The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, November 26; 2014 -- 7A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, November 26, 2014 - 7A Nova blocks ' FC Friends don't let friends make fools of themselves. Friendship inf ilm By JAKE LOURIM Daily Sports Editor NEW YORK - Villanova attacked, and Michigan countered. Then MICHIGAN 55 Michigan VILLANOVA 60 attacked, and Villanova countered. With 30 seconds left, they found themselves in a one-point game, and it wasn't clear which attack came first. But it was Villanova's that came last - a stone-cold block of sophomore forward Zak Irvin at the rim with four seconds left to help lead the Wildcats to a 60-55 win in the Legends Classic championship game Monday night. Villanova took its first lead in more than 10 minutes with forward JayVaughn Pinkston's dunk with 1:09 to play, but Michigan had an answer when junior guard Caris LeVert drove for a layup with 50 seconds left. The Wildcats retook the lead with Pinkston's jumper with 13 seconds to go. And then it came down to Michigan junior guard Cn-r ^lhr-'+ nn-th+haQP1-n with 7.8 seconds to play Albrecht found Irvin wide open under the basket, but Pinkston rose up and blocked him. "They had three or four of those rim-protecting type of plays today, three big blocks where I think we had really good leverage," said Michigan coach John Beilein. "We had the basket,buttheir guys came out of nowhere to take it away from us." Villanova guard Ryan Arcidiacono hit two free throws with four seconds left, and Michigan senior forward Max Bielfeldt overthrew the ensuing inbounds pass to allow the Wildcats to ice the game. Early in the second half, nothing came easily for Michigan. First, it got trapped in the corner with 17:25 left, so the Wolverines called timeout. Then, freshman forward Kameron Chatman couldn't get the ball in, so Michigan called timeout again. And even then, it almost. turned the ball over, as Villanova tipped the inbounds pass out of bounds. "When it was 33-20 - actually, at +t -a nd o 'bP irm hlf - sensed at that time we had doubts whether we could win the game," Beilein said. "I'm really proud of how their spirit changed." Michigan's big men - usually either Bielfeldt, redshirt freshman Mark Donnal or freshman Ricky Doyle - gave away five of its seven first-half turnovers. Sophomore guards Derrick Walton Jr. and Zak Irvin had trouble shooting early on, going a combined 2-for-li before the break. "In the first half, they really did a good job defensively, getting into us a little bit and trying to take us out of what we wanted to do," Albrecht said. "But at halftime, we made some adjustments, and I thought we were running the offense really good in the second half." After LeVerthit two 3-pointers in a one-minute span, Michigan led, 20-18, with seven minutes left in the first half. Those would be the last points it would get before the break. All that mattered, though, were the last points of the second half. Those went to Villanova. And for the first time all night, +he Wnhra -'- arlna --uo There's much to learn about bonding in 'Frances Ha' ByANDREW MCCLURE Daily Arts Writer It's that wave of warmth that washes over you when you spot them unexpectedly. Or that smile you can't refuse as your front teeth peelback the curtain ofyour lips.-It's friends, man. As our clickbait generation bungles through isn't-there-an- app-for-this Xerox printers and boss subservience during our "yo-pro" years, the one thing we shouldn't discard is having good, bulletproof friendships. Longtime SNL stalwart Ana Gasteyer surely putitbest:A friendissomeoneyou can be weird with. And that's why Noah Baumbach's "Frances Ha" is the best, most realized friendship movie in the better part of three decades. (Because digging back further would make me an anachronistic, boomer-thinking hipster, right kids?) But let's first pay homage to a couple predecessors that also got it right. Based on a novella by Stephen King, Rob Reiner's 1986 "Stand by Me" likely didn't jar audiences then as it does me now. What seems so (pathetically) foreign to me is the sheer amount of touching, of rough-housing, that goes on between the little punks onscreen. There's overwhelming science contending that touching another person accelerates and amplifies bond-building. I couldn't help but recall, back in middle school, my best buddy's big bro blowing a gasket when, unbeknownst to me, my leg touched his for, like, five seconds uninterrupted. That's the culture we live in now - one that claims "Siri wouldn't ever touch my leg!" And that's why this film packs a huge punch. Just four dusty denim-wearing explorer- boys searching for a dead body, peregrinating across deep wood, prairie and stream. No Google Maps, just a clean haircut and unabashed brotherly love. It makes me wish I used my bike more and not that fucking Razor scooter. I hope everyone currently has a friend whom they, at some earlier time, hated. Be it their cooler clothes, cooler mom, or their inexplicable magnetism for the other sex, you wanted them deleted. Maybe from a distance, maybe in a confrontation. No film better portrayed this envy- turned-enchantment than Pixar's 1995 "Toy Story." Woody and Buzz were engineered to be homies: both possessed demonstrable leadership traits and killed the ladies with a scything wit. In the beginning, though, they're both at fault: Woody is a human who feels emotions like jealousy, and Buzz is the outsider with inchoate emotional IQ. That these two ultimately link together teaches us that friendship can arise from disharmony, as long as you look up from the screen in time to see the potential. It makes me want to tell strangers that I actually sleep with a stuffed Boo from "Monsters Inc." Every night. I could go on and engross you in my musings on "Wizard of Oz," "Mean Girls" and "The Trip" but, at the end of the day, this isn't some genteel New Yorker piece people pretend to have read. Let's get to the main event, then. Our leading lady, a poor and open-book dancer named Frances (played with bravura by Greta Gerwig, "Greenberg") is not a real dancer. She hesitates to tell others she dances for a living, "because I don't really do it." She is the 11th man on a dance company whose impresario has no room for naive, little Frances - who, by the way, is well into her mid- twenties. There is, however, one thing that buoys her from the heavyweights of pennilessness and dancing dreams quashed: Sophie, her best friend (played with enviable charm by Mickey Sumner, "Girl Most Likely"). Sophie and Frances, together, embody everything any person wants to share with another: the liberty to be foolish. From the way Sophie maternally cradles Frances as she tells her "The Story of Us," their idyllic life scenario in which Frances is an estimable dancer, to their all-hands, hair-pulling wrestling match in Central Park, the two form a youthful synergy. Imagine your best friendship's top moments - the times your wild side won't soon forget and your shy side might regret. Frances and Sophie share these vulnerable, fuck 'ern memories all the time because they make each other braver, more willing to risk ephemeral shame to strangers whose opinions, in their minds, don't matter. That, my friends, is what friends do. The best friendship flicks declare that your friends should make you want to be a weirder person, explore weirder spaces, try weirder stuff. Hunter S. Thompson once said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." So, friends, sip the Kool-Aid and I'll see you on the other side. ALIUSON FARRAND/Daily Villanova took advantage of its size inside when Michigan's big men, Ricky Doyle and Mark Donnal, got into foultrouble. Mattison1 still1 backs Hoke It could be a problem if you still think museums are boring.. ByGRACE HAMILTON Daily Arts Writer There is something about the silence, the slow walking, the pacing security officers and endless hallways in many museums that repel children. Still working on acquiring the virtue of patience, most cannot understand the solitary intimacy of having a relationship with a painting, sculpture, artifact or any other inanimate mass of material. My own relationship with museums followed a predictable series of phases. Before the age of sevenor so, it wastorture. I did not realize my fortune growing up in New York City, rich with craft, a museum itself of world-wide art. A fieldtrip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art did little to capture my interest. Guided worksheets and treasure hunts at the Brooklyn Museum were motivated mainly by a race to the free chocolate milk atlunchtime. The next turning point I can remember was my two-week family vacation to Sicily during December of 2004 - I was eight. We rented a car and traveled through four cities, living out my parents' guidebook fantasies. Of course, this turned out to be an average of three museums or historical sites a day. I have to believe this would be tiring for anyone. I whined, I cried, I complained about the "rock piles" we drove miles to see, rock piles like the Temple of Concord in Agrigento which appeared later in my textbooks and lecture slides. I was a buzzkill. That being said, despite my nagging and with some time, some of the things began to gain a little allure. Jewelry over a thousand years old, vases with strange paintings on the side, cooking tools. My imagination was stronger than my patience, and I had begun to see the fun in dreaming about the past. I tap-danced in a theater at Taormina with hundreds of imaginary patrons watching on. By the time I had studied Ancient Rome in sixth grade, and took our next big vacation there the same year, I had abandoned the complaints. It was amazing: I asked questions, read the tour books and stayed with the artwork. Three years later, I spent 15 minutes with a painting in Paris by Hieronymus Bosch, a fifteenth century painter from the Netherlands, known for his intricate, fantastical and frighteningly bizarre work. By the end of high school, I occasionally used off days to explore New York's famous museums I had neglected as a child. In my English class about Horror, an extra credit assignment was offered to check out several paintings at UMMA, a collection specifically put together for our course. In a class of about 35, I'd say no more than five made the trip. And I have to admit, without a good excuse, myself included. What does this say about my generation's appreciation for museums? It seems as though our childhood aversions are hard to overcome in our later years. Let's be honest, we're hardly able to sit through movies anymore without the pausing and starting again. What do we expect from any millennials left with two hours and no cell phone in the UMMA? Though this may appear to be an overly cynical concern, it is one worth considering. How can we change this trajectory? How can this kind oflearningbe introduced into classes? An appreciation for museums ensures that learning doesn't stop the second the class period ends, when we graduate from college or after we get a job. There is always more to be seen, more histories to be opened up, more piles of rock to stand on. And it certainly does not need to involve travel or spending. I'm no expert: I have no exceptional interpretativeabilities, knowledgeofarthistory,orspecial artistic talents myself (my brother the architect got them). But I do have curiosity, I have imagination and, regardless of my patience, I have appreciation. These faculties aren't so hard to come by. So go explore, take a trip to the museum and see what you can do without a hand dragging you along. By GREG GARNO Managing Sports Editor Michigan football coach Brady Hoke and defensive coordinator Greg Mattison are close friends. They always have been, really. The two, as strange as it is, used to wrestle each other while coaching at Western Michigan. They had spent years together before Hoke brought Mattison to Ann Arbor in 2011. And even in a year full of distractions and struggles, the pair remains close during practices and games. Tuesday, junior linebacker Joe Bolden said of their relationship, "Imagine your best friend." Fifth-year senior linebacker Jake Ryan added: "You can just tell, when they come in the meeting room, they can just joke around with each other, but they can also be serious." So as Hoke faces criticism over his job and the speculation swirls faster than the Michigan wind, Mattison has You do: been the first how lu1 to come to the W head coach's a defense. He ar has been there before, but Monday, he laid out his most extensive list of reasons for support of what Hoke has done for the program. But not all of his arguments hold up, based on the results they've produced. "Well, first of all, because the way he put together these players," Mattison said. "I believe our seniors are 100 percent -100 percent graduation rate. Now, I'm not being sarcastic. This is what they told me when I came from the NFL back to college, that this is what you're supposed to be doing." Yes, under Hoke, the Wolverines have improved their graduation rate, but his tenure has also seen 10 off-the-field incidents in which players have had arun-in with the law. "Second thing, I've been with a lot of head coaches, this guy here truly, truly takes kids from down here to here," he said, motioning his hands from below the podium to above it. "I'll tell you, if you don't believe anything I've ever said, just look at what's coming back. I mean, look at what we came in with, and look at what's comingback. Mygoodness. "I mean, I can'go on and on, and these are all the young kids that you say, 'Why do you get excited about coaching?' Because these are the young kids that we've seen as puppies." Mattison cited players such as redshirt sophomore defensive lineman Chris Wormley, a 280- pound basketball player who became "a 300-pound man," according to Mattison. There's Willie Henry, who was a raw talent out of high school, now playing as one of the Wolverines' n't know best defensive linemen. Cky you There are k yJ also instances iere. of recruits who have struggled, - including redshirt sophomore Terry Richardson, a touted defensive back who hasn't seen the field. Fifth-year senior quarterback Devin Gardner hasn't played like the star he was projected to be. And junior linebacker Royce Jenkins-Stone has made just two tackles this season after playing in the Under Armour All-America game in high school. "If you saw what we do in recruiting," Mattison said, "when you recruit a kid, you're really his parent, and you're saying to them, 'Please give him to me, and I promise you, when he's done, I'm going to give him back to you as a great student. He's going to have his degree, and he's also going to be a great football player." The 2015 recruiting class hasn't fully embraced that sentiment. The Wolverines have lost seven verbal commits from that group, leaving five remaining as the season comes to a close. Lastyear's recruitingclasswas the seventh-best in the nation, featuring the No. 2 player in the nation, defensive back Jabrill Peppers. Andthe 2012 class was ranked sixth. And as for what happens after players leave AnnArbor? "How many guys have been drafted here?" Mattison said. "When I was here five years ago, I mean, it was seven (or) eight a year. Now, somebody said, 'Well, you don't develop 'em.' Develop them? You'll see development. When I talk to these pro people right now and they start saying, 'Who's that kid? Who's that kid?' Well, these are the guys we recruited." It was just this year the Wolverines had a player taken in the opening round of the NFL Draft for the first time since 2010. Michigan hasn't had more than three players drafted since 2008, before the Rodriguez era. And yet, the season will be judged heavily on Hoke's 5-6 record before Ohio State, and the possibility of missing out on a bowl game for the first time since 2010. "He's a winner," Mattison said. "He's won everywhere he's been. The guy's a winner. Now what's the timetable? We win our first year? How'd that happen? Man. I don't know. Something right happened. Now, was it loaded that first year? What, we have two guys drafted? That wasn't a mirage. That was Brady Hoke who did that. I mean, let's be really, really honest. "I've done this a longtime. I've been with a lot of head coaches. I've seen a lot of them. You don't know htW lucky you are here."