2B - January 31, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 2B - January 31, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Novak, Ann Arbor's newest folk hero nn Arbor, it seems you finally have your folk sports hero. Watching Thursday's game - a season- changing win for Michigan basketball on the road at the Breslin Center - it became strik- ingly clear RYAN that Zack KARTJE Novak is dif- ferent from any other student-athlete at the University of Michigan. Novak has never been a superstar athlete. But last year, he spent most of the season guarding guys that were at least four or five inches taller than him. Novak has also never been the Wolverines' scorer. This season, he's averaging just a tick under 10 points, trailing both Darius Morris and Tim Hardaway Jr. in total scoring. But chances are, when it really counts, the junior guard is the one making the baskets. Since Big Ten season began, Novak has been on an absolute tear - far and away the team's best overall player. Against con- ference opponents, the Ches- terton, Indiana native has only come up short of double-digit scoring in one game - Michi- gan's tough loss to Northwest- ern in mid-January. But as Michigan State began charging back in the second half on Thursday and coach John Beilein called a timeout, Novak stormed into the huddle and emerged as the obvious leader of this team. He screamed with a passion I haven't seen out of any Michigan player on the court in some time. And it worked. His team came out and held on to end the Wolverines' awful winless streak against Michi- gan State, thanks to a handful of 3-point beauties from Novak himself. "We are a young team with a lot of guys that are kind of naive because they're young," Novak said at Big Ten media day. "They don't know that they're not supposed to win some of these games. They don't know that they should lose to teams like Kansas. So youth can help us." Through more than half of the season, I'd say youth has helped the Wolverines in plenty of games, one of them being last Thursday in East Lansing. Young players tend to rely on hot streaks in big games and the Wolverines just happened to be boiling against the Spartans. It was exactly how Novak had predicted. Novak, like the team around him, didn't have much hype surrounding his 2011 season. Despite being one of the team's veterans, fellow junior guard Stu Douglass always seemed to be billed as the better shooter, better scorer, better ballhan- dler. Novak was often relegated to the grinder's role. He was left out of the start- ing lineup on more than one occasion for a younger, high- potential product of Beilein's offense. But Novak continued to push for playing time. Now, he's an absolutely indispensable part of the Michigan offense. And that's the best part about watching Novak play. He's a player any Michigan fan could get behind. He's a ballhawk on the boards. You'd never know he's just a 6-foot-4 guard, especially if you're looking at the stat sheet, where Novak leads the team in rebounds per game. He's preparing to shatter the Michigan record books when it comes to 3-point shooting. With another year remaining, he's already a staple in the top 10 in Wolverine history, and if he keeps shooting like he did against the Spartans, he'll have a comfortable lead at the top when his career is done. And Novak isn't not afraid to get his hands dirty. Any guard who's willing to go up against the Big Ten's fiercest post play- ers, deserves a certain respect that most players will never find. I bet if you gave Novak a chance, he would've guarded Ohio State's Jared Sullinger in a heartbeat. Novak is becoming the kind of player you know you'll talk about 20 years from now with your buddies, sitting around the garage and remembering that huge 3-pointer he hit against the Spartans in 2011. Or the buzzer beater he made in the first round of the 2011 NCAA Tournament (wishful thinking?). Regardless, Novak has stamped himself as the leader of this Michigan team - a squad that desperately needed a blue- collar, smooth-as-silk shooting, ballhawking, clutch type of bas- ketball player. And with no expectations, no star players and plenty of poten- tial, Novak could carry the odd- est Michigan basketball team in history to somewhere no one would've thought possible back in November. 01 Senior forward Loule Caporusso has scored more goals at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit than in Yost Ice Arena this season. Caporussoshines indefeat By STEPHEN J. NESBITT Daily SportsEditor DETROIT - Maybe Louie Caporusso just needed to enter the familiar confines of Joe Louis Arena one last time. The senior forward entered Saturday's contest against Mich- igan State riding one of the worst stretches of his career - held scoreless in the last month with only a pair of goals since the beginning of December. But Caporusso was one of the few bright spots for the No. 6 Michigan hockey team in a frus- trating 2-1 loss to the Spartans, scoring the Wolverines' lone tally in the waning moments of the second period. Just 37 seconds after Michi- gan State scored the first goal of the game, Caporusso took a feed from senior forward Scooter Vaughan on the right side of the Spartan net. Capo- russo cut across the crease in front of goalie Will Yanakeff, shifted over the downed goal- tender, and as he went airborne, he tapped in the loose puck on the right side of Yanakeff for his eighth goal.. It was a finesse move display- ing the type of goal-scoring flair the Wolverines haven't seen often from their alternate cap- tain this season. Considering his history at the Joe - 18 points in 18 games - it shouldn't have been surprising for Caporusso to play hero and knot the game at such an impor- tant juncture. But the Cana- dian's cold snap has rattled him worse than the bone-chilling Ann Arbor weather, and he was just as relieved as the Michigan fans in the audience. "It felt great," Caporusso said with a laugh. "It's tough. When you're not scoring it becomes impossible to score. But once you get one you feel like a large load is lifted off your shoulders. It felt really good." And it's not the first time he's felt this way. On the same date last year (Jan. 29), Caporusso battled sim- ilar odds. He had scored twice in two months and had almost the exact same statistics - six goals and 13 assists last season versus seven goals and 14 assists as a senior. But Caporusso rebound- ed to tally 26 points in the final 19 games to finish as the team's top goal scorer. Caporusso, a self-proclaimed second-half performer, may have shrugged the perennial monkey off his back on Saturday, but it was difficult for Michigan coach Red Berenson to accept the silver lining in the team's first loss in six games. "The bottom line is you lose the game, it doesn't matter who scores or who does well, the team doesn't win, and that's the important thing," Berenson said on Saturday. "But I think some players took a step forward and some took a step backward." One of the skaters noticeably absent from the box score on Saturday was senior forward Carl Hagelin, whose scoreless night ended a nine-game point streak during which he added 19 points. But while Hagelin's streak ended, so did Caporusso's drought. Though Hagelin carried the Wolverines during the last two months, it will be vital to have both players contributing regularly. In the final 19 games of Michigan's NCAA regional semifinals run last season, Hage- lin and Caporusso combined for 48 points. If history is any indicator, the key to Michigan's success may have just have needed a trip down memory lane and up the steps of Joe Louis Arena to find his scoring touch. The second- period goal was Caporusso's second of the season at the Joe - one more than he's scored in a dozen appearances at Yost this season. "I love it here, I don't know what it is, it's just my place," Caporusso said. "It's just a dream come true. I've always watched the Red Wings play here, and I never thought I'd be playing here this much and be having so much success here." - Kartje can be reached at rkartje@umich.edu Smotrycz takes step forward . in decisive win over Hawkeyes By BEN ESTES Daily Sports Writer Conference play hasn't always been kind to Evan Smotrycz. The axiom goes that the true test of a freshman's mettle is how he responds during the grind of the conference season - especially in a league as deep and physical as the Big Ten. Smotrycz has seen it first- hand. The freshman forward has struggled at times for the Michigan men's basketball team in recent weeks. He failed to score a single point in the Jan. 12 game against then-No. 2 Ohio State and against No. 25 Michi- gan State this past Thursday. That just makes his perfor- mance in the Wolverines' 87-73 victory over Iowa (1-8 Big Ten, 8-13 overall) on Sunday all the more impressive. Smotrycz played just 19 minutes against the Hawkeyes but still man- aged to score 14 points, shooting 5-of-6 from the field, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range. When sophomore point guard Darius Morris penetrat- ed the lane in one of his many drives to the basket, Smotrycz was waiting on the wing and ready to knock down shots. He said afterwards that a game like the one he had is big for his con- fidence. "I'm pretty comfortable (during conference games)," Smotrycz said. "It's just, as a shooter, you can't let dry spells affect you. I kind of try to have some amnesia and just shoot it, knock them down when they're open. "It's tough (to rebound from bad performances) but I think a game l Smo despite The H defens the ga strugg when Gophe holdin 16 sho second And fied its the W threats perim wings toward ike this definitely helps." dling and the finish was cool ... trycz shot well, too, He kind of moves so slow that I e Iowa's constant zoning. think he surprises other teams awkeyes switched to a 2-3 because he moves at his own e for large stretches of pace and he gets by people and me. Michigan (3-6, 13-9) it works." led to attack the zone Another issue for the fresh- Minnesota used it in the man has been staying out of foul rs' 69-64 win on Jan. 22, trouble. It's a problem magni- g the Wolverines to 5-of- fied by the fact that fellow for- oting from deep in the ward Jordan Morgan often has i half. the same difficulties, thinning Iowa even slightly modi- the Wolverines' frontcourt. scheme to guard against Smotrycz did a better job olverines' array of deep against the Hawkeyes, not com- s, cheating up to the mitting a foul until four minutes eter with their bottom had elapsed in the second half. whenever the ball moved "(I'm) definitely conscious of ds the corners. it," Smotrycz said. "(Assistant) coach Bacari (Alexander) says that fouls happen when you're just not in position defensively. I kind of try I just try to make an effort to move in there in time, and just to have get in the right position so I don't get cheap ones and have imnesia and that ruin the flow of the game." Michigan coach John Beilein st shoot it." said after the game that up- and-down performances are to be expected from young play- "1 a it But Michigan - and Smotrycz in particular - was able to shoot over the Hawk- eyes. And the 6-foot-9 forward displayed some versatility that he has rarely shown this sea- son. His lone 2-point basket came from a Morris-like drive through the paint, punctuated by a nifty layup. The shot put Michigan up 45-25 and forced Iowa totake a timeout. "It was cool to see him do that, because we make fun of him for being just a shoot- er," sophomore walk-on Josh Bartlestein said. "For him to do that, and to see the ball han- ers. "You certainly can see that that happens quite often," Bei- ein said. "And it depends on who we're playing sometimes as well, but Evan has really worked hard in practice. Some- times it's a matchup, sometimes it's the defense - there's alot of things that he's learning about - but he's learning every day." But because the Wolverines often live and die bythe 3-point- er - and because Smotrycz is a starter and a player heavily relied upon to make perimeter shots - it's critical for Michigan to get more "ups" than "downs" from him.