The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 5A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 5A
'85 team reminds Blue
of storied dominance
SAMANTHA TRAUBEN/Daily
Junior Louie Caporusso scored two goals in Thursday's 4-0 shutout of Bowling Green. Last year, Caporusso led the team in scoring last year with 24 goals at season's end.
Caporusso' surge gets Michigan going
in second half of series with Falcons
Snapping out of his
recent scoring slump,
Caporusso keeps 'M'
in contention
By MARK BURNS
Daily Sports Editor
For the first time in recent mem-
ory, Louie was being Louie.
Junior forward Louie Caporus-
so, the Woodbridge, Ont. native,
registered the Michigan hockey
team's first two goals in its 4-0 vic-
tory over Bowling Green last night
at Yost Ice Arena.
It had been 368 days since
Caporusso's last multi-goal per-
formance, and it came at a most
opportune time, as Michigan con-
tinues to vie for a top spot in the
CCHA conference.
"(Louie) has played really hard
in recent games since Christmas,"
said Michigan coach Red Beren-
son who, with the win, moved
into sixth place all-time with 690
NCAA wins. "Even before Christ-
mas, he was one of our best for-
wards in the Notre Dame series,
so you see him battling and trying
hard.
"... And now some of the bounc-
es are coming his way."
Up until last night, Caporusso
had just seven goals on the season,
a far cry from last season's team-
leading 24.
It's been an uphill battle all year
trying to get his name on the score
sheet.
With 13 minutes left in the
second period against the Fal-
cons, Caporusso spun away from
a Bowling Green defender on the
half boards.
He then made a sharp cut to the
slot and threw the puck five-hole
past netminder Andrew Ham-
mond.
Caporusso said if he could fig-
ure out what was different about
his play last night, he'd "bottle it up
and just take itbefore every game."
Later in the third, junior defen-
seman Chad Langlais corralled the
puck at the top of the Falcon left
circle and fired a pass to Caporusso
on the weak side, who then depos-
ited the puck past a sprawled-out
Hammond.
The two-goal output was the
type of showing Berenson need-
ed from his former Hobey Baker
finalist, who will need to shoulder
much of the scoring if the team
expects to garner some late-sea-
son success.
"I think what happens when
"Now some of
the bounces are
coming his way"
you're not scoring, you start over-
passing the puck," Berenson said.
"And I've had to remind Louie that
he's got to start shooting the puck.
I think he's in a good place right
now. He's making good decisions
with the puck."
Along with Caporusso's First-
Star Honor performance, the
Wolverines (12-9-1 CCHA, 17-13-1
overall) played lockdown defense
on the Falcons all night, allowing
just 21 shots.
The Wolverine defensemen
closed the gap on the Bowling
Green forwards, minimizing
the speed they gained coming
through the neutral zone and into
the attacking zone. Additionally,
it minimized the number of odd-
man rushes throughout the entire
contest.
But midway through the third
period, with the Wolverines up
2-0, a Falcon offender went one-
on-one with junior goaltender
Bryan Hogan.
Senior defenseman Steven
Kampfer trailed on the play and
at the last split second, lifted the
player's stick and reversed the
puck back down the ice.
While it wasjust one minor play,
the defensive maneuver from the
veteran blue-liner prevented the
Falcons (3-15-4-3, 4-20-4) from
potentially scoring in what was at
that point a very close game.
The win gave Hogan his fourth
shutout of the season.
"The goals were really pre-
cious tonight," Berenson said.
"Fortunately, we found a way
to score. But it was pretty good
team defense, we didn't give them
much."
By NICOLE AUERBACH
Daily Sports Editor
Even the Fab Five couldn't do it.
Nor could any of the other Mich-
igan men's basketball teams of the
past 24 years - it's that elusive.
The last Michigan squad to win a
Big Ten title was the 1985-86 team,
which had also won the champion-
ship the yearbefore.
"(Winning a conference title) is
a hell of an accomplishment," then-
head coach Bill Frieder said on Sat-
urday at a reception for the 1984-85
team held before the Michigan-
Wisconsin game.
Frieder was back in town for
the reunion, and with him came a
handful of players, including one of
the most prolific guards in Michi-
gan history. The 1984-85 team
owns the program's all-time high-
est winning percentage with a 26-4
final record.
Grant, who was a freshman on
the 1984-85 team that had justwon
an NIT championship the previous
year, didn't remember being too
nervous playing as a freshman.
"I knew they had a great team
and (needed) a couple more pieces,"
Grant said Saturday. "We had an
opportunity to go far, possibly win
the Big Ten title and go deep in the
NCAA tournament."
Grant recalled one of the main
reasons he chose to come to Michi-
gan: a chance to play with Antoine
Joubert, nicknamed The Judge.
"My nickname was The Gener-
al," Grant said. "The Judge and The
General - it made sense to me."
It worked on the court, too. At
Saturday's reception, Frieder called
Grant the "glue" that held the team
together, and the way Grant flowed
fromformerteammatetoteammate
at the reunion lunch, it seemed that
he still fits that role these days.
Grant says he watches Michigan
games whenever he can, and that
he engages in some friendly ban-
ter with his friends who went to
UCLA. Grant even addressed the
current Wolverines after they lost
to Wisconsin on Saturday, saving a
few key pieces of advice for another
freshman pointguard, Darius Mor-
ris.
He said the biggest thing he
notices is that this year's players
need to keep their heads up even if
they're losing. "Once they do that,
they'llbe back on track," Grantsaid.
Other former Wolverines
enjoyed being back in Ann Arbor
for Saturday's game, too.
"These times (at Michigan) were
probably the most special times
of my career," said Joubert, who
played in Venezuela, Argentina, the
Philippines, France, Belgium and
Poland after his days in Ann Arbor.
"I tellmy kids, 'College, that's mem-
ories and friends that you'll have for
life.' A lot of good memories here."
Joubert said the Big Ten champi-
onships were his fondest memories,
and they keep him connected with
his teammates even now, more than
two decades later.
"That's your goal, as a team, to
win these championships," he said.
The man who led them to the
back-to-back conference cham-
pionships and also assembled the
1989 NCAA Championship squad,
Frieder, is now retired from coach-
ing. But he was thrilled to catch up
withhis former players and recount
the years before he left Michigan
for Arizona State. He now runs an
annual skateboarding competition,
broadcasts games and runs basket-
ball camps.
But he doesn't miss coaching.
"No, no," Frieder said. "I got out
13 years ago and had done it for 32
years. That's a long grind. When
I got out, the first month I had so
much fun not doing it. Spent time
watching my daughter grow up and
spent time with my family, do what
I want to do, and I knew I would
never go back into coaching."
Frieder feels the role of a college
head coach has changed, and it's
not something that appeals to him
much anymore.
"You know, when I started
coaching at Michigan as an assis-
tant it was 90 percent coaching and
10 percent everything else. Now it's
10 percent coaching and 90 percent
everything else with the NCAA
and the recruiting and all the riff-
raff, second, third and fourth par-
ties that you've got to deal with in
recruiting and all the problems
today, it's so much different."
The one thing that remains the
same, though, is how glamorous a
Big Ten Championship is. Frieder's
two helped put the Michigan bas-
ketball program back on the map.
The players from the 1984-85 team
would love to see the Wolverines
win another, and get back to the
prominence they knew so well.
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