Juwan Howard praises Michigan's late-game execution

Michigan head coach Juwan Howard was pleased with the Wolverines’ late game execution against the Michigan State Spartans.

The Wolverines took down the Spartans 84-72 after they trailed 36-33 at halftime. In the end, Michigan made less mistakes as the game wore on.

Howard praised the execution out of timeouts when his team got reset mentally and physically.

“Well, you know, I talked about it at the timeout,” Howard said. “And I’m not quite sure what the clock was but … we talked about, you know, it’s not a time where you have to play a perfect game, be afraid to make mistakes, because in the game of basketball, you’re going to make some mistakes.

“But how we eliminate mistakes is by making simple plays, and then you know, defensively we have to be tuned in to what our defensive coverages are. Be tuned in to keep a guy up front and then also limit them to one shot opportunities. And with that, we just took off. I wanted to make sure that I calm their voice and calm their mind in understanding that, you know, whatever happens (grow from it) … and let’s move forward.”

Dug McDaniel personified Howard’s words about execution for Michigan. McDaniel finished with a game-high 18 points and added four rebounds and four assists.

“From start to finish — and I’ll start with the beginning of the game — Dug, with his energy on the defensive end, and then offensively, he made some tough shots,” Howard said. “But he also allowed the game to come to him. He set the tone, the way he did it, and the guys really rallied behind Dug.

“And then you got a lot of energy from our bench, from guys like Tarris Reed Jr. as well as [graduate guard] Joey Baker and [junior guard] Jace Howard. Those guys were really dialed in to competing.”

That type of effort was welcomed by Howard. It was the type of game that players should be fired up to play, considering it was a rival.

Circumstances were different amid the tragic shooting that took place at Michigan State last week. But both teams appeared to be at fully energy in a return to somewhat “normalcy,” as Howard put it.

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“We were so locked in these last couple days,” Howard said. “You’re going to get results like that [if you do that].”