The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, December 10, 2010 - 7A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, December10, 2010 - 7A 'Blue hopes to stifle Utes' post presence By CHANTEL JENNINGS Daily Sports Editor When Utah coach and East Grand Rapids native Jim Boylen comes to Crisler Arena tonight, it will be more than just his Run- nin' Utes pride pushing to take down the Michi- Utahat gan men's bas- Michigan ketball team. Matchup: There will be Utah 6-2; a bit of Spartan Michigan 6-2 in him too - a residual effect When: Tonight 6:30 P.M. of being a part of the Michigan Where: State men's bas- Crisler Arena ketball coaching TV/Radio: staff. BTN Boylen - an assistant under Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote from 1987 to 1992 and an assistant under current Spartan coach Tom Izzo from 2005 to 2007 - returns to the Crisler sideline for the first time since his stints in East Lan- sing. In his time with the-Spar- tans, Michigan State went to the NCAA Tournament five times and the NIT once. But Boylen has faced the Wol- verines as a head coach before. This game will mark the second of a home-and-home series with Utah. Last year, Utah ran away with a 68-52 win in Salt Lake City. In that game, despite Manny Harris's 25 points, six rebounds and four steals, the Wolverines couldn't keep up with the Run- nin' Utes, who finished the game with a 13-1 run. This year, Utah (6-2 overall) is led by junior guard Will Clyburn, who's in his first season there after transferring from Mar- shalltown Community College in Iowa. The Detroit native is aver- aging more than 20 points and nine rebounds per game. When Michigan faced Utah Life After Lexi By Heiko Yang Daily Sports Writer JAKE FROMM/Daily Redshirt freshman forward jordan Morgan will be charged with guarding Utah's 7-foot-3 center David Foster. last season, the Runnin' Utes won Everyone on Michigan's ros- the rebound battle 41-25 and the ter will have to be better on the Wolverines were visibly over- defensive end. powered in the post by 7-foot-3 The Wolverines gave up 65 center David Foster. points to Concordia last week - "He is incredible," Michigan the only other team to score that coach John Beilein said of Foster much this season was the Univer- on Thursday night. "I've never sity of Texas El Paso - and Utah seen a guy average four points a is averaging more than 74 points game and have such an impact in per game this season. a game. The Wolverines won't be "He did it last year ... and he'll thinking about Concordia when do it again." they take the floor tonight in the Michigan (6-2) will look to third game of their eight-game limit how much Foster can actu- home stretch, but there were ally do after spending time this takeaways that Michigan can week focusing on their post and learn from in their close, rough team defense. Redshirt freshman outing with the Cardinals. Jordan Morgan will be the man "There were some very good called upon to slow Foster. things," Beilein said of his team "It'll be interesting, because I watching the game tape. "But was thinking it would be like me there were some things that this trying to guard Morgan in the is what were talking about, 'You post a little bit," junior Stu Dou- do this against Utah and they glass said. "But I think Jordan's will dunk on you all night long.' gotten better every day on the So there were some great learn- defensive end." ing moments from that." After years of star-filled rosters, two 'M' captains start new era By ANDREW HADDAD Daily Sports Writer For the last century, the Michi- gan men's swimming program has been symbolized by star power. Tyler Clary. Peter and Alex Vanderkaay. Tom Dolan. Eric Namesnik. Chris Thompson. The list goes on of ready-made super- stars who came to Michigan and experienced outstanding success from the very beginning of their careers, including winning Olym- pic gold medals. But this season, the symbol of the Wolverines isn't a hotshot recruit who was projected as a future Olympian since middle school. Instead, it's two lightly recruited walk-ons who are now the captains of one of the most sto- ried swimming programs in the nation. Seniors Chris Douville and Neal Kennedy each took different paths to their respective leadership roles. But they share a common bond of hard work and sacrifice. No. 6 Michigan fields its young- est team ever this season, with 17 freshmen and just seven seniors. With that in mind, Douville and Kennedy's ability to spread that type of work ethic onto the rest of the team will be the key to wheth- er Michigan can overcome their unusual lack of superstars and achieve their usual level of success. Douville grew up in Dayton, Ohio as a huge Michigan fan, with his brother Nick swimming for the Wolverines from 2002-05. But coming out of high school, Chris wasn't just too slow to receive a scholarship at Michigan as a fresh- man; he was too slow to even make the team. Instead, he attended Notre Dame for a year, delaying his dream. "I had always wanted to go to Michigan," Douville said last Thursday. "I improved enough in my freshman year at Notre Dame to qualify for Michigan, and once I got my release (from Notre Dame), the choice was easy." But Douville still had a long way to go once he arrived in Ann Arbor. "When Chris got here, he wasn't very good, truthfully," Michigan coach Mike Bottom said. "I had no real expectations for him." But since then, Douville has improved exponentially each year. He's gone from essentially being a reserve his sophomore season to being expected to score in several events at the Big Ten Champion- ships this season. "I never would have expected this, especially coming out of high school," Douville said. "But the biggest key to my improvement, I think, is that when I got to Michi- gan, I looked at the best swim- mers on the team, guys like Tyler Clary and Matt Patton, and I said to myself, 'What can I do to get on their level?' I try to keep that in mind through every single day, every single practice, and every single workout. I have to work harder than other guys who might be naturally faster than me." Unlike his co-captain, Neal Ken- nedy had his pick of virtually any university in the country coming out of high school. But he's faced a lot of adversity in his college career as well. He hardly competed his freshman season and changed events over the course of his time in Ann Arbor. He went from spe- cializing in the 400 individual medley to becoming one of Michi- gan's fastest swimmers in the 200 individual medley. But despite all of that, he grew substantially and won the team's Most Improved Swimmer award last season. He's now considered one of the team's best performers and says the key to such dramatic improvement is humility. "Mike Bottom has forgotten more about swimming than I'll ever know," Kennedy said. "So I've always understood that I should listen to what the coaches say." After being named captain fol- lowing last season, though, he experienced one of his greatest set- backs. A wakeboarding accident over the summer led to a nagging ankle injury that forced him to miss the season's first two events, in which the Wolverines suffered a tie and a narrow loss. But he's come back to swim at a high level since. "(Neal's injury) gave him some time to reflect on just how impor- tant swimming was to him," Bot- tom said. "It's like shaking up a coke can. He watched every meet go by and go by, and once he finally got his chance to swim, it popped." Douville and Kennedy are great friends now. But when they first met, they butted heads. "We're very different," Ken- nedy said. "He's the business guy who does all the hard work and just pounds it out every day. I'm a sprinter; I like to have fun, splash around, make jokes. He's also more intellectual, whereas I'm more emotional. It took a little while figuring out how to mesh together, but he's one of my best friends now, and I think it makes for a good bal- ance as captains." For the Wolverines to have any chance of fulfilling their lofty goals this season without the usual superstars, the entire team will need to work just as hard as Dou- ville and Kennedy have in the last four years. The two captains have tried to incorporate lessons they've learned in their careers into their current leadership approach. Remember- ing how important the guidance of older swimmers was to their devel- opment, they've created a system in which each freshman has a "big brother" whom they meet with regularly to serve as a mentor. They also constantly emphasize the value of work ethic to the fresh- men - an example of this being Kennedy's speech to the team at the USA Swimming Minnesota Grand Prix last month. "On the last day of the competi- tion, the whole team was exhaust- ed and just thinking about getting home," Kennedy said. "Nobody seemed to care that much about that last session. So I led the stretch that day and went gung-ho on everyone. I told them, 'Listen, guys, you're tired, you're dead... but you're going to have the same feel- ing at Big Tens. You've got to work harder and be more of a Michigan Man if you're going to succeed when it counts."' In the annals of Michigan swim- ming, the names of transcen- dent stars like Clary, Vanderkaay, Dolan, Namesnik and Thompson roll off the tongue. Douville and Kennedy will probably never have times as good or win as many indi- vidual championships as any of those swimmers. But the stories of their careers may be just as com- pelling as any Olympian who swam the lanes of Canham Natatorium. T he legend begins in 2007. The Michigan volleyball team has just completed its first week of practice when Ste- sha Selsky walks into coach Mark Rosen's office. "Mark, I want to work on pass- ing," Selsky tells her coach, as he recalls it. Though Selsky has played the libero position earlier in her college career, the senior is set to reprise her role as aveteran setter who had led the Wolverines to a 21-13 record and a spot in the NCAA Tourna- ment the previous year. "Why do you want to work on passing?" Rosen asks her, bemused. Selsky smiles. "Really, Mark? You know why I want to work on passing. "I want to be libero because she's better than I am." "She" is Lexi Zimmerman, a scrappy freshman from Bar- rington, Ill. who has been recruited out of high school as the best setter in the nation. She and Selsky have been competing in practice to see who would get the starting job for the season opener against No. 10 Hawaii at the ASICS Invitational Tournamet. The competition is supposed to be a formality, at least for the time being. Whereas Selsky is a senior, a veteran, and a solid setter, Zim- merman is wide-eyed and untested at the college level - an unknown. It would be a huge risk to start a freshman against a team that has "future national champs" on their t-shirts, in an arena full of 7,000 hostile fans. So when Zimmerman earns the starting nod after the first week of practice, eyebrows are raised. "Our seniors ... didn't feel like we were making the right decision," Rosen recalls. "They were worried about havingthis freshman set and whether she would be ready." But Michigan goes on to upset the Rainbow Wahine 3-2, and Zim- merman is awarded All-Tourna- ment honors. The doubt vanishes quickly. "After the tournament they were like, 'Gee, good decision. Nice job, coach,' "Rosen says. Four seasons later, Rosen can appreciate how well that decision turned out. Zimmerman has since written herself indelibly into the record books and into the annals of Wolverine lore. A three-time (soon to be fear-time) All-Ameri- can. Michigan female athlete of the year. Back-to-back triple doubles. Program leader in single-season assists (as a freshman). Program leader in career assists (by a lot). The list goes on and on. For the past four years, it hasn't been difficult to spot the best player on Michigan's team. She wears number 17, and whether she is contorting in mid-air to set or lunging in the backourt to dig, she has become as much a fixture in Cliff Keen Arena as the pep band, the intermission challenges, and "point... MICH-igan!" g§§ For the first time since any- one on the team can remember, the Wolverines will begin spring practice in 2011 without No. 17 at the net. And junior outside hitter Alex Hunt isn't quite sure what to expect. "It's definitely going to be a dif- ferent experience playing without her next year," Hunt says. "I don't know Michigan volleyball without Lexi." With Zimmerman's departure, rising junior Catherine Yager and incoming freshman Lexi Danne- P JED MOCH/Daily miller - arriving in the fall - will compete for the vacated position. Fortunately for them, the team understands that Zimmerman is a unique talent, so they're not expected to replicate her role in the offense. "I like the idea that they're very different style setters from Lexi," Rosensays, "andthatwill eliminate some of the comparisons. They're goingto put their own stamp on the way they run the team." Accordingto Hunt, Zimmerman is a rare "attackingsetter," onewho is always a threat to hit, forcing the opposing team to defend her. This provides more opportunities for the hitters, and Michigan's hitters will be the first to say that they've enjoyed the benefits of having Lexi on their team. "It's definitely an advantage for me as an outside hitter because Lexi holds the blocks and it opens things up for me," Hunt says. Although both Yager and Dannemiller are traditional setters who focus on distributing the ball, Rosen isn't worried about losing the strategic advantage of having an attacking setter. "They're less flashy, they're less offensively minded," he says. "They're more steady and rhyth- mic. They tend to put their hitters in really good positions, and that's how they allow their hitters to be successful." Though she has never started, Yager has seen action in a handful of games during the past two sea- sons. Her most significant contri- bution came during spring practice when Zimmerman was out with an injured wrist. Rosen is particu- larly excited about seeing Yager in more extensive action, noting that, while her style of play may not be eyecatching, the results speak for themselves. "She's not flashy, she's not super fast," he says, "but whether it's her high school team or her club team or even last spring, her teams just always seem to win. And that's ulti- mately what the goal is." Yager acknowledges that she has her own style, but that hasn't kept her from getting tips from Zim- merman in practice. The veteran often gives her advice on how to improve her technique. Yager says she's grateful for the mentorship, and she feels up to the challenge of filling Zimmerman's shoes. "It's a great opportunity for me," she says. "The past two years - especially the past year - I've really watched her on the court and off the court and how she's led the team. "Iwant to follow in her footsteps and be something great like her." The nextchapter inthe Zimmer- man saga will begin when she com- mences a winter training program with the national teamin Anaheim, Calif. She'll finish her degree in the fall, she says, and then she'll likely join a professional team in Europe or Puerto Rico where she can travel the world, explore different cul- tures, sample exotic foods and play the sport that she loves for "as long as (her) body can hold up." But nothing is set in stone. Always striving for balance in life and never one to sacrifice academics for athletics, Zimmer- man hopes also to go to graduate school for architecture, another passion she has cultivated while at Michigan - she's a Program in the Environment major with a concen- tration in architecture. And then there's the allure of playing with the national team in the Olympics. Zimmerman is quick to minimalize her chances of going down that path, but not for lack of confidence or ability. "I have the utmost respect for (Olympians) and what they devote their time to," she says. "But I'm not sure it's what I want to devote my time to because you have to make alotof sacrificestoget alittle bit better. I value balance more in my life than I value putting every- thing that I have into going to the Olympics. I totally understand it beingavaluablepathforother peo- ple, but I don't think it's my path at this point." Rosen shares Zimmerman's feelings, adding that the immense amount of training compared with a relatively small amount of actual competition is anotherturnoff. The national teamtrains year roundbut participates in only one major com- petition a year, not to mention that the Olympic games occur just once every four years. "I think she's a person who has a lot more interests than just vol- leyball," he says. "It seems like the training cycle of a four-year con- tinuum, and the type of mentality it takes to go into that type of set- ting - I don't know how well it will fit her. It will be good for her to go there this winter and get a feel for it." Zimmerman will spend four months training with national team coaches and assistants along with a handful of the most tal- ented seniors in the country. With an Olympic year looming in 2012, it is unlikely that any of them will remain on the team for this cycle. But on the off chance that she does eventually decide to pursue a spot on the national team for2016, how- ever, Zimmerman has a positive outlook. "I'm the type of person where, wherever I am, I'm going to be happy," she says. 9Ig 9 This is where the legend comes to an end - the Michigan part of it, anyway. Though Zimmerman's leg- acy on the court and in the record books will not soon be forgotten, she says her greatest moment as a Wolverine wasn't when she broke any records or beat any teams or won any awards. In fact, her great- est Michigan moment didn't even happen during the season. "I think my greatest Michigan moment was preseason this year when I had a chance to be a captain and lead the team and establish a culture I've been trying to establish since I've been in the program," Zimmerman says. "I wanted to prioritize building team chemistry and being good teammates." It was also during the preseason when the coaching staff picked out their 2010 mantra. "Commitment to the unknown." Designed to inspire faith in the young players, the phrase serves as a poetic bookend to the Lexi Zim- merman era. Her freshman and senior seasons each began with their own unknowns, but each ended with clarity. Could she han- dle the responsibility of directing a college offense as a freshman? Yes. Would a team full of inexperienced players contend with some of the best teams in the country and fin- ish with one of the best overall records of any Michigan team?Yes. Once again, Zimmerman and the young Wolverine team she leaves behind will face a fresh set of unknowns. But this time, there is one thing that everybody knows for sure. No.17 will be sorely missed.