The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com February 14, 2011 - 3B MORGAN From Page 4B But the defensive end was another story. An ugly story. Jordan allowed Holmes to score everywhere, from the low post to the high post, en route to a game-high 29 points on the night. And by the end of the game, the coaches were left scratching their heads. They'd just witnessed the least satis- fying 20-point victory of their careers. If Morgan couldn't stop Rocko, how would he stop Ohio j State's Jared Sullinger? What about Illinois' Mike Tisdale? And could he possibly manage Minnesota's Trevor Mbakwe? Alexander wasn't concerned, though. "I think there's always a hum- bling experience that takes place during the course of the season, and Jordan was able to discover his early against Concordia,". Alexander said. "(Holmes) ran a clinic, and as a result you can imagine teammates after the victory teased Jordan after the fact. But Jordan has tremendous pride, and he promised himself that that would never happen again. I dedicate Jordan's devel- opment here in recent games to the baptism of Rocko Holmes." In retrospect, it wasn't par- ticularly surprising that Holmes did what he did. Jordan has since learned that basketball, and post play in particular, is a game of geometry. And Holmes was sim- ply more seasoned when it came to creating angles, being in the right position for rebounds and escapi. It w He rea brute handy, ence pl him n more matche more talent. And dan kn player. reason; the firs "He' "I c de' to t] Ro said of son. "I to help hold h throug expect about t throug going t And ng defenses. first meeting, in Evanston, Jor- as Jordan's wake-up call. dan was stifled in the post and alized that although his shot just 2-of-6 from the field en strength would come in route to five points. down the road in confer- But this time, the light was ay, his muscles would get bright and Jordan was in beast owhere unless he played mode - the Wildcats didn't intelligently when he's know what they were in for. ed up against taller and He used his big body to set experienced frontcourt screens and create openings in the paint all night. He showed luckily for Michigan, Jor- the finesse to score in traffic, ows how to be a cerebral sometimes using pump fakes to After all, it's one of the fool defenders before going to s Beilein adored him in the hoop and other times back- ;t place. ing off for the easy hook shot, s just so intelligent," Jim finishing with a career-high 27 points. And on the other end of the floor, he terrorized oppo- nents who dared cross into the ledicate (his) lane, registering three blocks on the night. velopment... The icing on the cake came with a little over a minute left in he baptism of the game, as Northwestern was ,, close to erasing a 15-point defi- cko Holmes." cit. Morris beat the fullcourt press on the inbound pass and pushed the ball upcourt to find his son earlier this sea- himself and Jordan in a two- His intelligence is going on-one breakaway. With Wild- him a lot. I think he'll cat defender Davide Curletti is own this year, at least trapped between the two, Mor- h half the year, and I ris lobbed an alley-oop pass to that the light will go on Morgan, who slammed it home, hree-quarters of the way sending Crisler Arena into hys- h the season. And you're teria. o see a beast." But in section 39, Jim just Jim was right. In fact, smiled, relatively unfazed. JAKE FROMM/Daily Redshirtfreshman Jordan Morgan has emerged as Michigan's most dependable frontcourt presence this season. his prediction was so accurate it seemed like he was operating the light switch. On Wednesday, just about three-quarters of the way through the season, Northwest- ern came to Crisler for game two of the season series. In their Jordan finally hops off the rim and comes back to Earth. He takes a second to baslg in the peacefulness of a stunned Assembly Hall before running backcourt to join his teammates. A lone voice in the Hoosier baseline student section breaks the silence. "Hey Morgan! Congratula- tions, you can make a wide-open dunk!" Jordan smirks as he turns and jogs backcourt. He knows that on the next Michigan pos- session, the Indiana fans will be a bit uneasy, as will the Hoo- sier defense. They're going to keep their eyes on Morgan, waiting for him to set a screen and make room for himself in the lane. And if they grant him the open space he wants, they'll pay for it. He finally has everybody's attention. For Jordan Morgan, it's Show- time. OHIO STATE From Page 1B introductions, and again after his second-period goal. But it rose once more when Brown picked himself up off the ice after taking an errant knee to the thigh - still, he wasn't about to be knocked out of the game or let up on his physicality. "You can't stop going full speed," Brown said, explaining the injury. "It's kind of like an 18-wheeler - you can't stop on a dime." Brown's last stand came two minutes into the third period, when he was sent to the dress- ing room early after receiving a five-minute major and game misconduct for checking from behind. Brown slammed his stick on the end glass as he skated off, but behind him the Texas flag made it's final proud appearance - the previously hapless Brown was back in good graces with the Michigan contingent. "It's always nice to come home to that (flag)," Brown said. When Brown left the ice in the third period, so did his big- bodied, physical presence on the wing of Michigan's power line. But Berenson was pleased with the physicality that his team displayed against the Buckeyes (9-13-2-2,14-15-2) on Saturday. "I thought we played with a little more gusto and a little more oomph," Berenson said. Before he was sent off, Brown gave the Wolverines all the scor- ing they'd need in the second period. The goal was the epitome of what Berenson was looking for when he packaged the Texan, Canadian and Swede on a line. Hagelin picked up the puck behind the net, circled around the side boards and dishedbetween a pair of defenders to Brown crash- ing in toward the net. Brown tipped the puck above the shoulder of Buckeye goalten- der Cal Heeter. "Carl just waited, was really patient with the puck, threw it at the net and I kind of just chipped it - took out my nine-iron and just put it in there," Brown said. Caporusso, who scored and added an assist on Friday, said shaking up the lines appeared to "spark the chemistry" that some players needed to find their scor- ing touch in the weekend sweep. "It's fun to be back with guys who are more creative around the net," Hagelin added. "We won a lot of battles, second efforts, and that's where we got all those chances." Berenson seems to have found an offensive pairing that could prove a scoringthreat for the long haul. And with just four games remaining on the CCHA slate, it's just in the nick of time. "This is playoff hockey, really," Berenson said. "We're in kind of a playoff mode, everything is important ... this will hopefully move our team in the right direc- tion." PENT From penalty it in un just tot move ai they ca powerI - thisr tc sin "We We cle Even H once or out an be fres Micl blanke ALTY KILL good sign after the Wolverines allowed three goals to Miami Page lB (Ohio)'s power play last weekend in Oxford. , and the other team keeps But the strong Wolverine pen- til your penalty killers are alty kill far out-shined the fact ally fatigued and they can't that Michigan's own power play nd they can't compete and went 0-for-7 against the Buck- n't win any battles and the eyes this weekend and surren- play takes over the penalty dered its third shorthanded goal never happened. of the season on Saturday. Michigan's man-advantage unit has converted on just three of its last 38 attempts, but, e just want coringto Hagelin, the unit is just a few bounces away from get a lucky turning it around. "Right now, I don't even think al, t"plqy its frustration anymore (on the hocky ." power play)," Hagelin said. iple hockey "We just want to get a lucky goal, just play simple hockey. We had a few chances today, Langlais had an empty net there kept getting the puck out. (but) it hit a guy on their teams' ared the puck really well. stick. It happens. tunwick cleared the puck "When we win like this, we r twice. We got the puck can't think too much about the d were able to change and power play not doing well. We ;h." did great on the PK instead. higan's penalty kill Another week, new opportuni- d the Ohio State power ties." INDIANA From Page 1B sophomore guard Matt Vogrich said. "Evan (Smotrycz) got in the way of some passes. Tim (Hard- away Jr.) had some steals. We just stepped it up on defense." Michigan made adjustments at halftime because even though it led the Hoosiers by eight points, it could have led by a wider margin. And so the Wolverines came out firing in the second half. Freshman Tim Hardaway Jr. sank his first 3-point attempt in the second half and finished the game with 26 points. In fact, Michigan gained a ton of momentum and maintained a comfortable double- digit lead after draining its first four 3-pointers out of the locker room.With about five minutes left in the game, Indiana quietly went on a 12-0 run to cut the lead from 22 points to 10 and then eventu- ally found itself within two pos- sessions of the. Wolverines after Michigan had missed eight free throws to close the game. The crowd fell silent and Michi- gan's bench looked frustrated. The Hoosiers instituted a full-court press for the last two minutes, and it forced the Wolverines into two turnovers and two timeouts. "It's not like we were bad on the inbound," Douglass said. "They were doing a great job. Calling a timeout isn't bad, it's better than making a dumb pass and turning the ball over. Butsometimes it was hard to find the open man." On top of the irritation that the press was creating, Michigan was fouled in the final minutes and had difficulty finishing at the line. In the closing minutes, four of the Wolverines five starters accumu- lated eight missed free throws - Michigan went 19-for-37 from the charity stripe on Saturday. "You don't even really address it," Michigan coach John Beilein said of the poor free-throw shoot- ing. "You don't make a big deal out of it. I'll silently rep them more, I'll silently do more things. But we won't make a big deal out of it because we've been very good (at free-throw shooting) all year long." Indiana used a big 3-pointer and its ability to penetrate the lane to come within one possession of the Wolverines with 28 seconds remaining. But that's when sopho- more guard Darius Morris - who tallied 15 points - went to the line and gave the Wolverines a two- possession edge. It's unusual that a made free throw produces so much excite- ment. But when Morris hit his freebies to send Indiana back to Bloomington, Crisler erupted. "It was crazy, we've got such good shooters," sophomore guard Josh Bartelstein said. "It's one of those things like how 3-point shooting is contagious - free- throw shooting is contagious too. At the end of the game we couldn't seem to buy any of them. But we'll work on it. It's nothing we're too worried about because we're a good shooting team." play all weekend, holding the Buckeyes to just four shots on four attempts with its man- advantage this weekend - a SSee a multimedia piece about Rthis story on MichiganDaily.com We all make mistakes! Don't make not taking the Princeton Review MCAT Course one of them * Over105 Hours of LIVE In-Class Instruction *5 separate instructors, Bio,O-Chem,G-ChemPhysics,Verbal * 17 Computer-Based Tests with realistic on-screen tools * Satisfaction Guaranteed * FREE Verbal Accelerator -15 Hours, a $299value * FREE Super Bit Review-SHours,a $199value *4,300 Pages of Materials to Take Home Te Yean2aavn Prinaamtnn Princeto Q dYltlY ti~liil lrY~tYO ~ I owflf.:wo-,fl 7k lci bew owaklialarigoFoMm Aw1111.W1 R ve ---n COMEBACK From Page 1B free throw, drawing groans from Crisler Arena as the team stepped to the charity stripe. It looked like they would hand away a win they'd worked for.. "Even coach (Beilein) says it all the time, he's been coaching for so long but you learn something new every day, and we're learn- ing something new every game," sophomore point guard Darius Morris said after the win. "And today we learned that we need to close out games and pay atten- tion to the little things like free throws. Because that could cost you down the road, next time we might not be so lucky." The point guard said his team's mindset shifted from a team that was playing to win in the first part of the game to a squad that was playing not to lose in the final minutes. While Indiana was making its comeback, Michigan was slowing down its offense and holding the ball more, trying to burn time off the clock. The Wolverines stopped attacking the basket as much and broke off from the aggressive intensity that had allowed them to post the lead in the first place. "You see it all the time, teams make runs at the end just because they realize they have to play more aggressive and they clear their minds and they just play ball," junior guard Stu Douglass said. "And sometimes when you're the team up 20, you kind of get a little apprehensive and it takes away from everything you were doing the first 30 minutes of that game and you're a whole different team and that hurt us in the sec- ond half." ' In their six-game losing skid in January, the Wolverines were often the team that was down 20 and making a run at the end. But after a narrow loss to then- No. 15 Minnesota on Jan. 22 - and with Michigan fulfilling the dismissive preseason prophesies - the Wolverines have turned things around and gone on a 5-1 run to put themselves back into postseasontalk. "We're on this good stretch, but before this, we were used to just clawing back," Douglass said. "Coach (Beilein) talks about all the time how you handle adver- sity, but also, one of the bigthings to a season is how you handle suc- cess. And that's within a season, but it's also within a game and so we gotta get better at that." A few of the recent Wolver- ine wins have featured opposing team comebacks that Michigan has been able to fend off. Against Northwestern, the Wolverines relinquished a 15-point lead. And in the close wins, like the victory over Penn State and then-No. 25 Michigan State, the Wolverines have been able to keep just enough of a cushion to keep their opposi- tion at bay. Douglasssaidthe teamis learn- ing from the wins and the losses, and despite a victory over Indi- ana, Michigan will have plenty to look at as it heads into two tough road games at Illinois and Iowa. "(Beilein's) not worried that we won't come back and be hungry, he's not worried that we'll lose that fire, he's not worried that we won't want to get better," Doug- lass said. "And every time we've lost, we've improved here and there, sometimes more than oth- ers." FOR MORE MICHIGAN SPORTS COVERAGE: * Log onto michigandaily.com and follow us on Twitter at @michdailysports.