trip to Madison on Saturday to take on the Wisconsin Badgers, which is scheduled for a 12 p.m. ET tipoff and will be broadcast nationally via either ESPN or ESPN2.