BU The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com I March 21, 2011 Dancing WIT H Morris's shot hits back rim in final seconds, Blue's comeback attempt "7" and season come to sudden halt By ZAK PYZIK and they put your better guys on Daily Sports Editor the bench at times. So they did that ... Your top eight guys will get CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Darius two, three on the bench. We sure Morris is typically the most reli- had them there." able Wolverine with the ball. Morgan came in for the Wol- But with just 5.6 seconds left verines and responded with a in the Michigan men's basketball dunk to spark a comeback that team's third-round NCAA Tour- put Michigan within two posses- nament game against Duke on sions of Duke. As the Wolverines Sunday, Morris drove and missed trailed by four points with about a floater as the buzzer sounded. a minute remaining, Michigan Michigan fell to the top-seeded freshman Tim Hardaway Jr. hit Blue Devils, 73-71. his first 3-pointer of the after- With less than seven minutes noon. And with Hardaway Jr.'s left, Michigan forward Jordan clutch basket, the Wolverines Morgan and Duke forward Kyle trailed by just one possession. Singler sat on the bench with "(Hardaway Jr.) had great four fouls and Wolverine forward shots," Beilein said. "Every one Evan Smotrycz was headed there that he took, when he took a shot as well after notching his fifth. it looked like it was going in just "(The foul trouble was) very barely on the front rim. And the big," Michigan coach John last one was like the Illinois shot Beilein said. "I said in most of (in the Big Ten Tournament). I my previews, I said one of the big thought it would be the one that things with our team: Coach K's might get us up over the top here." teams have always got to the foul Duke responded with a jumper, line like that. Two things happen, and with 19.3 seconds remaining we're very good foul shooters, Michigan called a timeout down by just three points. After a Duke shot-clock viola- tion and a Morris layup, Michi- gan was down two points with 5.6 seconds remaining. But Michigan couldn't complete the upset, as Morris missed the final shot of the Wolverines' surprising sea- son. Duke's defense started the game playing Michigan very aggressively around the perim- eter. After missing their first three 3-pointers because of the Blue Devils' perimeter play, the Wolverines went on to make five 3-pointers to conclude the first half and to head into the locker room trailing, 37-33. But in the second half, things changed quicker than the Wolver- ines could have imagined. After Hardaway Jr. missed two 3-point- ers, Duke suddenly pushed its lead to 12 points thanks in large part to senior guard Nolan Smith. At that point, Duke fans erupted, and even Blue Devil coach Mike See DUKE, Page 3B CHANTL JENNINGS/Daily Sophomoreeguard Darius Morris dribbled coast-to-coast in the waning seconds of Sunday's loss against Duke only to pull up in the lane, just in front of Duke forward Ryan Kelly, for a floater. The shot caromed off the back of the rim. Wolverines'1-3-1 zone poses problems for Duke down stretch Despite late miss, Morris leads Blue in tourney run ByZAKPYZIK tying shot from. Morris wasn't DailySportsEditor in tears and he wasn't in fury. Instead, he looked calm but CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Darius upset. Morris's family still loves him. Morris knows that he has As the Michigan men's made that shot a dozen times basketball sophomore guard this season. In fact, he has made walked over to his family in the that shot probably hundreds of stands at the end of the Wol- times in his life. It was essen- verines' 73-71 loss to Duke on tially an open jumper from just Sunday, members of his family four feet away with the basket told him to keep his head up and at his center. received him with open arms. But this wasn't the pick-up Morris just finished going game where he probably made it through the motion of his final in, or the game against Concor- shot against the Blue Devils - dia in which he made it, or even the one that missed as the buzz- one of the three games against er sounded in the third round of No. 1 Ohio State where he made the NCAA Tournament in Char- it. This time, it was in the third lotte - after all the fans left and round of the NCAA Tourna- all that remained were media ment. and the cleanup crew. This time, it was against He pretended to take a few No. 1 seed Duke, and this time shots from the same spot that the two teams were playing in he missed the potential game- what's essentially Blue Devils' coach Mike Krzyzewski's back- yard. This time, Morris had to make this shot to save Michi- gan's season. Morris bricked the attempt. Though there wasn't even a hand in his face, he missed the shot that would have sent Mich- igan to overtime against Duke. With 5.6 seconds remaining the Wolverines were down two points and had zero timeouts. Morris received the inbound and ran the floor in the time he had. He omitted to pass the ball to other options in junior guard Zack Novak or freshman guard Tim Hardaway Jr. in the corner or the wing. No one would probably dis- agree with him either - Mor- ris's percentage from inside the paint is probably the most con- See MORRIS, Page 3B By CHANTEL JENNINGS DailySportsEditor CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It's pretty rare to stifle Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. But the Michigan men's basketball team almost stifled the coach and his top-seeded team into a loss with the help of its 1-3-1 zone on Sun- day. It's a defensive set that's proved difficult for several teams Michigan has faced this season, and it did exactly the same thing when Michigan coach John Beilein employed it in the Wolverines' third-round game of the NCAA Tournament. "It kind of throws them off, especially since we haven't been playing it that much," sopho- more point guard Darius Morris said Sunday. "It's just a change of pace. You know, we slow it up and make the guard really have to make decisions on the fly ... It switches up the game and changes up the pace." That change of pace forces guards to spread out more, which in turn affects the way even talented guards make simple moves. Krzyzewski explained Saturday that any zone slows the pace of the game and forces teams to take outside shots. But his fear with the 1-3-1 zone was that his players would stand up too straight. And when players stand up, passes often are made entirely with their arm rather than their entire body. In effect, standing taller forces players to make weaker passes. "In man-to-man, if you're pressured you get strong," Krzyzewski said Saturday. "In a zone, sometimes that space - and then people in front of you in that space - makes you think and stand up, and that's the very first thing in playing against a slouching man or against a zone is to make sure you stay strong in your stance with the ball." The defensive pressure did just that and held Duke's guard See ZONE DEFENSE, Page 35 Through dreams, drive and perfection, Russell is a champion PHILADELPHIA - Kellen Russell stepped to the mat Saturday night with a dream. It's a dream he's had for 730 days - something he just couldn't shake. DANIEL He's WASSERMAN dreamt of never On Wrestling feeling what he felt 730 nights ago. He dreamt of winning. Winning every match he wrestled. Winning a national championship. 730 days ago - exactly two years to the day before he stepped to the mats in Philadel- phia hoping to make that dream reality - Kellen Russell lost. In 2009, despite beingthe top- seeded 141-pound wrestler in the country, Russell was stunned by Illinois' Ryan Prater - abolish- ing his pursuit of becoming a champion. The next day, Russell lost again, before finally garner- ing seventh place at the NCAA Championships that year. Now a redshirt junior, Russell hasn't lost since that day. Grant- ed, he was forced to redshirt last year due to injury. For 39 straight matches, Russell has stepped onto the mats, each time emerg- ing victorious. And the 39th time brought all 730 dreams into reality: Kellen Russell had just beaten Cal Poly's Borislav Novachkov, 3-2, to win a title. It didn't matter when he heard his anklepop while he was tied, midway through the champion- ship match and couldn't put pres- sure on his leg. It didn't matter that it took, Russell a combined four over- times to advance throughthe quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, or that both wins came from the slimmest of margins - a meager 21 seconds of combined riding time, earned by being on top of your opponent. It didn't matter that Kellen isn't flashy, or offensively ori- ented, like many of the other top wrestlers at Nationals who often win by large margins or with quick pins. "I've been talking a lot about his heart - it's a heart of a lion," Michigan coach Joe McFarland said after watching his star win the title. "They're tough to sit through as a coach, but I love the fact that he gets his hand up. He's See RUSSELL, Page 3B MATT SLO. Redshirt junior Kellen Russell has won his last 39 matches en route to a national title in the 141-lb. weight class. ----------- FAB FIVE FLAVOR U In today's SportsMonday Column, the Fab Five experienced disappointment of its own in the early 90s. This Michigan team is different. Page 2B HEADING TO ST. LOUIS 0 The Michigan hockey team lost in the CCHA semifinals against Western Michi- gan, but still earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Page 4B