Then Simpson raised an arm and pointed in their direction, and the students rejoiced one last time. They knew he knew, which was to enough to call it a night.
A few minutes later, after indulging the cameras and on-court reporters, Simpson made his way toward the locker room. He stopped just before he reached the tunnel. At first, it wasn't entirely clear why. Not until Simpson bent down did the young fan come into view, a young fan seeking an autograph, a young fan who might have seen something of himself -- the smallest kid in the crowd -- in the smallest kid on the court.
“He wants to rebound,” Livers added with a smile. “Trust me.”
Trust is where this all starts. John Beilein trusts Simpson to run the game for his team the moment it begins. He trusts him to set the pace on offense and set the tone on defense. He trusts him to deliver the kind of messages on the floor that Beilein himself can't convey from the sideline. This trust, a large part of Michigan’s 20-1 start, has been earned over the past three years.
So it was fitting that the 100th game of Simpson’s career – and 100th in a row, at that – was also his best: 11 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. It was just the sixth triple-double in school history, and the first that came without a single turnover.
“You can’t say enough about what Zavier Simpson accomplished today. The triple-double is incredible, but I think just as big a feat is to have the ball that much and have 12 assists and no turnovers. I don’t recall coaching that ever,” said Beilein, who’s coached for more than 40 years.
Beilein’s counterpart, Ohio State’s Chris Holtmann, put it like this: “He just really impacts winning in a lot of ways, and he deserves a lot of credit for that.”
The irony to Simpson recording a triple-double is that statistics don’t capture the essence of his game. Nowhere in the box score will it indicate that Simpson latched onto point guard C.J. Jackson after Jackson’s hot start and held him to two points in the second half. Nowhere will it say that Simpson helped establish the rhythm on offense that broke the Buckeyes’ zone. And nowhere will it recount all the exchanges he had with Ohio State players and how he burrowed his way into their heads.
By the time a skirmish broke out midway through the second half that resulted in four technical fouls, Simpson, right in the middle of it all, had the Buckeyes right where he wanted them.
“I’m reading them a lot,” Simpson said. “Guys are tough with their mouth but they’re not tough with their play. Guys like to talk, which I appreciate. I mean, we feed off that, that gets us going. When they do that, we’re just only hungry for more, we’re hungry to get the next stop, make the next open pass and just try to win. That’s what we’re hungry for.”
Of course, Simpson was hungry for history, too. He found out he was close during the last media timeout, with 3:08 left on the clock and Michigan up by 16. As the Wolverines huddled up, two assistant coaches whispered in Simpson’s ear, “Get another rebound.”
“That’s when I kind of looked up (at the scoreboard) and was like, ‘Wow, this is real,” Simpson said.
He didn’t waste any time, securing his 10th rebound on the very next defensive possession. It was the most Simpson of boards – a loose ball in the lane after a missed jumper. Livers had a shot at it as well, along with Charles Matthews, but both of them deferred to Simpson.
“I didn’t want to hunt for it too much, but then again, I’m like, I don’t want to miss out on this opportunity, and my teammates told me to get it,” Simpson said. “Two of them could have gotten the rebound, and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m here,’ and they kind of let it bounce.
“You can win a lot of games with teammates doing that for another teammate. That means a lot.”
Livers laughed and said there was no chance he was getting in Simpson’s way.
“I could hear the fans, like, ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ I’m like, okay, let me back up. Honestly, if I would have (gone) for it he would have taken my arm off,” Livers said.
The box score wouldn’t have said that, either. But really, who cares what the box score says? There’s but one box that matters, and Simpson and Michigan are filling it with one checkmark after another.
"Coach B mentioned it earlier, the head of the snake," Livers said. "He’s our leader, he’s our point guard. He does it all for us."
It's funny -- Beilein's the second coach to describe Simpson in those words this season. The first was Northwestern's Chris Collins after Simpson burned his team in the first half of a loss back in December. Maybe that's where Beilein got it from.
Scary thought is, that snake's more like a hydra. Cut off one head, and a couple more replace it.
"Every night's not going to be your night," Simpson said. "Today's my night. There’s games where it’s Isaiah’s night, where it's Charles' night, Jordan's night, Jon’s night, Iggy’s night. Everyone's gong to have special moments. You just have to just stay down until you come up, keep working hard, be happy for one another and stay away from the selfish things, which I feel like we strive well in."
It was Simpson's turn for a special moment Tuesday, a night that was special to begin with. In his 100th career game, Simpson became the first player in the country this season to post a triple-double without turning the ball over -- and those were just the contributions we could count.