The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, November 12, 2012 - 7A 'M' opens pre-season NIT Regional at home Junior guard Tim HardawayJr. led all scorers with 25 points against Slippery Rock, and he added 10 rebounds for a double-double in the season opener Michigan smashes he Rock By DANIEL WASSERMAN Daily Sports Writer Michigan gave Slippery Rock a friendly welcome to Ann Arbor. The fans at Crisler Center - accustomed to cheering for The Rock at each home football game - didn't boo the visiting team during its pregame SLIPPERY ROCK 62 introduc- MICHIGAN 100 tions. Once play started, Michigan even let Slippery Rock take-a lead into the first official timeout, when the The Rock led 9-8. The teams traded leads for most of the first seven minutes of the game, but with 13:10 remain- ing, sophomore point guard Trey Burke's 3-pointer from the cor- ner put Michigan ahead 17-15. And the Wolverines never looked back. Though Michigan didn't look quite like a top-five team for most of the game, the Wolverines' tal- ent was too much for Slippery Rock, willing Michigan to a 100- 62 victory - the first time the program has reached the century mark since 2007. Burke and the Wolverines were never able to fully grasp control of the opening stanza. Though Burke scored eight first- half points, he shot just 3-for-10 and had four turnovers, as Mich- igan entered the locker room with a 44-30 lead. Junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who led all players in both first-half points and rebounds with 12 and seven, finished with his fourth career double-double. Hardaway missed just two shots and connected on all five of his 3-pointers, finishing with 25 points and 10 rebounds. Hardaway said he had "no idea" when the last time he shot as well as he did Friday night. "I don't even think one of his threes hit the rim," Burke said. "It was good to see, and it wasn't even just his 3-point shooting. "He did everything we need- ed him to do tonight... You just see that fire that he comes with. When I see that, when we see that as a team, that's when we try to feed him." Slippery Rock appeared to begin the second half with momentum, scoring on its first two possessions to cut its defi- cit to 10. But Hardaway lit a fire under the Wolverines, soaring through traffic and throwing down a monstrous one-hand jam. After freshman forward Glenn Robinson III hit a jump- er, Hardaway followed with 3-pointers on back-to-back pos- sessions to propel Michigan to a 20-point lead. Burke recovered from his sluggish start, flashing his talent that garnered pre-season All- American accolades. The guard finished with 21 points and eight assists, including a loft that Hardaway hammered home for an alley-hoop. "What he was trying to do - he was really so excited to be back out there and playing with his. teammates (that he was) probably going too quick," said Michigan coach John Beilein. "He hurried some things (but) I loved his pace in the second half. I don't think you'll see his five turnovers again, but he was just trying a little too hard." Four freshmen saw consider- able minutes in their first official college game. Robinson start- ed and flirted with a double- double, scoring 10 points and pulling down eight rebounds. Guard Nik Stauskas, who was questionable prior to game time with a back injury, finished with seven points, connecting on one of his two 3-pointers. Forward Mitch McGary finished with nine points thanks to a couple thunderous dunks, while also gathering nine rebounds. Point guard Spike Albrecht scored just two points, and at times played the two-guard with Burke on the floor. Slippery Rock made just 36.9 percent of its shots. Guard Devin Taylor led The Rock with 14 points, and only one other scorer reached double digits. Twelve different Wolverines scored, as Michigan connected* on 66.7 percent of its shots and 7-of-9 3-pointers in the second half. "We've got a lot of options," Burke said. "Sometimes, some- body's not hitting, another guy's going to step up. If he's not hit- ting, another guy's going to step up. I just think that, with the type of options that we have, the biggest thing with us is that we trust each other. "The sky's the limit with this team." By-DANIEL WASSERMAN Daily Sports Writer In just the second week of November, the Michigan bas- ketball team already has its first must-win game of the season. OK, so maybe in the realm of the regular season, Monday and Tuesday nights aren't actu- ally must-wins, but in order to travel to New York City later this month to play in the NIT Season-Tipoff, formerly the Preseason IUPUI at NIT, the Wol- Michigan verines must beat ."IUPUI Matchup: and then the IUPUI1-0; winner of Michigan 1-0 the Bowling When: Mon- Green-Cleve- day 9:30 p.m. land State Where: Crisler matchup. Center The region- TV/Radio: al-site games ESPNU this year are the open- ing two rounds of the Madi- son Square Garden-based tournament, unlike last year when Crisler Center played host to the "Maui on the Mainland" games, but Michigan was guar- anteed a spot in Hawaii regard- less of the games' outcomes. Monday, the Wolverines (1-0) face-off with the Jaguars fol- lowing the completion of the Falcons-Vikings game. IUPUI (1-0) returns just two starters from a team that finished 14-18 last year, good for seventh in the Summit League. This year's team was -recently tabbed to fin- ish fifth. The Jaguars will rely on their backcourtcif they hope to keep up with Michigan's potent offense. Guard Ian Chiles, a second-team all-conference preseason selec- tion and guard John Hart - who transferred from Purdue last year after playing sparse min- utes - will need to replace the void left by thee-time All-Sum- mit League guard Alex Young, who averaged more than 20 points per game last year. Playing at home, where the Wolverines have won 20 of their last 22 games dating back to the 2010-11 season, Michigan is expected to breeze through both matchups as it did in Friday's 100-62 win over Slippery Rock. Assuming the fifth-ranked Wolverines make it out of Ann Arbor, they'd be the favorites heading into New York, where Pittsburgh, Virginia and Kansas State are expected to appear. "We've got to go into (the games) with a mindset (that) everybody is ranked number one," said junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr. "We've got to be on our cues because everybody's going to give us their best game." The games will allow the Wolverine freshmen to get in two final tune-ups before head- ing into the bright lights of the Big Apple. The lone freshman starter, forward Glenn Robin- son III, registered 10 points and eight rebounds in the opener. He has continued to impress the Michigan coaches and his team- mates. "He's doing everything: defending, getting rebounds, boxingout," Hardaway said. "He gets in the gym everyday. Me and him are in the gym all the time working on our game, get- ting in extra reps after practice, before practice and we do a great job of just having fun and just competing against one another." Perhaps the biggest storyline to follow is how redshirt soph- omore forward Jon Horford responds to increased playing time as he's workedback into the rotation. Horford scored four points and made his presence known last Friday with a block and a drawn charge in eight minutes - his first game action since Dec. 10. Though Burke said that Hor- ford "looks one step slower than he was before he got hurt," the forward still gives Michigan one more body in the front court to provide a spark off the bench. "He brings us energy," Hard- away said. "We missed him out there." Seniors lead Blue to first win of Barnes Arico era By DANIEL FELDMAN Daily Sports Writer Kim Barnes Arico finally relaxed. "Woo!" the first-year Michi- gan women's basketball head coach said at thestartofher press conference following Michigan's 70-62 victory over Detroit at Crisler Center in Barnes Arico's debut. After an exhausting back- and-forth seod DETROIT 62 second MICHIGAN 70 half, she took a deep breath. The Wolverines got off to a hot start against the Titans thanks to senior guards Jenny Ryan and Kate Thompson and senior for- ward Rachel Sheffer. The trio combined for 52 points, with 18 apiece from Thompson and Ryan - both career highs - and 16 by Sheffer to go along with a career- high 13 rebounds for her third career double-double. "You never know who's going to produce on a given night," Ryan said. "Sometimes your starters are going to have to carry you. Tonight, our scorers stepped up big." The senior trio scored Michi- gan's first 12 points before soph- omore guard Nicole Elmblad added a basket of her own at the 15:48 mark to make the score 14-6 and cause the Titans to call their first timeout. While the Wolverines have had a balanced scoring attack, getting easy short shots from underneath the bas- ket, Detroit relied on 3-pointers in the first half. The Titans kept themselves in the game due to four three-pointers by sopho- more guard Audrey Matteson, the last of which cut the lead to seven. That was the closest Detroit would make the game in the half. Following the basket, Michi- gan went on a 13-2 run to lead by 18, its biggest lead of the game. All 13 of the points in that stretch were scored by the same trio of seniors, including six points by Ryan on two 3-pointers. After being silenced in the first half with only two points, Detroit sophomore forward Shareta Brown opened up the second half with five points - including a 3-point play to cut the Wolverines' lead to 38-30. Brown led the Titans with 19 "nitc n~iA;rr 7 n + -^^^-A half, along with eight rebounds. "I knew tonight would be a tough task for us, just because they are athletic and are a really strong rebounding team," Barnes Arico said. "So it was interesting to see howwe wouldhandle their pressure, and how we would match their rebounding as well as their inside presence with Shareta Brown and Yar Shayov." Barnes Arico saw how ardu- ous that task was after Brown's second basket in consecutive possessions to start the second half. After another basket by Detroit to cut the lead six, Jenny Ryan got the Wolverines on the second half scoreboard with a basket to halt the 7-0 spurt by the Titans. From that point forward, the two squads traded baskets, with the Titans continuously crashing the boards, piling up 21 defen- sive and 15 offensive rebounds. In comparison, the Wolverines managed 33 rebounds, but only five on offense. "Our No.1 concern on the year is our rebounding," Barnes Arico said. "That's something we focus on all the time in practice. I think we did it well in the first half. I think when we ran out of gas, a lot of their second chances in the second half were off of (Brown's) misses." Yet, with no run bigger than five points in the second half,, Michigan was able to limit the damage from Detroit out-shoot- ing them and managed to not let the Titans get within five points of the lead. The last time the Titans got within that margin was with 34 seconds remaining to make the score 66-61, but sophomore guard Brenae Harris and fresh- man guard Madison Ristovski each made a pair of free throws to put the game away and earn Barnes Arico her first win at Michigan. "I was proud of the way we finished up. I mean, we could have fallen apart," Barnes Arico said. "We kept making big plays or free throws down the stretch. I'm pleased, and I'm excited to have victory number one at home." Refinance & lower your interest rate by 2% A Senior guard Jenny Ryan scored 18 points in Michigan's victory over Detroit at Crisler Center on Friday.