Michigan gets creative to simulate, Syracuse's length as semifinallooms 0 0 For NBA probables, a final send-off By EVERETT COOK Daily Sports Editor ATLANTA - The last home practice for the 2012-13 Michigan men's basketball team didn't look normal. Sure, the mood was loose Tues- day, with players nodding their heads to the piped-in music play- ing overhead during a post-practice dunk contest, but there were some oddities. Mainly the fact that 6-foot-10 senior forward Blake McLimans, a reserve, was the scout team's player tasked with simulating the top of Syracuse's famed 2-3 zone. Syracuse has such length that the Wolverines were forced to use one of their tallest players to simulate Orange point guard Michael Cart- er-Williams, who is 6-foot-6. On top of that, Michigan coach John Beilein implemented a new drill for his perimeter players. A whistle sounded during offensive run throughs, and whichever Wol- verine had the ball had to jack up a shot, even if they were three to four feet behind the 3-point line. Twenty-eight-foot shots and centers playing the top of a zone - that's the type of practice required to master the Orange's defense. For much of the week, much attention hasbeen paid to this zone, put in place by legendary Syra- cuse coach Jim Boeheim, and how Beilein would attack it. The two are friends and have roots back to when Beilein coached at Canisius in the 1990s. Beilein's offense is, and always has been, built around players who can shoot. He's never beat Boeheim in nine attempts, but he's also never had quite the repertoire of shooters that he does now. Is that abigdeal? "We are going to try and make it a big deal," said sophomore point guard Trey Burke, the straw that stirs the drink for the Michigan offense. "We understand that they are really long and successful in that zone. My job is to make sure we are moving the ball, not just stand- ing around but making them move and try and hit the open man." As he has been for the entire sea- son, Burke will be at the forefront of the offensive attack. Even though 2B1 Final Four, April 5, 2013 Carter-Williams has six inches on the recently crowned Associ- ated Press Player of the Year, Burke will still be asked to penetrate the impenetrable to keep Michigan's offense fluid. Burke's drives set up Michigan's shooters, specifically freshman guard Nik Stauskas, who made all six of his 3-point attempts against Florida in the Elite Eight last weekend. The consensus is that if Michigan can shoot like it did against the Gators, when it made 46 percent of its shots from the field, the Wolverines can advance to the championship game. Playing Syracuse this Saturday instead of last Sunday makes a big difference, though. Beilein and the Wolverines have six days to prepare for the zone, instead of the two that they had to prepare against Florida. For a young team, that could make all the difference. "Before, we got like 36 hours to cram in all this information," Staus- kas said. "Sometimes, when you're sitting in film for a couple hours, all the information doesn't really sink in just because it's so much at once. Dividing it up over five or six days makes ita lot easier to take in." This is a team that's finding its stride at just the perfect time after a mid-season swoon during which the Wolverines lost three of four games at one point and finished 6-6 in their last 12 games. It turns out the answers were never too far out of reach for the seniors who had their last-ever practice at Crisler Center on Tues- day. The team had to slow down and regroup, needing a slight infusion of confidence to catapult it back to a place commensurate with its tal- ent level. Now, afterweathering the storm and becoming one of the last four teams standing, Michigan has found its stride, even if that stride involved a 6-foot-10 reserve acting as the opposing team's point guard. "I never though we were in trouble," said senior guard Corey Person. "The thing that I saw, that always kept me in high spirits, was that in a lot of the games we were losing, the mistakes that we were making were a lot of the same mis- takes. It wasn't something big, like we needed someone to grow three inches, or that we needed to be By DANIEL WASSERMAN Daily Sports Editor A report by sports business reporter Darren Heitner, citing an unnamed source, surfaced Thurs- day saying both junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr. and sophomore point guard Trey Burke are prepared to forgo their final years of college eli- gibility to head to the NBA as soon as the Michigan men's basketball team's run ends. The families of both players denied the report. Three other freshmen - guard Nik Stauskas and forwards Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III - appear destined to have eventual professional careers, as well. In the meantime, this past week has given these future pros a spe- cial appreciation for the uniqueness of life on a college campus. That began just hours after the Wolverines defeated Florida in the Elite Eight, 79-59, as more than 1,000 University students congre- gated outside Crisler Center to wel- come the team back. "That was very special," Robin- son said. "I don't know how many students there were but we couldn't even drive through the parking lot. People were banging on the bus and as soon as we got off, everyone was just waiting for us. almost. Hardaway and McGary each had papers to turn in the following day, and Robinson said that an athletic department official checked in to make sure he showed up on time to his 10 a.m. class Monday morning. Aside from being in class for the first few days of this week - the team departed for Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon - the play- ers are hardly normal students, despite the 6-foot-10 McGary's best attempts to stay "incognito," which he admitted isn't an easy thing to do. But the freshman is going to try to stay under the radar for at least another year, as he announced on Tuesday that he's returning to Michigan for his sophomore year next season. "We're normal people, and we've got to do those things, and we've got to get our work done," Robin- son said, who then listed a host of abnormalities he's encountered this week, includingstudents approach- ing him with ticket requests and teachers congratulating him in front of crowded lecture halls. "It's been crazy. Everyone's been com- ing up and talking to us." This week marked the one-year anniversary of when Burke - who according to several reports had, for a time, decided last year to declare for the draft - held a press conference to announce he'd return to Michigan. Spending his sophomore season in Ann Arbor has proven to be the right decision. Burke, a consen- sus All-American, has enhanced his draft stock from fringe sec- ond rounder last spring to a likely lottery pick in June's draft. On Thursday, he was awarded both the * Associated Press National Player of the Year and Bob Cousy Award for the country's top point guard. And though he has excelled on the court, his time off it has proved equally rewarding. His time at Michigan is something that he says he'll certainly miss. "That hits me all the time, really, just because the-college atmosphere is so great," Burke said. It was at that press conference last year that Burke said his inten- tions were to compete for a Nation- al Championship, a statement that many around the country scoffed at. Now, with the Wolverines just two wins from the title, Burke's words appear prophetic. "I just understood the type of talent we had coming in and the type of talent we had returning, you know, the talent to put together a run like we've put together," Burke said. "We're here now. We just still have unfinished business." "I don't know if I'll ever be a part of something like that again. I was enjoying that moment." Several players, including Robin- son, took out their phones to record the experience as Michigan coach John Beilein and the team's four captains took hold of police mega- phones to address the crowd and turn it into a pep rally. "I don't know if you're ever going to see something like that in the NBA," Stauskas said. "The fact that we have the support from all the fans here and that they waited for us to come back, it was cool." Two days before the win over the Gators, no one had a better seat to witness Burke's game-tying 3-pointer to send Michigan into overtime against Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen than Beilein. But reflecting back on that moment, the headman lightheartedly joked that he wishes he had a different van- tage point. "I wish I could beam into a res- taurant here and watch everybody watch Trey's shot go in," Beilein said. "I probably would be right there with them." But when the parking lot cel- ebration ended, it was back to nor- mal for the student-athletes. Well, TODD NEEDLE/Daily Michigan coachJohn Beilein has used taller players, like 6-foot-10 forward Blake McLimans, to simulate Syracuse's athleticism. A potent offense meets an impenetrable zone By COLLEEN THOMAS Daily Sports Editor It's the final weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and the Michi- gan men's basketball team is still playing. After breezing through the open- ing weekend, then upsetting top- seeded Kansas and demolishing Florida en route to their first Final Four in 20 years, the Wolverines will take on Syracuse in Saturday's national semifinal. The Daily basketball beat breaks down the matchup. Michigan offense vs. Syracuse defense It's the matchup everybody's been waiting to see: How will the Wolverines' fast-paced, Trey Burke- focused offense handle the daunt- ing 2-3 zone that held Marquette to a tournament-low 39 points and Indiana to SO points. 38 Final Four, April 5, 2013 Syracuse's long, athletic play- ers fit perfectly into coach Jim Boeheim's defensive scheme with their ability to close out on shooters quickly and cause turnovers - the Orange causes 15.6 turnovers per game. Syracuse also does a great job shutting down shooters. It rendered Indiana's Jordan Hulls and Mar- quette's Vander Blue ineffective from the field (Hulls went 0-for-6 and Blue went 3-for-15) and will look to do the same with fresh- man guard Nik Stauskas and junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr. But Michigan is prepared to mold its offense around the zone. The Wolverines have worked on shoot- ing from well beyond the 3-point line to avoid blocks on closeouts by the lanky guards, and the forwards have practiced high-low sets to try to find space in the low post. Michigan likes to runa pick-and- roll offense that gives Burke the ability to drive off the screen, dump it in the post or kick out to a shooter. The zone will most likely neutralize, the drive, but Michigan can break down the orange defense with good ball rotation and ball fakes. If Michigan can get out in transi- tion to prevent Syracuse from set- ting up its zone or if it can find a hot shooting hand, the Wolverines can overcome the zone. Edge: Michigan Michigan defense vs. Syracuse offense Michigan has struggled to play 40 minutes of good defense all sea- son, but it seems to have found some sort of rhythm in the tournament. Entering the tournament, one of the biggest questions was whether freshman forward Mitch McGary would be able to play defense after earning the starting spot over red- shirt junior forward Jordan Mor- gan. Luckily for the Wolverines, McGary stepped up in the tourna- ment both by playing tough defense in the paint and by limiting oppo- nents to one-and-done possessions. McGary shut down Kansas' Jeff Withey in the Sweet Sixteen match- up, and the backcourt of Burke and Hardaway has been solid. But Michigan hasn't seen a set of guards like Michael Carter-Wil- liams and Brandon Triche. Carter- Williams has been the story of the tournament for the Orange on both sides of the ball. The 6-foot-6 sophomore is the team's leading scorer, averaging 13 points per game in the tournament. Carter-Williams is six inches taller than Burke, which will be a match- up issue, but if Hardaway guards Carter-Williams, Burke is tasked with guarding the 6-foot-4 Triche. The Wolverines saw a similarly built team in Virginia Common- wealth in the third round and ended up blowing the Rams out, but Syra- cuse's guards are simply more tal- ented and athletic. Michigan will not only have a tough task guarding Carter-Williams, but playing a full 40 minutes of good defense. Edge: Syracuse Bench For the majority of the tourna- ment, Syracuse has used an eight- man rotation, but center Baye Moussa Keita is the only bench player to see significant minutes, as he shares time with forward Rakeem Christmas. The Orange will always have a fresh big man in the game with Keita and Christmas splitting min- utes, but foul trouble could be an issue for the two. And if Syracuse brings another guard off the bench, it doesn't have the talent to replace Carter-Williams and Triche. Yet the duo is used to playing a majority of the game, so fatigue might not be an issue. See BREAKDOWN, Page 46 able to make 50 3-pointers a game. Everything we were doing were small mistakes that you can fix ina weeks or couple days time. "I was always confident, and I was just waiting to see when we were going to be able to flip that switch." THE EARLY SEMIFINAL When: Saturday 6:09 p.m. Where: Georgia Dome TV: CBS No.1 Louisville No. 9 Wichita St. I. .