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.”