The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 7A Michigan looks to slow down resurgent Hoosiers on road Blue drops tenth straight to MSU By BEN ESTES Daily Sports Editor It appears Indiana bas- ketball is back Michigan - and that's at Indiana not good news for the No. 16 Matchup: Michigan bas- Indiana 13-1; ketball team. Michigan 12-2 The Wol- When: Thurs- verines face day,9 P.M. a tall task as Where: they travel to Assembly Hall Bloomington TV/Radio: on Thurs- ESPN2 day night to square off with the 12th-ranked Hoosiers, who opened their season with 12 straight wins before drop- ping their first game of the sea- son last week at Michigan State. Indiana's success is no fluke either, which the team proved when it knocked off then-No. 1 Kentucky on Dec. 10 and then toppled then-No. 2 Ohio State on New Year's Eve. Significantly, both of those upsets were home games for the Hoosiers - Assembly Hall is notorious for being one of the most difficult road environments in college basketball. "(Assembly Hall) holds a lot of people," said sophomore guard Tim Hardaway Jr. "And a lot of people are down your neck every time you're shooting. It's going to be very hostile, like last year when we went there. We're used to it now. ... You've just got to block everything out and just focus on what (Michigan coach John Beilein) wants you to do out there." The Wolverines have been particularly susceptible to the horrors of the building. Last sea- son, Michigan (2-0 Big Ten, 12-2 overall) got blown out in Bloom- ington, 80-61, by an Indiana team that ended up finishing last in the Big Ten. And three seasons ago, when the Wolverines made the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Beilein, they had to claw their way back from a 20-point deficit to defeat the Hoosiers in * overtime. That team went just 6-25 for the season. But for all the unique chal- lenges that Assembly Hall poses, playing on the road in general is tough for any team, particularly in the Big Ten. And in its only true road game of the season so far, Michigan played poorly in a disjointed 12-point loss to Vir- By MATT SPELICH Daily Sports Writer EAST LANSING - The Michi- gan women's basketball team struggled_ to find MICHIGAN 55 its stroke MSU 60 early and often in Wednesday's game against Michigan State, but a 3-pointer from junior guard Jenny Ryan turned the tide for the Wolverines, giving them a 27-24 halftime lead. Michigan coach Kevin Borseth wished the game could've ended there, which would've ended his team's nine-game losing skid to its in-state rival. But thanks to a one-two punch early in the second half from their pair of post players - redshirt senior Lykendra Johnson and freshman Jasmine Hines - the Spartans went on to win, 60-55. The two combined for a total of 18 points, puttinga passive Michi- gan back line in atight space. "You got a choice - you have to play those big kids in front or behind, and when we played behind, they buried us," Borseth said. "When they buried us, they would just turn and score. We struggled to get in front, found ourselves on the side of them and they used their leverage against us." The Wolverines (1-1 Big Ten, 12-3 overall) made a few in-game adjustments to try and subdue the duo - everything from a double- down to a three-two zone - but they could not be stopped. Strong pins led to easy lay-ins and com- plete control of the weak-side glass, two things Michigan des- perately needed to hold on to its first-half momentum. To compound an already- gloomv situation for the Wol- verines, the changes ended up exposing two new weaknesses in Michigan's defense - poor rota- tion to the corners and trouble gettingthrough screens. Though Michigan State (2-0, 10-5) didn't have a very impres- sive nightfrombeyondthe arc,the wide-open looks created through screens and ball movement led to Michigan scrambling defensively, resultinginevenmoreopportuni- ties for the Spartans to score. "We addressed Michigan State's tendency to screen on the ball before the game, but it was an area we did not execute well," Borseth said. "They were getting the high-low every time, and that really hurt us." Aside from the tough defen- sive match-ups, the Wolverines proved early on that they were capable of competing offensively with their in-state rival. Junior center Rachel Sheffer led the charge with 20 points, including a 3-of-5 performance from beyond the 3-point line. Senior guard Courtney Boylan added 11 points and Ryan finished with eight.Borseth pinpointed his team's loss to a lack of offensive production during a three-minute stretch of the second half. "In that stretch in the middle of the second half, we didn't know what we were doing offensively and it cost us the game," Borseth said. "If we were able to answer or have some fluidity, I believe it would have been a different out- come." The game marked the 10th straight loss for Michigan against the Spartans. Though the game will fall in the "L" column for the Wolverines, Sheffer remarked that there is a lesson to this loss, in particular, that Michigan is sure to carry with it for the rest of the season. TODD NEEDLE/Daily Senior guard Zack Novak returns to his home state when Michigan travels to Indiana. ginia on Nov. 29. "Road games, they're tough," Beilein said. "There is an ele- ment there. You've really got to play well. You can't have an off game and win on the road very often. As a result, you've really got to have a special day to (win), and it's hard to do that in those atmospheres. "If we don't (win), we learn from it, we get better for the next time. We do (win), we learn from that, and try to do it again." Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Hoosiers' turn around is that, for the most part, it's the same group of players that scuffled all season long last year. That's except for one notable addition. Indiana (1-1 Big Ten, 13-1 overall) is led by freshman sensation Cody Zeller, who paces the team in both scoring (14.2 points per game) and rebounding (6.7 per game). The center was a five-star recruit, rated No. 15 in the coun- try by Rivals.com. Zeller was expected to provide an early boost, but so far he has exceeded even what Hoosiers headman Tom Crean could have antici- pated. Zeller's emergence is particu- larly troublesome for the Wol- verines, who are still thin on the interior with the continued absence of sophomore forward Jon Horford due to the stress fracture in his foot. So far, redshirt sophomore forward Jordan Morgan has done a solid job of keeping out of foul trouble in Big Ten play. He'll have to maintain that trend against Indiana for Michigan to have success. "(Zeller)'s really a tremendous player," Beilein said. "He can pass, he rebounds, he's tough. He's been a big difference maker in their team from last year.... Maybe in the past, when they threw it in (the post), you didn't have to worry about a scorer in there. "They have a scorer in there right now in the post." But Beilein was quick to point out that the Hoosiers are far from a one-man show. Indi- ana has four other players that average double figures in points (though one of them, forward Will Sheehey, likelywon'tplay on Thursday night due to alingering injury in his lower left leg). In fact, Crean's squad has been nearly unstoppable on offense this season, tied for eighth in the country in scoring with 82.6 points per game. The Hoosiers have been particularly lethal from deep, ranking second in the nation with a 44.7 3-point shoot- ing percentage. Forward Christian Watford - who hit the game-winning 3-pointer over Kentucky - and guard Jordan Hulls are both shooting 50 percent or higher from long range, as is bench play- er Matt Roth. Beilein noted Michigan itself will have to play well offen- sively to limit Indiana's attack, so that the Hoosiers can't take advantage of misses and get out quickly on the break. Beilein also said that there have been stretches in recent games where he's been very pleased with the Wolverines' defense, but that they haven't put it all together yet. Against Indiana, Michigan may need a standout defensive performance to steal one on the road. "We pride ourselves on play- ing some defense," said senior guard Zack Novak. "We know they're going to score and go on runs. There's going to be times when we'll probably have to push the pace a little bit, and score and keep up with them. But we're going to try to slow them down a little bit." TODDNEEDLE/Daily Junior center Rachel Sheffer led the Wolverines with 20 points, and shot 3-of-5from 3-point range. Moffatt reshaped into two-way player for 'M' ByMATT SLOVIN Daily Sports Editor The admissions are tough. The grading is harsh. The esteemed professor meticulously molds his pupils. The Red Berenson School for Two-Way Forwards is an Ivy League-caliber institution. And the Michigan coach has gained a * reputation for developing some of the most intelligent forwards in the sport, or "complete players" as Berenson puts it. Sophomore forward Luke Mof- fatt has earned his fair share of gold stars this season. Berenson sees him as one of the more dedi- cated skaters on the team. "He's always been a hard work- er," Berenson said. "You couldn't work harder than Moffatt." Freshman forward Zach Hyman added: "He's one of the hardest working guys on the team." But Moffatt hasn't always been the type of forward that best fits in the program. In fact, he was a very raw talent coming in - he possessed mediocre skating skills but was brilliant with the stick. "He's had a lot to learn like all other young, good players," Berenson said. "I think Moffatt is much improved this year. He's getting more confidence with the puck and (is) working harder without the puck. He's bought into it, he's trying and he's doing a much better job." And far more often than not, it's what players do without the puck that determines games, something Berenson constantly stresses. He has team meetings about how to play good, two-way hockey. He sifts through game tapes looking for examples of when the Wolverines skated well without the puck - or when they didn't. When they did, chances are that senior captain Luke Glen- dening was instrumental. Glendening and his fellow seniors take the responsibility of adapting their own playing style to the system and then teaching it to younger players. Their efforts have had a clear influence on Mof- fatt. "(Playing both ways is) some- thing I've been working on since I got here," he said. "It's just being more defensively reliable and knowing my positioning." Watch him this weekend at Yost Ice Arena, even when he doesn't have the puck. Moffatt has learned from two-way players like Glendening, and he in turn is expected to help out the newest players to the program - mostly his linemates, freshmen forwards Hyman and Andrew Sinelli. "On the backcheck, (Moffatt) comes back really hard," Hyman said, noting that those are quali- ties he loves to see in a linemate. "He's a great two-way player." But the most encouraging part about Moffatt's recent surge - he's scored twice in the last three ---OOI games - is that he's an extremely adept scorer, too. That's what caught Berenson's eye when he first observed the Arizonan's raw talent. Though Moffatt has just four goals this season, they've all been timely - each has been scored with the game in a tie or one-goal differential. He has ten points with an impressive six plus-minus rating. "He's always been an offensive- minded player," Berenson said. "That's one of the hardest things for a good offensive player, to learn how to work hard without the puck." And what should the Wolver- ines do when they aren't skating with the puck? "You better play your posi- tion and get (the puck) out of the zone," Berenson said. "You bet- ter back-check. You better watch your man. You better play the game." Moffatt knows how important this two-way style of play is to Berenson. And if his fellow players don't buy into it quickly like he did, they won't see the ice. "If you're not playing both ways ... you're not going to be playing," Moffatt said. "You're going to be practicing. That's one of the things that's just absolutely man- datory if you want to play." Sounds like someone wants to be a straight "A" student.