8A - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com MICHIGAN 55 A BLOWN OPPORTUNITY 2nd-half shooting slump ends upset bid By IAN ROBINSON Daily Sports Editor COLUMBUS - Ekpe Udoh doesn't shoot many 3-pointers in practice. But when the Michigan men's basketball team trailed by four with four and half minutes remaining last night, the 6-foot- 10 sophomore nailed one from the top of the key. The basket, his fifth trey of the season, cut the Buckeyes' lead to one and gave Michigan hope down the stretch. It was also Michigan's lone basket in the last eight and a half minutes of the game. That offensive drought spelled defeat for the Wolverines as they went on to lose, 65-55, to Ohio State at Value City Arena. "It's like it was in your hands and just slipped away," freshman Kelvin Grady said. "(We didn't do) those things that you need to do at the end of the game to win." Last night's field-goal drought couldn't be blamed on the usual turnovers or lack of intensity. This time, it was a lack of offen- sive aggression. Michigan (1-9 Big Ten, 5-17 overall) attempted nine shots during the final eight-and-a- half minute stretch against Ohio State (7-3, 16-7). Six of them were 3-pointers and none were layups. In that time, most Wolverine shots came from the corner with the shot clock running out. "Coach definitely was telling us to penetrate," Grady said. "We just never got to that." The team's playmaking also left the Wolverines in a poor posi- tion to win. Halfway through the second half and coming out of a timeout with 11 seconds on the shot clock, Michigan didn't even Harris didn't heed his own pep talk COLUMBUS - 'm not exactly sure what freshman Manny Harris told his teammates during this week's players-only meeting. But if you needamotiva- tional speaker for your next business meeting, Har- ris is your guy. Sophomore Ekpe Udoh H shot 3-for-4 BOSCH (seven points) and grabbed five rebounds. Redshirt freshman Anthony Wright scored eight points and had a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Freshman Kelvin Grady shot 50 percent from beyond the arc and scored 11 points - his highest point total since Dec. 12 against Central Michigan. It seems like a lot of Harris's teammates paid attention to what he said in that meeting, but the player who didn't take the mes- sage to heart was Harris himself. The team's leading scorer put up just seven points in 35 min- utes. He had a chance to carry the team on his back, make plays near the end of the game and lead Michigan to its first significant road win since 2003. It wasn't because of a lack of effort. Instead, he literally passed up the opportunity. "I just tried to be patient with (the game) and let it come to me and basically pass," Harris said. "Today I was looking to pass and let everything else come to me. I., didn't wantto rush anything." Rushing has been the Wolver- ines' biggest problem offensively, and Harris has been the biggest culprit. All of a sudden, the player who drove aggressively to the lane was content with running along the perimeter. For the first time all year, he didn't reach the free- throw line. When the team need- ed its leading scorer the most, he was too busy looking for someone else to make a play. As a freshman, Harris still has a lot to learn about playing at the college level. One of those les- sons is that he has to trust him- self. He's one of just a few Big Ten players with the skill to break out of an offensive system and create his own plays. At Wisconsin, Harris dropped 26 points in a hostile environ- ment, mostly from driving to the basket. And eventhough he hasn't reached the free-throw line much in recent games, Harris is by far the team leader in drawing fouls. He has taken 128 shots from the charity strip. The next highest total on the team is 55. But Harris wasn't the only top scorer who found trouble scoring last night. Sophomore DeShawn Sims scored just six points in 15 minutes. The two top scorers on the team combined to score 13 points in a winnable game against their archrival. That can't happen. Ohio State's defense was tough. The Buckeyes deserve credit for harassing the Wolverines and forcing tough shots the last eight and a half minutes of the game. But all good teams tighten up at the end of games, and Ohio State won't be the only one giv- ing Michigan fits in.the waning moments of a close contest. Michigan had a chance to win and shrunk under pressure, despite playing with confidence for most of the game. And it all started with the kid who was willing to challenge his older teammates. There certainly wasn't a lack of effort on Harris's part - just a lack of killer instinct. Let's see him challenge his teammates on the court, too. - Bosch can be reached at hectobos@umich.edu. I Senior David Merritt struggles for the ball during Michigan's second-half collapse against Ohio State last night in Columbus. get off a field-goal attempt. Even more frustrating, the Wolverines had done everything well in the first half that they fouled up in the second. In the first 20 minutes, Michigan broke the Buckeyes' full-court press and created the fast-break opportuni- ties Michigan coach John Beilein has sought from his squad all sea- son. With eight minutes remaining in the first half, Ohio State had just scored five unanswered points and looked ready to take control of the game. But in the next four minutes, Michigan went on a 13-2 run. With all their starters on the bench, the Wolverines reversed the momentum of the game going into the second half. "We made the extra pass that we haven't been able to make in past games," redshirt freshman Anthony Wright said. Wright came off the bench and scored all eight of his points in the first half, but it was his passing and decisions in transi- tion that impressed Beilein most. Reserves C.J. Lee and David Mer- ritt and senior Ron Coleman, who returned to the starting lineup for the first time in almost a month, were diving for loose balls - showing intensity that was miss- ing from last week's embarrassing home loss to Minnesota. "Ijust like the idea that we were competing all the way through the game," Beilein said. Though the game could be called a moral victory, Beilein still considers last night a missed opportunity. And for a team that has lost 11 of 12, opportunities to win have been few and far between. Blue shrugs off Quick's sudden exit 4 Nerves, illness and injury can't stop walk-on junior By COURTNEY RATKOWIAK Daily Sports Editor Kevin Quick was kicked off the Michigan hockey team - and the Wolverines have moved on. The team learned of Quick's dismissal, for what Michigan coach Red Berenson said was "a total violation of our team trust and rules," before last weekend's frustrating series against North- ern Michigan. Coming in the midst of a four-game winless streak, the news could have made the Wolverines even more fraz- zled this week with No. 1 Miami (Ohio) looming ahead. But thanks to its depth on the blue line, Michigan's adjustments will be minimal. Quick played with junior alternate captain Mark Mitera on the first pairing in 14 of the freshman's 21 games. Mitera said hearing the news of his friend and lockermate's dismissal was "dis- appointing" and that it'd be tough to continue their friendship. "(Quick) always hung out with (Mitera) after practices - they'd go back and play Halo together," senior alternate captain Chad Kolarik said. "But he was a quiet kid, he stuck to himself. I don't think it really affected anyone else that bad." Originally, Michigan coach Red Berenson rotated freshmen Scoot- er Vaughan, Tristin Llewellyn and Quick between two defensive spots, which kept intensity high during practices. But after the first half of the season, Quick and Vaughan estab- lished their spots in the lineup. Quick had played in 13 straight games, with his last scratch in the first game of the College Hockey Showcase on Nov. 23. Prior to last weekend's series, Vaughan had played 19 games. He missed the Michigan State series two weeks ago due to illness, but before that, he was in the lineup for eight straight games. CHANEL VON HABSBURG-LOTHRINGEN/Daily Freshman Kevin Quick was dismissed from the Michigan hockey team before last weekend's Northern Michigan series. By COLT ROSENSWEIG Daily Sports Writer Junior Phil Goldberg thought he would never again be as nervous as he was before his first Maize and Blue intrasquad. But when he found himself in the starting rings lineup for Michigan's first meet of 2008, the Windy City Invitational, the nerves returned with all their old intensity. "I always thought the most dif- ficult meet I'd ever been to was intrasquad my freshman year," Goldberg said. "That was the most nervous one in my mind - until Windy City." An anxious freshman walk-on in the 2006 season, Goldberg worried that his first performance would determine how the coaches judged him for the rest of his career. He expected at best to redshirt his first season - and at worst, to be cut. But the coaches must have liked what they saw, because Goldberg became a regular in his first sea- son. He made rings finals at Big Ten Championships, and barely missed the event finals at NCAA Championships. "He was just about an All- American as a freshman," Michi- gan coach Kurt Golder said. "If he could have made it into the finals and finished in the top eight, just beat a couple guys, he would have made it." But before his sophomore sea- son, Goldberg partially tore his bicep. And when he tried to come back too quickly, he aggravated the injury, forcing him to redshirt the season. This year, Goldberg wouldn't be left out. In December, he com- peted in this season's Maize and Blue intrasquad just as he was get- ting over mononucleosis. To add further obstacles to his comeback path, he got the flu just before the start of the regular season. The emotions of coming back from extended time off showed in his Windy City routine, which was shaky enough to put his lineup spot in jeopardy. But Golder had faith in the junior's ability to bounce back. After removing one big skill, a push to inverted cross, from Goldberg's routine, the remainder of the set improved dramatically. "He just needed a beginning," Golder said. "That's why I wanted him in the Windy City. The most dramatic change most of the time comes between your first and sec- ond meet." To Goldberg's surprise, his name was in the rings lineup for Michigan's home opener against then-No. 2 Penn State. He didn't waste his second chance. With Goldberggoingsecond-to- last, Michigan needed a hit. The Wolverines were down after two rotations and the comeback had to begin with rings. Using five gym- nasts instead of the usual six (the top four scores count), they could not afford a mistake. With the pressure on, Gold- berg turned in a performance starkly different from his Windy City debut. His positions were all strong and solid, and when he landed, he'd scored a 15.1- far bet- ter than his 13.65 in Chicago. With his confidence boosted further by another well-done routine at Oklahoma's raucous McCasland Field House, and his first-ever event title at Iowa the following week, Goldberg is work- ing on adding difficulty back into his routine. Once his endurance improves enough to put the push to invert- ed cross back in, Goldberg's start value will rocket into the mid-16's, well within championship range. And by April, Michigan could have another All-American on its hands. g Llewellyn had seen action in 18 games but was scratched for three of the last six. Quick's dismissal meant he had to unexpectedly suit up for this weekend's series. "Our concern with Tristin was playing with a sense of urgency in our zone, because he plays with a calmness that most defense- men don't play with," Berenson said. "But I think he's handling it well." Now that the three-freshman rotation has been eliminated, the six-man defense is set. Vaughan will likely play with Mitera on the first pairing, like he did when Quick was out of the lineup, and Llewellyn will continue to play with sophomore Chris Summers. "Definitely, I thick the other defensemen were not excited for him to leave, but excited for the opportunity that, 'Now, I'm solid- ified in the lineup, I can really go out there and show them what I've got,' " Mitera said. Without the extra depth on the blue line, previously one of Mich- igan's biggest assets, Berenson said the Wolverines can play with a five-man defense if one blueliner is injured or sick. But if two defensemen are out, Michigan will need to explore other options. Like Michigan did with former Wolverine forward David Rohlfs, who skated 23 games on defense as a junior, Berenson could tem- porarily pull a forward back to the blue line. He acknowledged junior forward Danny Fardigcould be an option. Michigan technically still has seven defensemen on its roster, but sophomore Eric Elmblad has never seen game time. Berenson said he might consider playing Elmblad, a walk-on added to the team before last season, if the team is low on defense - but he t would rather rely on a forward who has already had significant playing time. "If I was guaranteed that he would play well and not hurt us or cost us a goal or a game, then he might have had some game time already," Berenson said. Associate head coach Mel Pear- son, who is in charge of recruiting, said Quick's departure will have no impact on next year's recruit- ing class. Michigan already has two defensive recruits for next year. And for now, Kolarik and other members of the team made it clear - they're done worrying about the issue. "We've got to concentrate on the guys who are here and who are playing for us, not playing for themselves," Kolarik said. "The guys that left or the guys that got kicked off, we have to forget them."