8 — Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

LeVert (foot) out for season

Junior will have 
surgery this week

By MAX BULTMAN 

Daily Sports Editor

Junior guard Caris LeVert 

will miss the remainder of the 
season with a left foot injury, the 
Michigan men’s basketball team 
announced Sunday.

LeVert went down hard after 

clearing a rebound to seal the 
Wolverines’ 
56-54 
win 
over 

Northwestern Saturday night, 
and MLive.com reported LeVert 
had been seen on crutches 
following the game.

“Caris has been working so 

hard this season and for this to 
happen is very unfortunate,” said 
Michigan coach John Beilein in 
a press release Sunday. “If we 
know anything about Caris, he 
will do everything it takes to 
not only get better, but to help 
his teammates during this time. 
He is a tremendous young man 
who I will really miss coaching 
the remainder of the season. 

However, I am optimistic he will 
have a complete recovery.”

The press release stated that 

LeVert will have surgery this 
week and will undergo a 12-week 
recovery period. LeVert also had 
surgery on his left foot in May 
2014.

LeVert 
was 
leading 
the 

Wolverines in scoring with 14.9 
points per game, rebounding 
with 4.8 boards per contest and 
averaged 3.7 assists in a team-
high 35.8 minutes per game.

In the press release, LeVert 

emphasized his confidence in the 
Wolverines to build on their 4-2 
record in Big Ten play, as well as 
his own recovery process.

“While this is obviously not 

what I wanted, I know this team 
will come together and be stronger 
because of it,” LeVert said. “Now 
more than ever, it is important for 
all of us support this team. For me, 
I am familiar with the recovery 
process and what work lies ahead 
for me. I am very confident that I 
will return 100 percent and have 
already begun work to ensure that 
happens.”

LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily

Caris LeVert leads Michigan in points, rebounds, assists, minutes and steals.

In need of a 

miracle

M

iracles happen.

Just ask the 

1980 United States 

Olympic 
hockey team, 
or the 1982-
83 North 
Carolina 
State 
basketball 
team. Better 
yet, just ask 
anyone who 
has seen 
Full-Court 
Miracle.

The movie follows the 

journey of Philadelphia Hebrew 
Academy, which has the 
worst basketball team in the 
history of the sport. It enters 
a tournament without a coach 
but has surprising success, 
reaching the final against the 
school’s biggest rival.

There’s a major storm on 

the night of the championship, 
and the power goes out at the 
school, so 
officials use 
a generator 
to keep the 
lights on, 
with an 
agreement 
that 
whichever 
team is 
ahead when 
the gym 
goes dark wins. In a miracle of 
miracles, the generator restarts 
despite having run out of gas, 
and the Philadelphia Hebrew 
Academy ekes out a buzzer-
beating win.

It’s a classic feel-good 

story of a group of ragtag 
underdogs overcoming the 
odds to accomplish greatness 
through wild and improbable 
circumstances.

Right now, the Michigan 

men’s basketball team 
needs a Full-Court Miracle. 
Unfortunately for the 
Wolverines, the power grid at 
Crisler Center is doing just fine.

* * *

J

ohn Beilein is a 
great coach, but the 
circumstances facing him 

today are remarkably difficult.

The Wolverines have more 

injured or sick players (seven) 
than healthy ones (six). Their 
best player, Caris LeVert, 
is done for the year with a 
fractured bone in his foot. 
Their starting point guard, 
Derrick Walton Jr., couldn’t 
practice Sunday due to a toe 
injury. Their backup forward, 
Kameron Chatman, injured 
his knee that day in practice. 
Zak Irvin, Ricky Doyle and 
Spike Albrecht — who is also 
already nursing an unspecified 
midsection injury — are 
suffering from an illness.

Turn on your TV for 

Tuesday’s game against 
Rutgers, and you’ll see plenty of 
unfamiliar faces on the court. 
Players such as Muhammad-Ali 
Abdur-Rahkman and Aubrey 
Dawkins might need to accept 
starting roles, while former 
walk-on Sean Lonergan could 
see major time. How crazy is 
that?

It’s mid-January, and 

Michigan is clinging to its 
NCAA Tournament hopes. 
Tuesday is a must-win game, 
but it’s on the road, and the 
Wolverines may only dress 
eight players.

Can they do it?

* * *

D

oyle, Chatman and 
Irvin should all return 
to complete health 

this year. Albrecht and Walton 
probably won’t, but at least 
they’ll play.

But LeVert isn’t coming 

back this season. He might 
not ever play another game 
in a Michigan uniform. And 
that’s a shame, because this 
was his year, and this was his 
team. That’s what he said on 
Oct. 16 at Big Ten Media Day, 
when losing to New Jersey 
Institute of Technology or 
Eastern Michigan seemed 
unfathomable.

“(My role) is to be the 

leader of the team, one of the 
captains,” he said. “Hopefully 
me and Spike can really take on 
that role.”

And he had from the very 

beginning of the season. 
He scored 20 points against 
Hillsdale, 21 against Detroit, 18 
against Oregon and 16 against 
Syracuse.

But then the NJIT game 

happened, and it started a 
four-game losing streak. 
LeVert didn’t score more than 
10 points in the final three. 
And when Big Ten play began, 
Michigan suffered deflating 
defeats at Purdue and Ohio 
State.

And as the season 

progressed, it became obvious: 
LeVert was everything. Stop 
him, and you’ll stop Michigan. 
If he gets hot, well, watch out.

LeVert saved the game 

for Michigan on Saturday. 
Northwestern’s Alex Olah, the 

7-foot center, 
had boxed 
him out, and 
yet the guard 
managed to 
tip away a 
contested 
rebound. 
Had he 
not made 
the play, 
Olah could 

have scored on a putback at 
the buzzer, and maybe the 
Wolverines would’ve lost in 
overtime. But LeVert knocked 
the ball away, then went 
tumbling to the ground in pain 
as the celebration began around 
him.

Without LeVert, the 

Wolverines are a “wounded 
animal,” as Rutgers coach 
Eddie Jordan explained 
Monday. Michigan is trapped 
in a corner, and its only hope 
for survival is scratching and 
clawing to escape.

This was LeVert’s team, and 

it was struggling plenty with 
him. Now it has to move on 
without him.

* * *

E

xpectations for the 
2014-15 Wolverines 
have been adjusted 

from competing for the Big 
Ten title, to making the NCAA 
Tournament, to simply treading 
water and developing players 
for next year.

Michigan can’t succeed this 

season, right? Not now, not 
with so many freshmen and 
unproven players.

But remember: In 2011, 

the Wolverines broke a six-
game losing streak by beating 
Michigan State at the Breslin 
Center. Then they came within 
a basket of making the Sweet 
Sixteen.

Remember: In 2012, 

Michigan won a Big Ten title 
with Stu Douglass and Zack 
Novak starting a majority of 
games.

Remember: In 2013, Mitch 

McGary transformed from an 
underperforming, out-of-shape 
freshman into a potential NBA 
first-round pick over the course 
of a handful of games in March 
as he helped lead Michigan 
to the national championship 
game.

The challenges facing this 

team are much larger than 
anything the Wolverines 
have faced lately. They 
need several key road wins 
available, beginning Tuesday 
in Piscataway. They need three 
or four players, including 
several freshmen, to make 
in-season leaps to greatness; 
and they need a new leader, a 
more efficient offense and a less 
porous defense.

It would take a near-miracle 

for this team — led by a pair 
of hobbled guards and a duo 
of developing centers — to 
make the NCAA Tournament. 
It would be Beilein’s best 
coaching job yet. It would be 
worthy of a Disney movie.

Alejandro Zuniga can be 

reached at azs@umich.edu 

and on Twitter @ByAZuniga.

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

ALEJANDRO

ZÚÑIGA

Michigan is 
clinging to its 

NCAA Tournament 

hopes.

