The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com February 4, 2013-

In raucus environment,
No. 1 Michigan can't
hang with Indiana
By DANIEL WASSERMAN
Daily Sports Editor
BLOOMINGTON-Tabbed as the
"Game of the Season" prior to tip-off,
Saturday's prizefight between the No. 1
Michigan basketball team and No. 3 Indi-
ana lived up to every bit of its billing and
then some. The two frontrunners in the

Big Ten title race played with intensity
typically reserved for March, each team
playing like the best team in the country
for significant stretches.
But in the end, Indiana - playing at
home in perhaps the nation's loudest,
most intimidating
arena - proved to MICHIGAN 73
be too much for the INDIANA 81
Wolverines. With
Michigan trailing by seven and trying to
hang on for one final run, preseason-All
American Cody Zeller out-hustled four
Michigan players for a loose-ball offen-
sive rebound with just under two min-
utes left. The Hoosiers went on to make

their free throws to seal the game, as the
Wolverines fell, 81-73, despite clawing
back from two double-digit deficits.
The loss likely means that for the
fourth straight week, there will be a new
No.1 team.
"This is a young team, and these envi-
ronments have tremendous opportuni-
ties for them to grow, and that's our only
message right now," said Michigan coach
John Beilein. "We can't be patting each
other on the back, and moral victories
and things like that - no, we're very dis-
appointed, but we can't dwell on it.
"That was two good teams playing.
Somebody was going to win that game

and we didn't. Our kids held their own."
Zeller and sophomore point guard
Trey Burke lived up to all of their pre-
season hype. The two preseason All-
Americans and Player of the Year
candidates at times single-lhandedly car-
ried their teams, combining for 44 points.
Burke finished with 25 points and eight
assists, while Zeller had 19 points and
nine rebounds - three of them on the
offensive end, which were all slammed
home for put-back dunks.
But for as well as Burke played, Michi-
gan couldn't recover from the conspicu-
ous absence of two of its freshmen: guard
Nik Stauskas and forward Glenn Robin-

son III. Stauskas, who Beilein said missed
Friday's practice with the flu, finished
with 10 points, though one of his two
3-pointers came in the final moments,
with the game already out of reach. The
freshman, known for his shooting ability,
connected on just one of his eight first-
half shots and failed to find any rhythm.
Despite playing the entirety of the
game, Robinson scored just two points on
1-of-6 shooting, while pulling down four
rebounds. But Beilein stopped short of
pinning Robinson's unproductive night
solely on the freshman.
"We've got to get him the ball first,"
See MICHIGAN, Page 3D


In this league, there will be,
plenty more big games

McGary lone star of
struggling freshmen

BLOOMINGTON -
his game was marked on every-
body's calendar.
Two top-five teams playing
in the best conference in college bas-
ketball for what could be a preview of a
tournament game in March.
ESPN's College GameDay was in
town and students were lined up out-
side hours before the 9 p.m. tipoff just to
get four seconds of face time on camera.
There was Trey Burke and Cody
Zeller fighting on opposite ends of the
court for a signature win and for the
right to be called the National Player
of the Year. And then there was John
Beilein and Tom Crean, coaches who
have taken their respective programs
back to national prominence and hopes
of a conference title and more.
It was No.1 Michigan and No. 3 Indi-

ana. Two teams battling for first place
in the Big Ten, but more importantly, for
the title of the best team in the nation.
Seventeen thousand, four hundred
seventy-two people
in Assembly Hall
just witnessed the
best two teams in
college basketball
play for 40 minutes,
but how important
was this game,
besides a No.1 rank- COLLEEN
ing that may not THOMAS
even be held for -
more than a week?
Michigan will still be in the top five
come Monday, and there's at least one
more game between these two teams
- a March 10 matchup in Ann Arbor.
There's likely to be more, too - possibly

a Big Ten tournament title game and
maybe even a game in April with a shot
at the national championship.
For a game still early in the confer-
ence slate, it's tough to say this game
had huge implications for either team.
Michigan has three tough games com-
ing up - Ohio State, Wisconsin and
Michigan State - and Indiana has two
road games against Illinois and Ohio
State, and the Hoosiers still must face
Michigan and Michigan State on the
road.
Big Ten coaches and players have
been stressing the strength of the
conference all season, saying that the
conference champion will have multiple
losses by the end of the season. They're
definitely right - both the Wolverines
and Hoosiers have plenty of other
See BIG GAMES, Page 3D3

Indiana native hustles
to play keep up with
Hoosiers' Zeller
By COLLEEN THOMAS
Daily Sports Editor
BLOOMINGTON - Just like in
Columbus, the freshmen disappeared.
Guard Nik Stauskas and forward
Glenn Robinson III were silenced for
almost the entirety of the primetime
matchup between No. 1 Michigan and
No. 3 Indiana. The duo that normally
averages 24 combined points per game
was held to just 12 points -10 of which
came in the last half of the second stan-
za.
The record-setting decibel levels
in Assembly Hall got to the freshmen

early, as did asimilarraucous crowd did
in Columbus.
"This is a young team and these envi-
ronments a'e tremendous opportuni-
ties for them to grow," said Michigan
coach John Beilein.
The noise seemed to get to Stauskas
early, as the guard missed three easy
layups and couldn't hit a 3-pointer until
the last 30 seconds of the game. Staus-
kas went 3-for-10 from the field and
1-for-5 from beyond the arc.
For Stauskas, alow 3-point shooting
percentage has been a trend in Big Ten
games. He's shooting just 36 percent
from beyond the arc during conference
play, compared-to his 48 percent on the
year, and is getting targeted by oppp-
nents' defenses to limit his impact.
Against Ohio State, Stauskas
attempted only three shots, all from
See MCGARY, Page 38

Y

CHANGING OF THE GUARD
On the same day Denard Robinson
played in the Senior Bowl, Derrick Green
committed to Michigan. Page 4B

SWEEP, AT LONG LAST
The Michigan hockey team won both
games against the Spartans for its first
sweep of the year to avoid the CCHA
basement. Page 4B