LEV
FACHER

Michigan’s blessing in disguise

C

aris LeVert is clutching his 
left foot in agony, a buzzer 
sounds, and the sellout 

crowd at Crisler Center is stand-
ing and cheering. It’s January 17, 
2015, and everybody in the build-
ing is celebrat-
ing Michigan’s 
56-54 win over 
Northwestern. 
Everybody, 
that is, except 
for LeVert.

The 

prognosis 
for the 
Wolverines’ 
leader in every 
meaningful 
statistical category and a near-
certain first-round NBA draft 
pick is initially unclear. But with 
the next day’s news that LeVert’s 
foot injury will force him to miss 
the rest of the season, Team 
99’s hopes of contending in a 
competitive Big Ten are dealt a 
crushing blow.

Lost in translation is the 

obvious advantage: Team 100 is 
getting a head start.

Fast-forward two weeks, 

and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-
Rahkman is putting on a show 
in East Lansing. The then-
freshman guard’s 18-point 
performance Feb. 1 brings a 
Michigan team without its 
starting backcourt — yes, 
Derrick Walton Jr. is also out 
of commission with a toe injury 
— to overtime against a bigger, 
more experienced Michigan 
State unit.

Abdur-Rahkman was not 

supposed to play meaningful 
minutes in 2014-15. But by sheer 
process of elimination, Michigan 
coach John Beilein was forced 
to throw the true freshman into 
the fire, alongside classmate and 
backcourt accomplice Aubrey 
Dawkins.

Dawkins, in his own right, 

also had no business putting up 
16 points against Iowa four days 
later, or 31 against Rutgers and 
18 against Illinois in consecutive 
games as the injury-riddled 
season mercifully came to a 
close.

But with LeVert gone, the pair 

had no choice. Michigan needed 
scorers, it needed ball-handlers, 
and it was out of options. Enter 
Dawkins. Enter Abdur-Rahkman. 
Sometimes, they looked lost. 

Sometimes, Abdur-Rahkman 
rained down 3s. Sometimes, 
Dawkins made SportsCenter 
after posterizing players across 
the Midwest.

Dawkins’ quiet confidence 

is apparent, and he doesn’t 
twist reality. He’s said he never 
expected to enter his sophomore 
year with this much experience, 
with this much confidence, with 
this much responsibility. Nobody 
did.

All of a sudden, between 

Dawkins, LeVert, Walton, 
Abdur-Rahkman, senior Spike 
Albrecht and sharpshooting 
transfer Duncan Robinson, 
Beilein has more options than 
he knows what to do with in 
the backcourt. In a college 
basketball landscape dominated 
by ballhandlers, and in Beilein’s 
guard-heavy offense, expect a 
Wolverine onslaught. They’ll 
run, they’ll shoot and, perhaps 
most importantly, they’ll be 
fresh. With five guards with Big 
Ten starting experience and a 
potential weapon in Robinson, 
how could they not be?

They’ll play with poise and 

pace, too, in a way they never 
could have last season. The 
game moved too fast for the 
freshmen in 2014-15, Beilein 
has said. But ask Dawkins to 
list his single biggest offseason 
improvement, and he’ll tell 
you it’s his basketball IQ. Yet 
another break for Dawkins and 
the Wolverines: It’s harder to get 
smarter on the court if you’re 
never on the court.

LeVert’s absence in the second 

half of 2014-15 doesn’t just 
shape Michigan’s newfound 
depth — it also means LeVert 
is spending this season in Ann 
Arbor. He wasn’t supposed to be 
here for his senior season. He 
was supposed to be playing in 
the NBA alongside three of his 
recruiting class cohorts: Mitch 
McGary, Nik Stauskas and Glenn 
Robinson III. Instead, he’s back, 
he’s among the early favorites for 
Big Ten Player of the Year, and 
he’s ready to bring the program 
back to the state in which he 
found it. 

If 2014-15 was the year that 

never was, 2015-16 is the year 
that wasn’t supposed to be.

After a spate of injuries last 

season, after unfathomable 
losses to New Jersey Institute 
of Technology and Eastern 
Michigan, the Wolverines have 
reached the point that last year 
was supposed to represent. It’s 
time to show once and for all 
they’re a program that reloads 
and doesn’t rebuild.

After 2013’s Final Four run 

and 2014’s trip to the Elite Eight, 
Michigan had a chance to prove 
as a program that playing in late 
March is the expectation, not the 
exception. It became clear early 
on, even before LeVert’s injury, 
that it wasn’t meant to be, and 
the focus shifted.

Dawkins has called his 

unexpected opportunity for 
growth a “blessing in disguise.” 
Beilein has often discussed 
the team’s “growth mindset” 
in 2014-15. Redshirt freshman 
forward D.J. Wilson, out of 
commission for nearly the entire 
season, took advantage of the 
opportunity to hit the weight 

room. Sophomore forward Ricky 
Doyle joined him. Albrecht began 
the year as a backup point guard. 
By the season’s end, he was the 
team’s clear leader, its voice, its 
rallying point.

The Wolverines return 92.5 

percent of their scoring this 
season, the highest among 
teams currently ranked in the 
Associated Press Top 25. The 
pieces, improbably, are there.

This season isn’t what it 

was supposed to be — the year 
Michigan recovered from losing 
LeVert, the year its second-year 
guards grew into their own, the 
year the next segment of the 
John Beilein era took shape. All 
told, it’s tough to complain. The 
infantry is bigger and better, and 
the cavalry is coming.

This season is Michigan’s 

mulligan, but the green is shorter 
and they’re working with a better 
set of clubs. Don’t expect the 
Wolverines to miss twice.

Facher can be reached 

at lfacher@umich.edu and 

on Twitter @levfacher.

GRANT HARDY/Daily

Senior guard Caris LeVert missed half of last season with a foot injury, but he returned for his senior season and will lead a deeper, more experienced Michigan team.

Friday, November 13, 2015 // Tip Off
3B

