4B - March 19, 2012
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The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
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Daily SportsEditor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -
UItimately, when March
is over and bracket-pool
managers pay out the
pot, there are 67losers.
It's funny, really. When you
think of the NCAA Tournament,
you imme-
diately call
to mind the
jubilant win-
ners. For me,
it's Vermont's
overtime
upset of Syra-
cuse in the
first round LUKE
of the 2005 PASCH
tournament.
I remember
where I was, who I was watching
with. I remember Gus Johnson's
call of T.J. Sorrentine's shot
"from the parking lot" to hammer
the nail in Syracuse's coffin.
The game had a David-and-
Goliath feel to it - a bunch of
under-recruited nobodies at a
hippie school taking down a bas-
ketball giant in March. Vermont
fan or not, it was a powerful
moment.
Two days later, the Cata-
mounts ran into Michigan State
in the next round and lost hand-
ily. I couldn't tell you where I was
or what I was doingthat day. I got
over it pretty darn quickly.
Such is the beast of March
Madness. So rarely do the cam-
eras effectively capture the pain-
ful images of those who don't
make it to the end of the month.
The chances of any one team sur-
vivingto that point are absurdly
marginal, yet they all hangtheir
hopes on making it because
believing otherwise would be
sacrilege.
For 67 programs, March is the
cruelest month of the year.
On Friday night, Ohio upset
Michigan in Nashville, and the
Wolverines became a footnote.
Co-workers will gather round
the water cooler on Monday and
complain thatthe Wolverines
screwed their brackets. They'll
grumble over Michigan's short-
comings and muse that the Bob-
cats are rather well-coached for
a team out of the Mid-American
Conference.
And that's that. Life moves on
pretty quickly. After a weekend
that sawa pair of two-seeds in
Missouri and Duke fall on the
same dayas Michigan, the Wol-
verines' massive failure was a
mere blip on the radar for the
casual fan of college basketball.
By the end of the month, only the
winner matters.
Perhaps it's some kind of
neural mechanism. Your brain
remembers the good. forgets the
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Michi-
gan had won this game many
times before.
A week ago, Michigan over-
came a nine-point deficit with
under five minutes to play to beat
Minnesota in the quarterfinals of
the Big Ten Tournament.
Two weeks before that, the
Wolverines found themselves
down four points to Northwest-
ern in the final minutes before
pulling out an overtime victory.
Earlier in the season, they had
charged back from an eight-point
deficit in the second half to down
the Wildcats in overtime in Ann
Arbor.
And in marquee wins over
rivals Michigan State and Ohio
State, Michigan found a way to
grit out nail-biting finishes. Of the
Wolverines' nine losses, just three
had not been decided by double
digits - it was the close ones that
they were often able to salvage.
So, when Michigan found itself
down nine points with less than
nine minutes to play against Ohio
at Bridgestone Arena on Friday
night, the Wolverines were in
their element.
"We've been in this situation
a million times this year," said
freshman point guard Trey Burke.
And so Burke played like he
had a million times before. After
having only scored four points
at that point in the game, Burke
dominated the next five minutes.
He scored Michigan's next 12
points by getting to the rim, get-
ting to the free-throw line and
burying contested 3-pointers.
And all of a sudden, the score
went from 57-48 to 63-60 with
four minutes left.
It was just like so many other
times this season.
"We always have to believe,
and we were believing the whole
entire game," said sophomore
guard Tim Hardaway Jr. "Down
three with two or three min-
utes left to go in the game, we
were like, 'Yeah, we've been here
before."'
The Wolverines continued to
stop the Bobcats on defense, and
all they needed was to sinka shot
or two to complete their come-
back.
"Everyone was confident," said
senior guard Zack Novak. "We
had the momentum, we had cut
the lead down, we'd been in this
situation before. We just got to
play our game. We're a second-
half team, that's it. We've done it
all year."
But there was a problem.
"We just weren't hitting shots,"
Burke said.
Shot after shot evaded nylon.
Sophomore forward Evan
Smotrycz, who hadn't missed all
game, came up short on a layup
as he slashed through the defense
from the left wing. Burke missed a
3-pointer, and so did Novak.
"We saw a little bit of light,"
said senior guard Stu Douglass.
"We wanted the lead so bad, we
wanted to tie it so bad. We fought
so hard and we didn't want the
season to end. Sometimes, you
can kind of overdo it and over-
think it a little bit"
The Wolverines had surren-
dered possession with under a
minute left and needed a crucial
stop. Burke got that stop by forc-
ing Bobcat guard Nick Kellogg
into a 10-second violation. There
would be time to try to tie it or
take it to the basket and foul to
extend the game.
"I thought, 'we'll hit a shot
finally,' "Douglass said. "Percent-
ages. The law of percentages, we'll
hit a shot. I had confidence."
That confidence meant con-
fidence in Burke, who had come
through all season. There was no
reason to believe that it was going
to be different this time.
Burke missed his 3-point try,
but Michigan was able to corral
the offensive rebound and Michi-
gan coach John Beilein called a
timeout with 40 seconds left.
Beilein's freshman was going to
get another shot at it.
As Burke dribbled the ball with
the clock winding down in the
Wolverines' last possession, he
wore a wide smile on his face. He
knew what he had done with the
game on the line so many other
times before.
"It was confidence," Burke said.
But then his shot went in-and-
out. The Wolverines regained
possession and had renewed life
until Smotrycz flubbed a cross-
over while his team tried to reset,
and Ohio recovered the ball with
seven seconds remaining.
At that moment, the confidence
that Michigan had felt the whole
game - the whole season - van-
ished. Things had gone according
to the script the whole time, and
as long as there was hope, the
Wolverines knew they had it in
the bag.
And then the script flipped.
"I looked up and I thought we
had more time," Douglass said.
"I looked over and it was 6.7
(seconds left) and I just couldn't
believe it."
Michigan had to foul and hope
that Ohio guard Walter Offutt
would miss both of his free
throws so that the Wolverines
could charge down the floor ands
get a final chance.
"There was still a possibility
that Offutt was going to miss and
so I think we called a timeout and
drew up a play and talked strat-
egy," Douglass said. "But it was
kind of hard to pay attention. You
knew he was going to hit one. It
was hard to face reality at that
point."
Offutt effortlessly sank both of
his tries, and reality struck.
Sophomore guard Tim HardawayJr. remained confident after Michigan's loss
to Ohio, fully expecting he will return Michigan to the Big Dance next season.
bitterness. But on Friday night,
after Michigan fell to an Ohio
team that just wanted it more all
game long, the images of a heart-
breaking loss were forever sealed
in my memory.
I'll never forget watching soph-
omore forward Evan Smotrycz
stand on the court and pull his
jersey over his head as the buzzer
sounded. The kid had the most
efficient shooting performance
of his career and kept Michigan
in the game throughout. But his
turnoverto seal the Wolverines'
fate in the final seconds would be
the clip shown on SportsCenter
on Saturday morning and what
the office workers remember
come Monday - and he knew it.
Senior guard Stu Douglass
untucked hisjersey and looked up
at the basket. His last chance for
postseason glory had been squan-
dered, and he needed a moment
to reflect. But Douglass and his
teammates were hurried off the
court so Temple could begin
warming up for its second-round
matchup with South Florida.
March doesn't wait around for
losers.
I won't forget walking into the
locker room afterward, seeing the
blank stares, the teary eyes. There
was a powerful silence, broken
only by the muffled Bobcat cheers
from the locker room next door.
When I walked in, senior Corey
Person strategically turned his
chair in toward the locker and
put his head in his hands to avoid
the media onslaught for the next
15 minutes.
Then, with just a few minutes
left in the locker room, sopho-
more guard Tim Hardaway Jr.
came out of the showers to
address the media. Unlike his
teammates, he held his head up
and spoke with clarity, with con-
fidence. He didn't feel sorry for
himself or his teammates, and he
credited Ohio for playing a superb
40 minutes of basketball.
Though it's too early to make
promises, he announced that
he is "definitely" coming back
to Michigan for a junior season.
Make what you will of that, but
his tone was genuine. And as
senior co-captains Zack Novak
and Stu Douglass fought tears in
front of the cameras, Hardaway
Jr. looked forward to next March,
when he'll be the veteran leader
of this squad.
I left Bridgestone Arena on
Friday night with a new perspec-
tive on March Madness. From the
2012 Tournament, I'll remember
the faces of a group of kids whose
season ended on March 16 instead
of April 2.
And should Tim Hardaway
Jr. lead them to better fortune in
March of 2013 - should they find
glory and cutdown the nets -
I'll remember thattheir journey
started with that gut-wrenching
loss on Friday night.
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