On the day the Michigan Wolverines captured the Big Ten championship, Derrick Walton Jr. may not have been the most accurate shooter for the Michigan Wolverines, but he did everything else well enough to lead the Wolverines to a 71-56 victory over #24 Wisconsin in the Big Ten tourney final.
Walton, a 6'1" senior, made just six of 15 shots from the field, but four of those were three-pointers (he was 4-for-9 from beyond the arc) and he was a perfect 6-for-6 from the foul line for a game-high 22 points, adding six rebounds, dishing seven assists and making a pair of steals in the big win that ended up with Michigan getting the automatic NCAA invitation and a #7 seeding in the Midwest region.
At the conclusion of the title game, Walton was named tournament Most Outstanding Player. In Michigan's four wins, Walton scored 82 points, distributed 25 assists and was a remarkable 22-for-23 from the charity stripe (perfect 21-for-21 in the final three games).
The Michigan story kicked into high gear over the weekend, with the Wolverines winning four straight after escaping a charter airplane crash on Wednesday night (3/8) to win the tournament as a #8 seed, defeating Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota and Wisconsin to stamp their impression on the month of March.
Set to face Oklahoma State, the #10 seed in the region, on
