Wolverine TV: Phil Martelli, Michigan players discuss Stanford win

Michigan Wolverines basketball had dropped two straight games entering Thursday night’s showdown with Stanford, but the Maize and Blue came away with an 83-78 victory. Associate and interim head coach Phil Martelli, sophomore point guard Dug McDaniel and redshirt sophomore forward Will Tschetter met with the media following the game.

Watch the full press conference in the player at the top of the screen or on our YouTube channel .

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Michigan struggled to defend early on in the game but played better on that end as the game went on.

“I think that any time you have a one day prep, you get one opportunity to quickly run through their plays,” Tschetter said. “I think it’s just a matter of settling into the game. And I feel like we did that about 10 minutes in. We started to really communicate, get comfortable in the game, get comfortable with the actions that they were running — and I think we did that and we got the job done.”

“Going off what he said, at halftime, it was adjustments and it was up to us to execute. The coaches are not on the floor with us, but they give us the blue print. Once we executed the blue print, it showed on the floor.”

The Wolverines lost close games to Long Beach State and Memphis but came away with a close victory in this one.

“Yesterday definitely told us we had to fight to the end,” Michigan’s point guard said. “We made it an emphasis before the game to have that fight that we had at the end [of the Memphis game] for 40 minutes straight. They shot over 60 percent from the field in the first half, but it doesn’t matter how good they shot, we still were up 1. We used that to our advantage and tried to hone in on what they were trying to do, and it turned out in our favor. I feel like we have a good group of guys, and it’s hard to stop us when we’re at our best.”

This was a game of runs but Michigan had the biggest surges even after Stanford took control at different points.

“I think that goes back to, we emphasize so much that it’s a game of runs,” Tschetter said. “Coach Phil mentions a lot, it’s like a boxing match. They’re going to punch, but it’s really just how we’re going to respond, how we’re going to punch back, spit the blood out. I felt like yesterday’s game was similar to today’s, but today we came out on top and did a better job of responding to those punches.”