2B — December 14, 2015
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Albrecht ends career amid injuries

By LEV FACHER

Managing Editor

Everything 
about 
Spike 

Albrecht’s career at Michigan was 
unexpected — even the ending.

The senior guard came to Ann 

Arbor after receiving offers from 
no other Big Ten schools. Prior 
to an offer from Michigan coach 
John Beilein, he had considered 
playing basketball at Appalachian 
State or becoming a “rec-league 
star” at Indiana.

Then, as a true freshman, 

he scored 17 points in the 2013 
National Championship Game. 
He became known to coaches 
and fans alike as a “baby-faced 
assassin.” For the last two years, 
he has served as the Wolverines’ 
de facto team spokesman.

But 
it’s 
over. 
Albrecht’s 

time with the Michigan men’s 
basketball team — always fun 
to watch, often surreal, rarely 
straightforward — came to an 
end Thursday, when he informed 
Beilein of his decision to sit out the 
rest of the season as he continues 
to recover from a pair of offseason 
hip surgeries, thereby ending his 
career as a Wolverine.

“We’d been doing everything 

we can for the past two months,” 
Albrecht said Friday. “It had just 
been progressing and getting 
worse, so I think it was finally 
time to shut it down.”

Albrecht had played only 

sparingly this season, recording 
11 assists, 15 points and 69 
minutes over the span of eight 
games. Beilein had said earlier 
in the season that Albrecht 
was available only for “spot 
minutes,” but with junior guard 
Derrick Walton Jr. suffering 
a sprained ankle in Dec. 1 at 
North Carolina State, Albrecht’s 
presence became more of a 
necessity than a luxury.

But Albrecht wasn’t in game 

shape in the second half on 
Tuesday at Southern Methodist. 
Though he has endured near-
constant pain in his hips for the 
better part of two seasons, the 
way he felt in Texas may have 
been the straw that broke the 
camel’s back.

“I was actually worried that I 

would pull a groin or re-tear my 

labrum,” Albrecht said. “That’s 
how bad it was out there. If that’s 
how I was going to have to get 
through my senior year, it just 
wasn’t worth it.” 

Albrecht had previously told 

Beilein that he was was available 
for bench minutes at “60 to 70 
percent” health, but as long-term 
health concerns became more 
tangible, the mindset changed.

Beilein likened the injuries to 

a concussion — one that doesn’t 
physically prevent an athlete 
from playing, but that poses 
massive health risk if not given 
the proper time and attention 
required to heal.

“He’s going to have children, 

he’s going to have grandchildren,” 
Beilein said. “Your hips are pretty 
important to you.”

Albrecht’s family considerations 

don’t just pertain to the future. 

“It’s a genetic thing,” Albrecht 

said. “My dad has really bad hips. 
He needs two hip replacements. 
I sure as hell didn’t want to go 
down that road. … I’m not saying 
that it could have gotten there, 
but you never know.”

While 
Albrecht’s 
absence 

shakes up Michigan’s roster in a 
big way, there are still a few things 
that won’t change. Albrecht will 
attend practices, he’ll be on the 
bench at games (dressed in street 
clothes), and he’ll travel with 
the team unless circumstances 
(namely, academics) make road 
trips burdensome.

What does change, however, 

is Michigan’s rotation. Albrecht’s 
absence, 
alongside 
Walton’s, 

doesn’t just deprive the Wolverines 
of two of their upperclassmen 
leaders — it leaves a gaping hole at 
the point guard position.

To spell sophomore guard 

Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, 
junior guard Andrew Dakich is 
burning his redshirt, and will be 
available for the Wolverines on 
Saturday against Delaware State, 
likely off the bench.

Dakich is likely experiencing a 

degree of déja vu as he reshapes 
his mentality. This is the second 
consecutive year he has entered 
expecting to redshirt in order to 
preserve a fifth year of eligibility, 
either 
at 
Michigan 
or 
with 

another program. But as was the 
case in 2014-15, circumstantial 
changes have called him into 
action. Last year, it was injuries 
to Walton and then-junior guard 
Caris LeVert that brought Dakich 
off the bench. Now, it’s injuries to 
Walton and Albrecht, along with 
recent ones Beilein declined to 
disclose Friday.

This time, one of those absences 

is permanent.

Asked Friday what his lasting 

legacy at Michigan would be, 
Albrecht 
paused, 
immediately 

remarking that he doesn’t like 
talking about himself. In the end, 
he offered up a pearl of wisdom 
that 
epitomizes 
his 
unlikely 

career as well as any other.

“I think I showed people that 

you can’t ever let someone tell 
you what you can or can’t do,” 
Albrecht said. “My whole life, I’ve 
been told I wasn’t good enough, I 
wasn’t big enough, I wasn’t strong 
enough, I wasn’t fast enough, 
things like that. But I never really 
let that faze me. I guess: Always 
try to go out there and prove 
people wrong.”

JAMES COLLER/Daily

Spike Albrecht announced the end of his Michigan basketball career Friday as he recovers from hip surgeries.

Young lineup 
looks strong

By COLE ZINGAS

Daily Sports Writer

Michigan men’s gymnastics 

coach Kurt Golder said Sunday 
he doesn’t expect this season to 
match what has transpired in 
the last four. The Wolverines are 
preparing for their season opener 
next month, but the void left by 
the senior class is just too big to 
fill, he said. 

“Not this year,” Golder said. 

“They were too good. But we can 
progress a long way to get to that.”

The 
Michigan 
men’s 

gymnastics team has been good 
for a while. After capturing two 
national titles in the last three 
years, the graduating senior class 
left a gaping hole in the program. 
The 
fifth-ranked 
Wolverines 

return just seven out of 25 routines 
from their lineup from the NCAA 
Championships last season.

Yet even after losing athletes 

like NCAA All-American junior 
Tristan 
Perez-Rivera 
for 
the 

season to a knee injury, the team 
is full of energy and has high 
aspirations for the season.

Michigan welcomes a strong 

recruiting class — 15 freshmen 
made their debuts at the annual 
Maize-Blue intrasquad exhibition 
on Sunday, as fans peered in to see 
if this Wolverine squad could rely 
on such a young roster.

The first-year Wolverines did 

nothing to give anyone reason to 
doubt their abilities. Five out of 
the six highest-scoring gymnasts 
were freshmen.

This class features redshirt 

freshman Marty Stretch and 
true freshmen Emyre Cole and 
Anthony McCallum, none of whom 
are strangers to the spotlight.

Stretch has been a member of 

the U.S. National Team since 2011, 
and placed second overall at the 
USA Championships in 2013. Cole 
and McCallum have also competed 
on the national level — Cole won 
the U.S. National Qualifier in 2015, 
and McCallum placed first in the 

floor and vault at the 2015 Junior 
National Championships. 

But 
Cole, 
like 
his 
coach, 

recognizes the freshmen have 
work to do.

“We mess up sometimes,” he 

said. “But hey, we’re freshmen.”

Though 
there 
might 
be 

a 
learning 
curve 
for 
these 

freshmen, Golder continues to be 
impressed by their talent. One of 
the highlights of Sunday’s meet 
featured McCallum performing 
and landing an extremely difficult 
vault exercise, earning him a score 
of 15.3, the highest single-event 
score of the day.

“There’s only a few people 

in the world that are capable of 
doing that vault,” Golder said. 
“It wasn’t a surprise because he’s 
been doing it in the gym really 
well, but doing it in competition … 
that’s another thing.”

This is Golder’s youngest team 

in his 20-year tenure at Michigan, 
but he hopes this team can reach 
its potential in the upcoming 
months. For him, that means 
finishing top six nationally and top 
three in the Big Ten. 

One 
person 
who 
quickly 

figured out how to make an impact 
as a freshman is All-American 
sophomore Dmitri Belanovski, 
who in his first year was named 
team MVP and led the 2015 
squad to a spot at the NCAA 
Championships. 
Belanovski’s 

performance on Sunday did not 
reveal any signs of slowing down. 
He won the meet with an overall 
score of 84.4.

Belanovski 
was 
placed 

alongside Cole on the 2016 Big Ten 
Men’s Gymnasts to Watch list. 
Though Belanovski was expected 
to be listed, Cole was pleasantly 
surprised by the honor and says 
he will use it as motivation in 
upcoming meets. 

Cole said his ultimate goal 

for 2016 is being named Big Ten 
Freshman of the Year. Many of 
his competitors for the award are 
wearing the same colors.

MEN’S GYMNASTICS

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN
Michigan comes close, but not close enough

J

T Compher skated down 
the ice, passed the Michi-
gan hockey team’s bench 

and angrily 
smacked his 
stick against 
the boards 
on the other 
side. He then 
put his gloves 
on his knees 
and his head 
down. A few 
seconds later, 
freshman 
defenseman 
Nicholas Boka did the same thing.

About 10 seconds earlier, 

Compher ended up with the 
puck in his possession and no 
one between him and Minnesota 
goaltender Eric Schierhorn. In 
the waning seconds of Saturday’s 
series finale at Yost Ice Arena — 
after the Wolverines rolled Friday 
night, 8-3 — Compher couldn’t 
put it past Schierhorn for the 
equalizer. Instead, the Golden 
Gophers pulled out a 3-2 win to 
split the series.

That was how most of the night 

went. Michigan peppered 33 
shots at Schierhorn, converting on 
just two. Friday, the Wolverines 
had 10 shots in 35 minutes, and 
everything went in. They knocked 
Schierhorn out after five goals.

Every weekend, Michigan 

seems to have one of each kind of 
night. Some nights, the pucks go 
in. Some nights, they don’t.

Of course, the Wolverines win 

all the time when they’re getting 
the bounces. They have done 
it even in the past three years, 
despite missing three straight 
NCAA Tournaments.

What they couldn’t manage to 

do Saturday was win when the 
pucks weren’t going in, no matter 
how close they were — and they 
were very close.

Michigan put itself in a 2-0 

hole at the end of the first period, 
but for the No. 1 scoring team in 

the country, that’s nothing. At the 
11:53 mark in the second period, 
freshman forward Kyle Connor 
scored his fourth goal of the series 
to cut the deficit in half.

“We’re reminding our team 

constantly — you just can’t bury 
your head and give up because 
the game’s not going the way you 
want it to,” said Michigan coach 
Red Berenson after practice 
Tuesday. “You have to be resilient, 
and then you have to come up 
with a strategy, or an attitude, or 
something, that’s going to change 
the momentum of the game if you 
need a change.”

Connor’s goal could have 

been the spark that started the 
Wolverines’ comeback. Instead, 19 
seconds later, junior defenseman 
Michael Downing laid a crushing 
hit on a Minnesota player, earned 
a five-minute major penalty and 

was ejected from the game. He 
stayed on the ice for a moment, 
arguing with one official while 
another held him back. Compher 
pleaded his case, too. Berenson 
called the ruling “disappointing.”

It was no 

use. Downing 
was out, and 
Michigan was 
behind. Things 
weren’t going 
right.

But the 

Wolverines 
fought back. 
They stifled 
Minnesota 
on the five-minute penalty kill. 
Halfway through, they cleared the 
puck and changed lines as the Yost 
crowd let out a loud cheer. With a 
minute remaining, they did it again. 
Finally, they killed off the penalty.

Michigan came out for the 

third period still behind by only 
a goal, and 94 seconds into the 
final frame, Connor gave the 
Wolverines another boost. He 
stood on the weak side of the net 

and awaited 
a loose puck, 
and on the 
third effort he 
slipped it past 
the goalie.

At that 

point, 
Michigan 
had done 
everything it 
doesn’t always 

do when things aren’t going 
well. It played defense, killing 
off the penalty. It capitalized on 
its chances, scoring on the third 
effort. And it stayed in a rare 
low-scoring game long enough 

for the breaks to come.

With more than 18 minutes 

left, there was still plenty of time. 
But the break never came.

Instead, Minnesota came 

out of the ensuing faceoff and 
scored in 12 seconds. Forward 
Vinni Lettieri knocked a wrist 
shot past Michigan junior 
goaltender Zach Nagelvoort, 
and the Wolverines were in a 
hole again, this time one they 
couldn’t climb out of.

“That’s not a good goal to give 

up, and the timing couldn’t have 
been worse,” Berenson said. “We 
just bounced back, and all of a 
sudden that was a big goal for 
them, and a really disappointing 
goal for us.”

More often than not, they 

find their way out of that hole. 
They have the top scoring 
offense in the country for a 

reason, and usually, that’s good 
enough. Friday, they scored in 
the first 16 seconds — before 
the clock was even set on 
the scoreboard at Yost. They 
cruised from there, scoring 
every which way in a high-
scoring victory.

In a down Big Ten, there will 

be at least one of those every 
weekend. (There were two last 
weekend against Wisconsin.) The 
Wolverines have the firepower to 
win those games.

A team with a great offense 

and an average defense that 
wins 8-3 games will win enough 
games in the regular season 
and the Big Ten Tournament 
to reach the conference final. 
It will have a chance to make 
the NCAA Tournament, like 
Michigan did last season, before 
it lost to Minnesota in the Big 
Ten Championship, 4-2. The 
Wolverines proved Friday they 
can be that team.

But when they killed off the 

five-minute penalty, and then 
scored the game-tying goal 
Saturday, they almost proved 
they can be so much more. They 
almost proved they could win a 
3-2 or 4-3 game, one that will be 
much more common in March.

“We had good shots. We had 

good chances. We had just about, 
and woulda, coulda, shoulda, but 
we couldn’t find the back of the 
net,” Berenson said.

That’s why Compher slapped 

the boards at the end of the game 
after he missed the potential 
game-tying shot. He knew what 
was at stake.

The Wolverines know they can 

win when everything is going 
right. What they have to do, 
and what they keep getting ever 
so close to doing, is win when 
everything isn’t.

Lourim can be reached 

at jlourim@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @jakelourim.

ALLISON FARRAND/Daily

The Michigan hockey team nearly pulled off a win despite not playing its best game Saturday, but the Wolverines fell short in a 3-2 loss to Minnesota.

JAKE
LOURIM

“You have to 
come up with 
a strategy, or 
an attitude.”

