It's been a couple weeks since we checked in on women's basketball and the regular season chase is reaching the final push. Indeed, it's down to the last week of the season and Michigan has just two contests remaining, Thursday against Michigan State at home (6:00 PM) and then Sunday against Iowa (4:00 PM) in the Hawkeye State. As it stands presently, Michigan holds the conference lead, but their margin is quite thin after a pair of clunker losses two weeks ago. In today's piece, we will briefly recap some of the recent results, talk about the B1G chase, and then check in on national bracketology: 

Recapping the Last Few Weeks 

Since the last update, things continued rolling along very well for the Wolverines at first. My last piece was the day of the Ohio State game in late January, a game Michigan won with a sizzling offensive performance and good defense. They followed it up with a huge win over Indiana in what was, at the time, the biggest home game in program history. They held the rather shorthanded Hoosiers to just 50 points and notched another double digit win over a top 25 conference rival. That night saw an extremely concerning development though: Leigha Brown appeared to injure her ankle in the closing minutes of the game. Brown has not played since then. 

The initial effects of losing your 2nd-best player and a hugely important offensive engine for your team were not immediately felt because the Wolverines torched Iowa in the next game on Feb. 6. The Hawkeyes put up 90 points, including a staggering 46 from Caitlin Clark, who made national highlight reels for her absurd 30-foot buckets in the game, but Michigan won because they scored at will, hanging 98 points of their own. Reserve guard Laila Phelia was the story of that one, driving offensive play without Brown on the floor by scoring 24 on 9/16 from the field and getting eight at the free throw line: 

Laila Phelia had a career night in @umichwbball's win over Iowa!

The freshman scored 24 points and notched 3 assists, both career-highs! She also secured 4 rebounds.

She is the 𝘽1𝙂 𝘾𝙤-𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙝𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠! pic.twitter.com/3d83rzBn3V

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) February 7, 2022

Unfortunately, the rosy outlook of offense without Leigha Brown fell apart pretty shortly after in consecutive losses to MSU and Northwestern in a brutal week that seemed to sink Michigan's conference title hopes altogether (we have since learned that that is not the case). The loss in East Lansing was one defined by Naz Hillmon's ice cold second half, missing a bunch of easy layups she normally makes and not much else happening offensively, while Spartan star Nia Clouden turned it on in the second half: 

You may have heard we 💚 a buzzer beater! @NiaClouden pic.twitter.com/IY7InMuIVC

— Michigan State Women's Basketball (@MSU_WBasketball) February 11, 2022

A concerning development beginning in the MSU game has persisted to the present in Brown's absence, which is a shockingly high number of turnovers, frequently disrupting offensive flow. They turned it over 17 times against MSU, 21 times against Northwestern, and then 22 times against Maryland on Sunday. This needs to get cleaned up ASAP. 

The turnovers did the team in against the Wildcats in a 2OT game that saw Michigan's offense come grinding to a halt in two painful overtime periods. Defenses have become very comfortable doubling Naz Hillmon to deny entry passes to force Michigan to find someone else to take the reins. The main culprits of the turnover bug have unfortunately been guards Danielle Rauch and Amy Dilk. The latter has always had some issues with mistakes, but Rauch's turnover problems are a rather new development and probably the result of the increased load handling the ball placed on her due to Brown's injury. 

On Sunday against Maryland, Michigan still fought the turnovers, but the combination of relentless team defense and dominance from Naz Hillmon (29 points) was able to get it done:

Check out the highlights from today's 71-59 win over No. 13 Maryland!#GoBlue pic.twitter.com/hOXIOFUSDG

— Michigan Women’s Basketball (@umichwbball) February 20, 2022

At the end of the day, you win quite a few games when you have the best player on the floor, and Naz Hillmon is frequently the best player on the floor. Credit the Michigan defense for suffocating a good Terps team, though, and helping to not let a great Naz performance go to waste. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: B1G and national implications]

The Iowa vs. Michigan re-match on Sunday could be for it all [JD Scott]

The B1G Chase

When Michigan lost to Northwestern on Super Bowl Sunday, it really seemed like their chances of winning the B1G were slim. Thankfully, a number of results have fallen in the favor of the Wolverines and as we sit presently, Michigan controls their own destiny when it comes to winning the conference. Standings: 

Like last year, the standings are going to be unbalanced. Michigan had a game against Illinois canceled due to weather which will not be made up, and Indiana's going to end up only playing 16 games. As a result, it all comes down to winning percentage. The remaining schedule for each team is as follows: 

• Michigan: MSU, @Iowa 
• OSU: PSU, @MSU
• Maryland: Indiana 
• Iowa: @Rutgers, Michigan
• Indiana: @Maryland 

Maryland and Indiana just draw each other, while OSU and Iowa each have easy games (PSU/Rutgers) before closing with harder ones. Michigan has one that they're favored in (MSU) and then a clear tossup against Iowa. If Michigan wins their final two games, nobody else can catch them. But drop one of those two games and things get interesting. It really sucks that the one game Michigan had canceled, @Illinois, was an easy win (Illinois is a horrid 1-11). Give Michigan a win there and they only need to beat MSU at home to clinch a share of the conference title. Instead, they need to win both games, or get help from other sources. 

In case you're wondering what the title chances look like probabilistically, twitter user @wcrosher computed the odds based on the efficiency data from HerHoopStats: 

Because Indiana and Maryland only play each other, the chance that either win the league title is extremely small. The other candidates are thus Michigan, OSU, and Iowa. The Wolverines have the edge, which I could imagine is due in part to the fact that Michigan is the best team in the conference, especially if they've got the whole team healthy. They are 6-0 against the other four teams vying for the conference title, and will get one of the highest seeds of any B1G team in the NCAA Tournament. Moreover, they've lost one game in conference this season when both Naz and Leigha Brown are in the lineup. The chance to get some help from Michigan State over Ohio State seems decent at this time, because the Spartans are a solid, scrappy team and will be playing at home. Of course, that only matters if Iowa doesn't go 2-0, because a 14-4 Hawkeyes who beat Michigan trump a 13-4 Wolverines squad. 

The stakes are pretty clear, and a lot like the hockey team, the objective is simple: win your remaining games. If you go 2-0 this week, you get a ring. Don't do that, and suddenly you're hoping Ohio State and Iowa both lose games they're favored in and it gets really dicey. It would help to get Leigha Brown back in order to do that, but it's unclear when she is expected back at this time. 

Home tourney games at Crisler here we come [Madeline Hinkley]

National Projections  

Michigan remains in a good position for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament despite the Leigha Brown-less skid. They currently sit in the two-line range in RPI, 7th on RealTimeRPI.com's tabulation, which is notable because the committee leans heavily on RPI when seeding the tourney. The women's version of the NET rankings has been a bit more unfavorable to Michigan all year, where they sit 14th. 

In terms of actual bracketology, ESPN's Charlie Creme is now updating his bracket much more frequently and continues to have Michigan on the two-line. In his most recent bracket, he sees Michigan as the two seed in the Bridgeport Regional with NC State as the one seed. As mentioned in the last edition of this piece, if you're a top four seed, you host the first and second rounds of the tournament. Therefore, the possibility of getting Crisler Center tourney home games appears near certain at this point.

In the ESPN projection, Michigan would draw Fairfield as the 15 in the first round, and then face the winner of UCF and Princeton in the next round. Considering that Michigan had never made a Sweet 16 before last season, the fact that we're sitting here talking about the Wolverines merely needing to defend home court against lesser seeds to repeat in the Sweet 16 is a massive testament to the coaching job of Kim Barnes Arico at Michigan. 

The Big Ten is projected to get six teams into the tourney in the ESPN projections. Those six are the five who were listed in the conference title chase standings, as well as Nebraska (who are one of only three teams to beat Michigan in the conference this year). No other B1G teams are listed on the bubble, so this is probably a six-bid league. College Sports Madness also does a bracket, though theirs hasn't been updated since Valentine's Day. They have Michigan as a two seed as well, which feels notable because a bracket made on 2/14 was before Michigan's win over Maryland, so in theory the resume is a bit stronger since then. A one seed still feels out of reach, but a strong close to the regular season and a good performance in the B1G Tournament should put the wraps on a two seed.