The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - January 30, 2006 - 3B * Post play drives loss for Blue Doubting LeBron is the worst of all my mistakes By Sara Livingston Daily Sports Writer Inevitably, just when something sudden- ly begins to improve, something else slowly finds itself deteriorating with no means of recovery in sight. Despite past problems guarding outside shooters, Michigan (0-9 Big Ten, 6-15 Over- all) finally stepped up its performance along the perimeter, making it nearly impossible for Wisconsin (2-7, 8-13) to penetrate and drive to the basket. But at the same time, the Wolverines found themselves without a post presence. Constantly coming up short, they were unable to pull down 20 defensive rebounds. As a result, Michigan gave the Badgers enough second-chance opportu- nities to make up for their- struggling post play and earn the 75-65 victory. "We wanted to come out and have our defense make a very specific difference in the game," Michigan coach Cheryl Burnett said. "When we play hard and pressure the ball, we get out in the passing lanes, and we were very effort-driven." With no savior in sight, the Wolverines' woes in the post continued. They constant- ly failed to crash the boards and box out, allowing Wisconsin to grab 18 offensive rebounds. The Badgers' fast-paced offense forced Michigan to rotate and pick up Wisconsin's dribble-penetration and bas- ket-cutters. Michigan stopped the Badgers along the perimeter, but in the process, left the entire post area open. Wisconsin didn't hesitate to capitalize on that open court - shooting the majority of its second-chance shots from the paint. "A lot of times it's hard to get back and find your own player," sophomore forward Katie Dierdorf said. "They were taking a lot of short shots, and with those, it's just hard to go back and box out. We just have to pay more attention to where our girl is and then go and box out." More often than not, Michigan found itself out of position when Wisconsin launched up a shot, leaving it unable to beat the Badgers to the boards. After shifting over to cover the perimeter and fill the passing lanes, Michigan's post players found themselves away from the basket and on the outside end of a boxing- out Badger. Early in the second half, the Wisconsin forwards made their presence felt, twice scooping up four consecutive offensive There's that saying in poker that you never remember all the little pots you won to build bankroll, but it's impossible to forget the one big mistake you made to lose it. It's true for more than just poker. I've been working at the Daily for the last three years - and almost every day for the last year. And in that time, I've written a few decent pieces. But man oh man, have I made a lot of screw-ups. I can easily think of a half-dozen big mistakes that I've made at this paper. The first day that I was on my own as sports edi- tor I got the score wrong - not so much wrong, but I said that the- wrong team won. I once spelled Reilly Olson's name Riley. In one paper, I let it print that the hockey team was playing "today" when, in fact, it was playing the next, day. I picked Ohio State to beat Michi- gan in the last football game of the year this year, and I picked Nebraska to cover the spread. Though I was right IAN about both of those, I'm told it infuri- HERBER ated some folk. Sports Mona In a column I wrote, I gave Bo osmnd Schembechler less credit than he deserved, leading to dozens of furious e-mails and a lot of not-so-nice names. I've been told that I write about myself too much - to whomever said that, stop reading this column now. But one of the stupidest things I ever wrote got no backlash, no e-mails. It was probably because no one knew I wrote it, or knew how to contact me. It was the fall of 2003, just before the NBA season began, and the Daily was getting ready to do preseason picks - a tradition when we have extra space. I did the picks not because I'm an NBA expert or anything, but because I happened to be sitting around the Daily when it was time to do picks. I thought very carefully about my selections and put them in the paper. Most were not very surprising or memorable. But then I got to two picks: Most overrated player - LeBron James. Most underrated player - Kwame Brown. I doubt there's been a bigger mistake involving two No. 1 picks since Michael Olowokandi and Len Bias (too soon?). I had my reasons. I figured that LeBron James was the single most hyped player ever to set foot on an NBA court. Sports Illustrated had written about him when he was a junior in high school. It was absurd. How could he possibly live up to the hype? There was no way. He was amazing in high school. The St. Vincent-St. Mary's games they showed on ESPN made him look like Michael Jordan. But that was high school - when 'Bron was bigger, faster and stronger than the guys he played. I doubted he could do it week in and week out against the best players in the world for 82 games a year. Plus, he had to try to resurrect the Cavaliers. That's a task in itself. The Kwame Brown thing is a little less excusable. I don't have an excuse, but since Brown was on my hometown Wizards for most of his career, I've always had a soft spot for the first high school player to be drafted No. 1 overall. My friend Jim scoffed at the picks, but I stood by them, insisting they were right on and exclaiming it was going to be Brown's breakout year. I've never been more wrong. James far surpassed everyone's expecta- tions. He was one of three rookies ever to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists. The other two were Oscar Rob- T ertson and Michael Jordan - pretty good ,ay company. He was 2003-04 rookie of the year - the youngest player ever to win the award. And, recently, he became the youngest player to reach 5,000 points - beating Kobe Bryant (more good company). He's currently third in the NBA in points per game (30.9) and 15th in assists per game (6.3). Most impressive is the way he's turned around the Cavaliers. They haven't made the playoffs yet, but they've been close the last two years. They're 25-17 this year, and if the season were to end today, they'd be the No. 4 seed and would be playing a home playoff series. Kwame Brown, on the other hand, averaged seven points and five rebounds per game last year. He has yet to score more than 14 points in a game; James has a career-high of 56. Brown skipped practice, was benched for the Wizards' playoff run and was promptly traded to the Lakers. Needless to say, I was wrong. When I got a column a little more than a year ago, I promised Jim that I would apologize to The Michigan Daily readers who I may have insulted. My time's running out at the Daily - I'm leaving after the Super Bowl - so I'm down to my last couple opportunities. Now if only I could remember how I built my bankroll. - Ian Herbert can be reached at iherbert@umich.edu. EMMA NOLAN-ABRAHAMIAN, Freshman Jessica Minnfield did her part to try stifling the Badger perimeter attack. rebounds. Despite playing for more than 20 minutes, sophomore Janelle Cooper couldn't contribute on the boards as much as usual, grabbing just one rebound. Most of the time she was in the game, Cooper was forced to lend her defensive exper- tise to secure the perimeter. In addition, Stephany Skrba's team-high nine rebounds weren't enough to give the Wolverines a presence down low. Skrba couldn't come out from the post to help the weak-side defenders. "In the rebounding part, Cooper makes such a difference," Burnett said. "Not only in numbers, but she gets so many hustle things at the rebounding end. And Skrba is such a force rebounding wise, that it is almost as if we have to have both of those players in for us to be a great rebounding team." Along the perimeter, Cooper, freshman Melinda Queen and sophomore Krista Clement rotated around, closing up open lanes and forcing Wisconsin to put the ball on the floor in order to create shot opportu- nities. In the process, Michigan forced the Badgers into committing an above-average 23 turnovers. "I just think (the way we played defense) gives us the confidence that we can get out and deny every pass and help a lot on drives," Dierdorf said. "From this, we just gained a lot of confidence, and we will con- tinue to go forward with our defense." N MEN'S SWIMMING & DIVING Burtch, Aibright comebacks in breastroke aids Blue in victory By Anne Ulble Daily Sports Writer BLOOMINGTON - Senior co-cap- tain Peter Vanderkaay may have won the meet for the Wolverines, but sophomore Grant Burtch had a meet-changing race in the 200-yard breaststroke that proved to be the catalyst in pushing the Michigan men's swimming and diving team ahead of Indiana on the point board. The fourth- ranked Wolverines ultimately came away with a 160-140 victory over No. 11 Indi- ana. As the 200-yard breaststroke got underway, Burtch and senior Andrew Albright got off to slow starts and were far from Hoosier leaders Kevin Swander and Heath Tameris. "We were half way through the race saying, 'Uh oh, this is not good,' " assis- tant coach Dan Schinnerer said. "I think most of us on the deck thought that we were out of the race." With three laps to go, Albright and Burtch made a fight to move up on their opponents. "It was about there where I decided I wasn't ready to give up," Burtch said. "I wasn't ready to go home yet." Coming down the final lap of the race, Albright passed Tameris, and Burtch moved ahead to stalk down Swander. With just a few strokes left in the race, the Michigan team rallied together on the sidelines to cheer on their team- mates, and Burtch grabbed the lead and got his hand to the wall first to earn the victory with a time of 2:03.00. "I knew I was in it at the final 25;" Burtch said. "I felt pretty good, so I just sped up. I was a little surprised to see that I won." Burtch's win, along with Albright's third-place finish, spurred the rest of the team to work harder. "That was a great swim," Bowman said. "For him to respond that way really pushed the rest of the guys to try and work harder to move up and get in those extra points." Michigan had beaten Ohio State 164-77 less than 24 hours before the start of yesterday's meet. Immediately after that victory, the Wolverines drove six hours to Bloomington. As a result of that brutal schedule, Michigan got off to a tough start against Indiana, finishing second in the 200-yard medley relay to a fast Hoosiers team. "After the long drive last night, we were all a little sore," senior co-captain Chris DeJong said. "It took a while to get warmed up:" Vanderkaay responded to the loss in the first event by earning a victory in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 14:58.84 - more than eight seconds ahead of second-place Hoosier finisher Sergiy Fesenko. Vanderkaay went on to swim in the 500-yard freestyle and 400-yard indi- vidual medley and anchor the 800-yard freestyle relay. "Peter is an iron man' Bowman said. "He basically carried us on his shoulders, and nobody can swim a program like that except him." Both Indiana and Michigan exchanged point leads throughout the meet, creating an extremely competitive environment. Bowman labeled the competition as the toughest one on the team's schedule, and he was very pleased to end up earning the win. In addition to the efforts of Vanderkaay and Burtch, Bowman pointed to freshman Bobby Savulich as making a difference for the team yesterday. Savulich swam an exciting 200-yard freestyle with senior co- captain Davis Tarwater. With a time of 23:03, Savulich led the field of eight swimmers for the first 50 yards. Tarwater dragged on Savulich for the first half of the race while main- taining a close second-place distance. After a fast turn and strong push-off, Tarwater made a move on the fourth wall and was able to inch up on the freshman. Following three more fast turns from Tarwater, Savulich couldn't hold him off any longer. Tarwater led the final 50 yards and took a victory in the race with a time of 1:37.85. Savulich finished in a close second with a time of 1:38.03. "It was nice to see Bobby step it up" Bowman said. "He didn't have a very good meet against Ohio State, so to come here and swim well showed us that he knows how to step it up. I think by the time the Big Tens roll around he'll be a force to be reckoned with." Michigan has just one dual meet remaining - against Northwestern in two weeks - before returning to Bloom- ington for the Big Ten Championships. BADG ERS Continued from page 1B ines could not do much against the Bad- ger twosome. Josephson and Anderson started the game hot; one of the two had a hand in each of Wisconsin's first 16 points. At the media timeout with 7:57 left in the half, they had combined for 21 points, and the Badgers led 31-17. But Stone decided to give Anderson a rest, and that gave the Wolverines a chance to come back. With the Wiscon- sin leader on the bench, Michigan capi- talized with a 9-0 run. Anderson came right back into the game and immedi- ately dished to Josephson, who hit her third three of the game. After a Melinda Queen turnover, Anderson found an opening in the Wolverine defense and hit a lay-up. The Badgers regained control of the game and entered halftime with a 42- 33 lead. But Michigan wasn't going to go out without a fight. The team started to force the. ball inside, and Skrba and Dierdorf responded with big second halves. Clement had six of her assists in the second half and continuously found the two under the basket for short jump- ers. Skrba and Dierdorf combined for 10 of the Wolverines' first 15 points of the second half, and the duo brought the team within five points at 53-48 with 13 minutes remaining. And once the Bad- ger defense started to collapse down low, Clement was left open from long range and knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the Wisconsin lead to two. "Krista really did a great job getting the ball to everyone," Michigan coach Cheryl Burnett said. "When Katie Dier- dorf is open, Krista is going to get it to her in some favorable offensive locations. She did a magnificent job of organizing and communicating for us. When she is in the game, she is calling the right things at the right times." The Badgers adjusted though, and the Wolverines committed turnovers on their next four possessions - all while try- ing to get the ball inside. Josephson and Anderson capitalized on their opponents' mistakes in a way that would have made Batman creator Bob Kane proud. With 11:15 left, Josephson knocked down her fourth trey to extend the lead to 58-53. On the very next possession, Anderson got a shooter's roll on a 16-foot jump sliot to push the margin to seven. After Michi- gan closed the gap to five with 5:18 left, Josephson appeared to stick the =dagger in the Wolverines with a wide-open three from the left wing. "That was really the turning point of the game;' Stone said. "Jolene kicked the ball out to Ashley for three, we got a block, and then Jo got a lay-up at the other end. That put us up by seven, and really gave us the cushion that we needed." Michigan wasn't done yet though, and with two minutes left, a left-hand- ed scoop shot from Cooper cut the Bad- ger lead to four points. But Wisconsin looked to their leader, and Anderson responded with a driving bank shot from the right side of the lane. After a Cooper turnover and air-balled three, Josephson hit four consecutive free throws to clinch the game. F I Healthy, medication-free volunteers, ages 18-45, needed for research involving visits to the hospital & blood draws. IRB# 2004-0128. Pays up to $200. Call (734)647-8354 New Laser Research for the Treatment of Acne b If you have moderate to severe acne you may qualify for a research study involving new laser technology at the University of Michigan Department of Dermatology. C:>You may also receive up to $260 for your participation. 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