e0 8 - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Morris back on track in 'M' win BRETT FLASHNICK/AP Clemson senior C.Spiller didn't make it into the Heisman top five, even with more than 2,500 all-purpose yards this year. Spiter got snubbed Jn the final weekend of the regular season - one full of conference championship games, big-time matchups and BCS bowl clinchers - some of college football's biggest names get one final shot to cement their spots afthe New York Downtown Athletic Club for the annual Heis- man Trophy ANDY presenta- REID tion. Last weekend, some of the game's current giants were given that exact opportunity, and they completely crumbled under the national spotlight. Texas quarterback Colt McCoy almost cost the Long- horns a spot in the BCS National Championship Game, throwing three interceptions and almost letting time expire in the fourth quarter with his team down two points. Texas barely slinked past Nebraska, but that can be more attributed to the Cornhuskers' lack of offense (they only posted five first downs) than McCoy's heroics. And the nation's Golden Boy, Tim Tebow, was completely shut down by Alabama. Can any Heis- man voter really say they were impressed with No. 15's perfor- mance - or the measly 13 points his offense put up in the SEC Championship? No, but he was invited to New York. Same with McCoy. I'm not saying they shouldn't be - both players are good enough to at least be considered for the award. But there was one player who blew up on Saturday, who proved he may be the best player in America, and he was snubbed by the committee for no apparent reason. He's-Clemson's C.J. Spiller, and he's arguably the most excit- ing player in the nation. A Heisman winner is sup- posed to show up in big games, and that's just what he did in last weekend's ACC Championship, which Clemson lost in a heart- breaker, 39-34. What's bigger than four touchdowns, a stag- gering 233 rushing yards, 301 all-purpose yards and the career record for single-season touch- downs at his respective school? And it's not like that was an isolated incident. Spiller posted a ridiculous 310 all-purpose yards - including a 56-yard touchdown and a 90-yard kick- off return - in an overtime upset of then-No. 10 Miami in October. With more than 2,500 yards, Spiller is No. 5 this season in all-purpose yards. He's gaining almost 10 yards every time he touches the ball. How has he not garnered Heisman interest? Toby Gerhart from Stanford skyrocketed on people's lists after a big game against lowly Notre Dame. On the field after the game, his coach publicly told the nation that his running back deserved to win the award. Does it take shameless self-promotion like that to get players from a non-BCS Championship con- tender into the mix? Apparently. Well, Spiller isn't going to get that kind of endorsement from his more modest coach, Dabo Swinney. "He left it on the field and that's all you can ask," Swin- ney told reporters after Spiller's awe-inspiring day in the ACC Championship. The fact is, C.J. Spiller is - at the bare minimum - one of the nation's five best players this season. He's done more for his team, a Tiger club that is on the rise after firing coach Tommy Bowden last season, than anyone on the exclusive list. I mean, how many people could say they thought Clemson would be with- in a few minutes of a BCS bowl this year? And for thefew people out there that believe the Heisman is some kind of career achievement award - that Tebow or McCoy should win it in spite of their less productive senior years because their whole careers deserve acknowledgement - who has had a better four years than Spiller? He's second on the list of cur- rently active players in all-pur- pose yards, with more than 7,400 yards and 50 touchdowns. For the record, that's just four scores behind Tebow, who touches the ball every play. They've already decided to retire his jersey number at Clemson. The Heisman commit- tee should have felt compelled to honor him, too. - Reid can be reached at andyreid@umich.edu. By CHRIS MESZAROS Daily Sports Writer Darius Morris still has a lot to learn on the Michigan basketball team. After struggling against the Wolverines' opponents at the Old Spice Classic and Boston College - he scored a combined 12 points in all four games - he started to show signs of growth Saturday. NOTEBOOK "(Michigan coach John Beilein) has been tell- ing me that there's goingto be some bumps in the road early," the fresh- man point guard said. "I'm still try- ing to find my niche on this team and on offense. But on the defensive part, I just bring it every day. I just feellike Iamgettingmore andmore comfortable after each game." The Los Angeles native tal- lied eight points and three assists against Arkansas-Pine Bluff Satur- day, with most of his contributions coming during Michigan's second- half resurgence, where they out- scored the Golden Lions by 14. Morris's success came against a lesser opponent, and Beilein believes Morris's defensive perfor- mance was more impressive than his points. "He's a better defender, he's just in that delay where we're a step off reading what's going on," Beilein said. "That's just assimilating to col- lege basketball. So the only way he's going to get it more is by playing more." Morris's speed on defense was one of the reasons for the Wolver- ines' success in shutting down the Golden Lions. Michigan forced 22 turnovers, and the freshman did a good job with ball control, commit- ting just two turnovers himself. On Saturday, Beilein rewarded Morris for his efforts. He saw the court for 34 minutes, the second- most behind junior forward Manny Harris. Both Beilein and Morris realizecthatfor the Michigan offense to be functional, it needs Morris to direct traffic in the backcourt. "I've learned certain simple things like when to attack, what time on the shot clock are we going, if we're going two-for-one," Morris said. "The main part is confidence." STRUGGLING SHOOTERS: It MICHIGAN C helping you Follow us on SAM WoLSON/Daily Freshman Darius Morris played 34 minutes and showed improvement on Saturday. was the firstthing Beilein addressed in Saturday's postgame press con- ference. And it has been one of his team's glaring, recurring issues. The issue is the 3-point struggles of sophomore guards Zack Novak and Stu Douglass, who seem to have lost their touch on the deep ball. Novak finished the game 0-for-4 from behind the arc, and Douglass didn't fare much better, going just l-for-7. In fact, Douglass had numer- ous second-half opportunities from deep that simply clanked off the front of the rim. "(Novak) didn'tshoot the ballwell today. He was 3-for-9 the other day, 0-for-4 today," Beilein said. "We've just got to keep working. Maybe they're tired, I do not know." There was one play in particular that showed a lack of confidence. Late in the game, with Michi- gan trying to kill the clock, Novak passed on a wide open shot. At the next timeout, Beilein told his guard to take the shot. "We had said any fast break, we weren't going to take any threes," Beilein said. "There was 17 seconds left on the clock. He's being a good -soldier there, he probably needed to shoot that one when he was wide open. He was a little bit too careful there." IT'S A GIRL: Even as senior for- ward Anthony Wright played eight minutes against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, he probably had other things on his mind. The night before, Wright's girl- friend Stefanie Mitchell gave birth to a 7-pound, 4-ounce baby gill named Jordyn Cherelle Wright. "I was there the entire time," Wright said. "She was in there for like 31 hours of labor. She ended up having a C-section, so 'in total in the past 48, SO-something hours, I probably had about six hours of sleep. Other than that, it was a great experience." Wolverine 'inconsistent in OSU split By TIM ROHAN Daily Sports Writer Coach Red Berenson is fine with the Michigan hockey team's offen- sive production - it's the defense that concerns him. The Wolverines , didn't give Berenson any relief this weekend, turning in another inconsistent series. Michigan gave up five goalsi Friday night in a 5-3 loss, but NOTEBOOK the next night, it surrendered only one goal with 11 seconds left in the game in a 2-1 win. Friday marked the first time in eight games this season that the Wolverines lost when scoring three or more goals. "The Friday game was a tough game to swallow, because we dom- inated the game in terms of the scoring chances and the shots," Berenson said. "And yet we found a way to lose that game. That was a tough game. But we bounced back. "We needed (junior goalie Bryan Hogan) to play better. We needed our whole team defense to play better, not give up those unearned goals. And we did." That improvement involved help, in the defensive zone from both the defensemen and forwards. Berenson said that after the team's five-game losing streak at the start of November, the players #tightened up their neutral-zone defense. Michigan's defense was key for the team to get back in the win col- umn, and it was also the reason the Brown and Hagelin are tied for the teamlead with 15 points,-and Rust is third with 14 points. All three have performed well during Michigan's 4-1 run in its last five games, with Brown and HAagelin recording seven points apiece and Rust notching five. The Wolverines' other possibly prolific scoring threat is the'line that includes junior Louie Capo- russo and sophomore David Wohl- berg, Michigan's top returning goal scorers from last season. Caporusso's line saw its share of good scoring chances over the weekend but couldn't finish. Both Hagelin and Rust were quick to downplay the fact that the line wasn't scoring. "It will come," Hagelin said. "They have a lot of good players on that line, so you'll probably see some change this weekend. And they're going to do a good job." Caporusso's line has been pro- ducing more as of late, but if they can finish like Rust's line did this past weekend, then the Wolver- ines' offense could be that much more potent. NOTES: Hogan lost a chance to earn his second shutout of the season Saturday when Ohio State scored with 11 seconds remaining in the game. ... Since the 2004-OS season, Michigan and Ohio State have split six out of the teams' seven series ... Michigan has killed 23 straight penalties - a season high - and the Wolverines lead the nation with a 91.7 percent pen- alty kill rate. ... Michigan is now perfect on the penalty kill in 11 games this season. MAX cOLLINS/Daily Senior Chris Summers and the Michigan defense gave up five goals in Friday night's loss to mediocre Ohio State. The Wolverines currently sit at 10th place in the CCHA. Wolverines split their series with Ohio St4te last weekend. "I think for now, it's really important for our team to take pride in defense," junior forward Carl Hagelin said. "It feels like games when we play good defen- sively, we get a lot of good chanc- es. "if we're winning 9ne to noth- ing we're happy with that. Take pride in (defense), and offense will take care of itself." POWER PLAYERS, POWER PLAY: The source of Wolverines' offensive production was easy to identify last weekend. Look no further than the line of junior Matt Rust, freshman Chris Brown and Hagelin. Brown and Hagelin notched goals in Friday's loss, and Rust scored on Saturday. They also had two assists each, all coming on goals scored by fellow linemates. Perhaps the most crucial part for the line was how it finished its man-advantage opportunities. The trio scored two five-on-three power play go js, and it also lit the lamp just as an Ohio State player ca me back onto the ice after a power play. "Not only our forwards, but our 'D,' we were moving the puck quick," Rust said of the power play. "We were keeping it simple. We were getting shots to the net. ... That's half the battle is getting shots through."