The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - December 12, 2005 - 5B FASTBREAK Men's Basketball Saturday's Game MICHIGAN 68 - SOUTH FLORIDA 47 Freshman duo gains quality minutes late By Scott Bell Daily Sports Writer TAMPA, Fla. - At times it was pretty; at others it was ugly. But one thing was evident on Saturday afternoon at the Sun Dome: The young players for Michigan are getting closer to finding their niche on the team. For freshmen Jevohn Shepherd and Jerret Smith, Saturday provided some much-needed minutes to help break them in. The duo was forgotten in Michigan's last away game - a 71-67 victory over Notre Dame - when Shep- herd and Smith saw a combined five minutes of play. But in Saturday's contest, they saw more time on the court than they've seen as of late. "It was nice to see Jevohn and Jerret give us quality minutes," Michigan coach Tommy Amaker said. "They did some really nice things." Smith saw extensive time at point guard dur- ing the later stages of the first half. Along with fulfilling his duties as primary ball handler, he also showed a flair on the scoring front. After South Florida scored to break Michi- gan's 19-0 run, Smith was there to make sure the Bulls didn't start a run of their own. Fol- lowing a Graham Brown rebound, the Wol- verines reversed the ball around the key until Dion Harris found Smith open in the right corner of the hoop. The freshman calmly sank the 3-pointer - just his third in seven games. The shot brought him to five points in the half after hitting two free throws a few minutes before. But Smith's passes weren't as crisp as usual in the early stages of the half. He was incon- sistent and shaky when he first stepped on the court. Smith was stripped twice and threw a post entry pass away, accounting for three first-half turnovers. The bright spot in his passing game was his chemistry with Lester Abram. The duo connected twice in the half, Bench including a nice one-handed pass by Smith. It knifed through the defense and found an open Abram for a lay-up at the end of the period. "Jerret made some nice passes when he was pressured;' Amaker said. "At times, he looked like a freshman out there and turned the ball over a couple of times, but I was impressed and pleased with some of the poise he showed out there" The real highlight of the afternoon for Smith came on the defensive end. After visibly strug- gling on defense in prior games, Smith made several veteran-like plays on Saturday. He held South Florida point guard Chris Capko scoreless during his time in the game, and also picked up two rebounds and a steal. But his biggest play of the day didn't show up in the box score. Midway through the first half, Capko tried to dribble down the right side of the court. Smith stayed in front of him and could never get around him. He was eventual- ly whistled for a five-second violation, which triggered an emotional Smith to pump his fist and yell, "Let's go, baby." "Coach told us, if we don't play defense, we don't get into the game," Smith said. "I hadn't been playing the best of defense the last couple of games, so I knew I had to pick the intensity up." Shepherd didn't find his way into the game until the second half, but he did manage eight minutes of playing time. After a forgettable beginning - Shepherd miscued on an alley- oop attempt from Horton less than a minute into his time on the floor - the freshman settled in. Like Smith, Shepherd had five points, start- ing with a 3-pointer from the right wing. His second hoop happened after an inter- esting series of events. During the possession prior to his basket, Shepherd got into a scuffle with South Florida wing Roodly Prophete. After being separated by officials, Shepherd went down on the offensive end and let his play PLAYERS OF THE GAME Daniel Horton Michigan Horton provided the spark for the Wolverines in the first half with four steals. On the game, the senior finished with five steals and 16 points. James Holmes South Florida The Ypsilanti native came to play against the Wolverines. He dropped a game-high 20 points and kept the Bulls in the game for the first five minutes . WHAT DID YOU SAY? "Guys were dancing around ... and we felt disrespected. That gave us a little more motivation to come into this game ... and send a message to them and to the rest of the country." - Senior guard Daniel Horton on South Florida's pre-game antics. KEY STAT The number of consecutive points scored during Michigan's first half run. SATURDAY'S GAME MICHIGAN 68 Player MIN FG M-A FT M-A REB O-T A) F PTS RODRIGO GAYA/Daily Freshman Jerret Smith made strides on the defensive end of the court after recent struggles. Brown 25 1-3 0-0 4-10 2 1 2 Abram 28 5-10 7-7 0-2 0 2 18 Sims 18 6-8 1-3 7-7 0 4 13 Horton 29 6-12 1-1 0-2 5 3 16 Harris 37 3-12 0-0 0-5 3 1 7 Smith 18 1-2 2-2 0-2 3 1 5 Grooms 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Shepherd 7 2-3 1-1 0-0 0 0 5 coleman 16 0-4 0-0 4-6 0 0 0 Hunter 21 1-6 0-0 1-5 0 2 2 TEAM 0-1 do the talking. He received a pass at the right wing again, but instead of pulling up, he blew past defender Melvin Buckley and exploded down the baseline for an easy lay-up. "Jevohn has shown the explosiveness from the wing position for us," Amaker said. "It was nice to see the aggression out of Jevohn. We need that out of him." Bell'sfantasy team widens gap on overall lead; three tied with two Scoing system: (Last game's points, overall points, single-game wins) TEAM TOTALS 200 25-60 11-131 16-40 13 114 68 1 e " in first- half run By Kevin Vdght Daily Sports Writer TAMPA, Fla. - Just under four minutes into the game, junior Court- ney Sims - Michigan's leading scorer and rebounder at that point - sat on the FG%: 41.7 FT%: 84.6 3-point FG: 7-20, .714 (Horton 3-8, Harris 1-6, Smith 1-1, Shepherd 1-1, Abram 1-3, Hunter 0- 1). Blocks: 2 (Abram, Sims). Steals: 10 (Horton 5, Harris 2, Abram, Smith, Hunter). Turnovers: 15 (Sims 5, Smith 3, Harris 2, Horton 2, Brown, Shepherd, Hunter). Technical fouls: None. Kevin Wright (D. Horton, J. Shepherd, B. Petway, T. Sanchez, P. Devries) (21, 121, 2) Going into this week, I honest- ly didn't believe that I could pull out a victory in either game, but because Shepherd really stepped up on Saturday, I had a chance. Once again, Horton main- tained his consistent point pro- duction, and Shepherd showed controlled aggression. On Saturday, he scored five points with a 3-pointer. Even though he missed a dunk, five points is definitely an improve- ment from previous weeks. Luckily, this league only counts scoring, because besides points, Lester Abram is noticeably absent from the box score each week. On another positive note, I'm glad coach Amaker used the blowout to give some of the younger players time. Freshman Jerret Smith took advantage of his 18 minutes of play, dishing three assists and scoring five points. Player MIN FG M-A FT M-A REB O-T A F PTS Richardson 13 0-1 0-0 0-1 0 0 0 Buckley 28 2-12 1-2 3-12 1 3 6 Jones 33 4-8 0-0 1-3 2 3 8 Capko 38 0-0 2-2 0-3 6 0 2 Holmes 38 8-17 2-3 0-1 1 1 20 Mattis 33 2-7 2-3 3-5 1 2 6 Prophete 6 0-0 0-0 1-1 1 2 0 cann 11 2-3 1-2 0-1 0 5 5 TEAM 0-1 South Florida 47 Michigan men's basket- ball bench. After pick- ing up two quick fouls, Sims had to leave the game and did not return in the first half. Michigan coach Tommy Amaker had $LO TEAM TOTALS 200 18-48 8-12 8-28 12 16 47 FG%. 37.5 FT%: 66.7 3-point FG: 3-14, .21.4 (Holmes 2-6, Buckley 1-6, Cann 0-1, Mattis 0-1). Blocks: 8 (Jones 5, Mat- tis 2, Buckley). Steals: 6 (Holmes 3, Capko, Jones, Mattis). Turnovers: 20 (Capko 6, Jones 4, Mattis 4, Buckley 3, Hol- mes 2, Richardson). Technical fouls: none. to turn to his bench - specifically senior forward Chris Hunter - to fill Sims's missing production. And Hunter delivered. "We definitely want Courtney out there, but we have confidence in guys coming off the bench, like myself and Ron Cole- man," Hunter said. "We can come in and do a good job ourselves. I just came in and tried to do my job." When the Gary, Ind., native entered the game with 16 minutes left in the first half, he immediately made an impact on the defensive side of the court. In 11 minutes of play, Hunter grabbed three defensive rebounds during the Wol- verines' 19-0 run. His key boards kept South Florida's players off the offensive glass. The Bulls could muster just two offensive rebounds during Hunter's time on the court. "I was just trying to bring a little energy off the bench," Hunter said. "I was just trying to keep up the defensive intensity and hold them to one shot. I think that we did a great job of that for a long stretch of the first half." Junior guard Dion Harris also chipped in on the defensive glass while Sims had to sit and watch the game from the bench. The 6-foot-3 guard ran down loose balls and collected them for the Wolverines. In the first half, Harris grabbed five defen- sive rebounds. "Dion did a phenomenal job of (attacking the glass)," senior forward Graham Brown said. "You have to con- tinue to have that." Michigan.......... 39 South Florida... 19 29 - 68 At: USF Sun Dome 28 - 47 Attendance: 5,845 Jack Herman (L. Abram, R. Coleman, I. Smith, K. Price) (23, 129, 2) 'M' STATS Player GP Min Pts R A RORIGO GAYA/Daily Senior Chris Hunter filled the void left by Courtney Sims, who got in foul trouble. RETURN To SENDER: After a week, Brown finally missed a shot. In fact, he missed two. In the Wolverines' previous two games, Brown hadn't missed a field goal. On Sat- urday, against South Florida, Brown fin- ished the night 1-for-3. But it wasn't that the senior suddenly lost his touch around the basket. Instead, South Florida's Solomon Jones kept swatting his shots away. The 6-foot-10 forward came into Satur- day's game against the Wolverines leading the Bulls with 23 blocks, and he currently stands third in the Big East with an aver- age of 3.8 blocks per game. Looming in the lane, Jones made his presence felt early and often, and Brown found out firsthand. With a little less than four minutes left in the first half, Brown took the ball on left block and turned to lay it off the glass. Jones had other plans, sending the ball sailing out of bounds and into the first row of bleachers. Later in the frame, Brown attempted a little floater in the lane. Jones soared to deflect the ball and met it at the height of the shot. He promptly swatted it away from the basket. On the night, Jones finished with five blocks and altered Michigan's field goal percentage in the first half. The Wolver- ines shot just 36 percent in that frame. "He's an outstanding shot-blocker" South Florida coach Robert McCullum said. "If you drive in there without shot faking, he's probably got a pretty good chance of blocking it." PUTTING A LID ON rr: South Florida had just scored five straight points and seemed poised to gain some much-needed momentum going into the locker room at halftime. But Lester Abram had other plans. With 41 seconds left in the first half, Abram took the ball on the wing, faked a dribble drive to the baseline and drove inside. He converted the lay-up while South Florida's Zaronn Cann fouled him. Abram made the free throw to silence the raging Sun Dome crowd and send Michigan to halftime with all of the momentum. "I was just trying to attack," Abram said. "I just tried to stay on the attack because they only played like six guys, so we knew that getting them in foul trouble would be big for our team." Courtney Sims became my hero on Wednesday, leading me to a blowout win. My team had 35 points, while the other three man- aged just 34 combined. But foul trouble killed me on Saturday. Sims still dominated when he was in, but the problem is it's hard to score with Sims on the bench in foul trouble and when Graham Brown won't shoot. Sims 7 26.4 16.4 8.0 0.4 Horton 7 33.3 15.1 2.6 5.1 Abram 7 30.7 12.9 2.9 0.6 Harris 7 29.4 9.1 2.9 3.4 Hunter 7 15.9 5.1 3.3 0.6 Brown 7 25.7 4.4 8.7 1.1 Coleman 7 13.7 3.1 2.7 0.6 Shepherd 6 8.8 2.5 1.3 0.1 Smith 7 14.6 2.4 1.0 3.1 Ba 4 2.8 0.5 0.5 0.0 Grooms 3 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Harrell 3 1.7 0.0 0.7 0.1 Scott Bell (C. Sims, G. Brown, S. Harrell, A. Brzozowicz) (15, 146,2) BIG TEN STANDINGS Team Big Ten Overall There are two steps to scoring points in basketball. First, you have to attempt a shot. Then, in order for the basket to count, the ball must actually travel through the cylinder. After some quiet performances to begin the season, my team finally seems to have step one down - Hunt- er and Harris hoisted 18 shots against South Florida. It's step two that really needs some work. Seven games in, my team is shooting 36 percent from the floor. They'll need to pick that stat up for my team to have any hope. Illinois 0-0 10-0 Michigan 0-0 7-0 Ohio State 0-0 4-0 Wisconsin 0-0 7-2 Mich. State 0-0 7-2 Indiana 0-0 5-2 Minnesota 0-0 5-2 Iowa 0-0 7-3 Northwestern 0-0 4-3 Penn State 0-0 4-3 SATURDAY'S RESULTS: Minnesota 72, UNLV 67; WISCONSIN 77, Marquette 63; PITTSBURGH 91, Penn State 54; Ohio State 81, SAINT JOSEPH'S 74; Michigan 68, SOUTH FLORIDA 47 Indiana 79, KENTUCKY 53; MICHIGAN STATE 83, Wichita State 64 Illinois 89, OREGON 59 Matt Singer (D. Harris, C. Hunter, A. Ba, H. Grooms) (9, 102, 1) Purdue 0-0 3-3 DEFENSE Continued from page 11B Wolverines returned to their man-to-man defense, hoping to drcareae the numhr of nnen looks for Holmes. received the ball in the corner with the shot clock running down. His ensuing shot ricocheted off the side of the back- board, no where close to the cylinder. During the remainder of the game, the Wolverines rotated between a full-court press. man-to-man halfcourt defense and a BULLS Continued from page 1B THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE MONDAY'S Norfolk State at Ohio State, 8 p.m. GAMES N.C. Wilmington at Wisconsin, 8 p.m. WEDNESDAY'S Illinois-Chicago at Northwestern, 8 p.m. GAMES Alabama-Birmingham at Minnesota, 8 p.m. Belmont at Ohio State, 8 p.m. I