8 — Friday, January 22, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
For Robinson, success starts before the game
By SIMON KAUFMAN
Daily Sports Editor
It’s 6:35 p.m., and Michigan
doesn’t tip off against Maryland
for another two and a half hours.
Crisler Center is quiet, but Duncan
Robinson just swaggered out from
Michigan’s tunnel, sporting a
gray long-sleeve Michigan shirt
and headphones. The arena is
practically empty, save for a few
of Robinson’s teammates shooting
on the court and a handful of
ushers and stadium staff shuffling
around the concourse.
The redshirt sophomore guard
heads for the stands and makes
himself comfortable in an aisle seat
14 rows up, across from the bench
Michigan will use in a few hours
when it hosts the third-ranked
Terrapins. For nearly 20 minutes
he just sits there, legs sprawled out
comfortably resting on the chair in
front of him. He occasionally sips
from his water bottle or scrolls for
a new song on his phone — he’s a
big G-Eazy fan — but for the most
part, he does nothing. He just sits
there and gazes around an empty
stadium, thinking.
“I try to do that, just kind of, I
guess see myself out there. Not
meditation — but just kind of
envisioning,” Robinson said.
So for 20 minutes he sits,
envisions and thinks.
About
what?
Maybe
the
Wolverines’ game five nights prior
at Purdue, when tight Boilermaker
defense limited Robinson to just
two makes on five attempts from
3-point range.
That
type
of
performance
doesn’t bode well for Michigan — a
team that’s been reliant on strong
shooting to make up for its often-
undersized big men down low.
Robinson has shot 57 percent from
behind the arc in Michigan’s wins
this season, but just 38 percent
from deep in its five losses.
Robinson eventually leaves his
seat and heads toward the court.
He exchanges a handshake with
an usher and grabs a ball — the
first time he’s touched one all day.
He doesn’t like to touch a ball on
game day more than about two
hours before tipoff. He read that
Golden State Warriors guard
Stephen Curry does that, tried it
himself once and the habit stuck.
Tipoff is still two hours away,
but Robinson’s pregame routine
is well underway. He shoots six-
footers from straightaway and
slowly inches his way back toward
the free throw line, and eventually,
the 3-point line. He takes his first
several 3s flat-footed, without
jumping — a warm-up technique
he learned from a trainer a while
back. He begins moving around
the arc, starting to find a rhythm.
He lets off quick attempts, mixing
it up a little each time. He takes a
dribble and fires, makes a move
and aims, pump fakes, elevates
and releases with a hand in his
face.
After 10 minutes of knocking
down shots, he heads for the locker
room. He gets taped up, changes
into a blue Michigan T-shirt and is
back out 30 minutes later. Tipoff is
just an hour and a half away, and
now Robinson’s routine gets more
intense. He works his way around
the arc, firing from every spot. A
team manager grabs his rebounds
and feeds the ball back to him.
Shot. Swish. Repeat.
He goes until he gets 100
makes. It doesn’t take him many
more attempts to do that.
“It kind of depends on the
day — I try to keep it under like
120 (attempts),” Robinson said.
“Usually 20 misses, something like
that. Depends how it’s feeling.”
He makes his 100th 3-pointer,
ends with a handful of free throws
and heads back to the tunnel. He
comes back out later for team
warmups, but his own personal
routine is complete, and he has
to wait until game time to see if it
pays off.
It 9:00 p.m. now and Crisler
Center isn’t so quiet anymore.
Robinson is done envisioning
himself on the court — he is on the
court. Five minutes into the game,
Robinson catches a pass from
sophomore guard Muhammad-Ali
Abdur-Rahkman on the left side of
the arc. He pump fakes — exactly
like he practiced two hours prior
— and Maryland forward Jake
Layman bites hard. Robinson
dribbles once to his right, fires
and hits, putting Michigan up 11-6
early.
Ten
minutes
later,
junior
guard Zak Irvin finds Robinson
in the corner. Maryland guard
Melo Trimble tries to throw
a hand in Robinson’s face, but
Robinson ignores it just like he
did the ones managers threw
up at him earlier. The Williams
College
(Mass.)
transfer
hits
again. Two possessions later,
Abdur-Rahkman feeds Robinson,
this time on the right shoulder
of the arc. Robinson disregards
Layman’s defense and nails a trey
— erasing Maryland’s brief 25-24
lead — one the Terrapins wouldn’t
get back.
With less than three minutes
in
the
half,
Abdur-Rahkman
finds Robinson again, this time in
transition. Robinson catches and
fires. On his way down, he gets
taken out by Trimble, who tried
his best to make sure Robinson
didn’t have a clean look. As
Robinson falls , so does his shot.
In the second half, the first
time he has a look from deep he
nails it. With Maryland making
a comeback attempt late in the
frame, Robinson has a chance to
swing the momentum. Sophomore
guard Aubrey Dawkins finds him
all alone in the corner and, as
Robinson aims, Dawkins and an
entire student section lift their
arms to preemptively celebrate
a made 3. The ball rattles off the
near rim and goes out of bounds.
Robinson can’t believe it.
“I aimed it, I didn’t shoot it,”
Robinson said. “I found myself so
open that I just didn’t really know
what to do with it, so it didn’t
really come off right. I knew as
soon as I shot it wasn’t good, so it
was frustrating.”
What
wasn’t
frustrating,
though,
was
his
overall
performance
that
night.
He
finished 5-of-9 from deep and
tallied 17 points to help Michigan
take its first home win over a top-
three team since 1997.
After Maryland missed a 3 at
the end of the game that would
have tied it, Robinson grabbed the
rebound as time expired. He was
the first Wolverine back in the
tunnel and greeted his teammates
with high fives and shouts as they
came in.
Wednesday, when Michigan
hosted Minnesota, he was one of
the first out of the tunnel and it was
the same pregame routine. Two
hours before tip, Robinson sat and
envisioned himself on the court,
made his 100 3s, then headed
back to the tunnel. This night,
though, the preparation didn’t
show like it did against Maryland.
In a game in which Michigan
as a whole struggled to find its
shooting rhythm, Robinson wasn’t
immune, going 3-for-10 from
deep as the Wolverines edged the
Gophers, 74-69.
But for Robinson, routine leads
to rhythm. So when Rutgers comes
to town next Wednesday, don’t
expect the sharpshooter to change
his pregame activities. He’ll come
out of Michigan’s tunnel, envision
himself playing from the stands,
make his shots and then hope for
a performance more like the one
against Maryland than the one
against Minnesota.
Then he’ll head back into the
tunnel and wait to do it for real.
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Redshirt sophomore forward Duncan Robinson is shooting 51.6 percent on 3-point attempts this season, the best of any Wolverine and 11th in the country.
Ohio State holds off
Michigan comeback
By CHRIS CROWDER
Daily Sports Writer
At every Michigan women’s
basketball
game,
during
a
timeout, a previously conducted
interview of a Wolverine is
displayed
on
the
Crisler
Center
video board. One of the questions
asked is, “What is your favorite
Michigan basketball memory?”
Nearly every non-freshman
Wolverine this season thus far
has responded with last year’s
overtime win against Ohio State.
Thursday,
Michigan
had
another opportunity to make
a lasting memory against the
seventh-ranked Buckeyes, but the
Wolverines ultimately fell, 97-93.
Ohio State’s full-court press
was relentless from the opening
tip, as it stole two inbound
passes, pushing its lead to eight
about four minutes into the first
quarter. After another Buckeye
steal and score, Michigan coach
Kim Barnes Arico was forced
to call a timeout down by 10.
Bolstered by suffocating defense,
the Buckeyes took a 31-17 lead
into the second quarter.
“Sometimes the tempo of
the game can always change,
depending on what team has the
momentum,” said senior guard
Madison Ristovski. “So we just
have to stay within ourselves and
play basketball the Michigan way
(when Ohio State is on a run).”
About two minutes into the
frame, Ristovski inbounded the
ball and knew she was close to a
five-second violation. She hastily
tossed the ball, and the Buckeyes’
Kelsey Mitchell leaped for the
steal and turned it into a quick
layup to give her team a 15-point
lead for her 17th point of the game.
With 6:51 left in the quarter,
sophomore
guard
Katelynn
Flaherty
knocked
down
a
3-pointer
after
starting
the
contest 1-for-7 from the floor.
After Ristovski knocked down
two straight 3-pointers nearing
the end of the quarter, Ohio
State’s Mitchell knocked down
one of her own to continue her
torrid scoring pace as she finished
with 27 in the scoring column.
Despite Mitchell’s prowess,
the Wolverines trailed by just
seven going into the half, 49-42.
Michigan also has a Kelsey
Mitchell on its roster, and the
Wolverines’ senior forward led
the team with 12 points on 6-for-7
shooting at the half.
The third quarter started off
with
scorching-hot
shooting.
After Flaherty drained a 3-pointer
to cut the lead back to seven with
six minutes left in the quarter, the
Buckeyes were shooting 9-for-13
from behind the arc.
“Every time we made a great
run, they had
an answer to
it,”
Barnes
Arico
said.
“That’s a sign
of a top team in
the country.”
Shortly
after,
Ohio
State
sunk
another
trey,
forcing Barnes Arico to call a time
out with 4:05 left in the quarter,
down by 12. With just under
two minutes left in the frame,
the Buckeyes cut off Michigan’s
growing momentum by holding
the ball for a full minute due to
three offensive rebounds. They
ended the possession with a layup
and another 3-pointer by Mitchell,
carrying a 12-point advantage into
the final 10 minutes.
Junior guard Siera Thompson
started the fourth quarter with a
jumper. Freshman guard Boogie
Brozoski later hit a 3-pointer
and sophomore forward Jillian
Dunston took a charge on the
ensuing possession, trying to gain
momentum. Brozoski, however,
turned the ball over trying to rifle
a pass into the paint, leading to
another Ohio State basket.
After a timeout, Flaherty — who
scored a team-high 22 points —
made another shot from behind
the arc, only to have the Buckeyes
halt the run with two baskets.
Ohio State continued to show its
strength on defense, blocking
freshman center Hallie Thome
and stealing another inbound pass.
The
Wolverines
forced
a
turnover at half court with 2:42
left in the contest, and Thome
capped off the possession with
a layup to cut the lead to nine.
About a minute later, Thome sunk
a free throw to complete an and-1,
trimming the deficit to five.
“We
have
a
no-give-up
mentality,” Thompson said. “We
know we can play with any team
in this conference, so that’s our
mindset going into every game.”
Michigan
forced
the
Buckeyes into
a
miss
with
the shot clock
winding down
in
the
next
possession,
but Ohio State
grabbed
the
offensive
rebound. After a foul, Buckeye
guard Ameryst Alston hit one of
her two free throws to push the
lead to six. When the Wolverines
got the ball, Thompson was also
fouled, and she knocked down
both of her attempts from the
charity stripe, cutting it to just a
four-point difference.
Michigan came within three
points of the Buckeyes, but it
couldn’t play catch up after Ohio
State was nearly perfect from the
free throw line down the stretch.
“In the locker room, we talked
about the ability to keep fighting
and keep fighting,” Barnes Arico
said. “We believe that if we keep
improving and we keep plugging
along, that these games are going
to go our way.”
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
OHIO STATE
MICHIGAN
97
93
“We have a
no-give-up
mentality.”
Wolverines outshot in loss
By LELAND MITCHINSON
Daily Sports Writer
Ohio State is particularly good
at 3-point shooting, something
Michigan
women’s
basketball
coach
Kim
Barnes
Arico
highlighted in her weekly radio
interview with WTKA.
Barnes Arico was not wrong,
either.
The
Buckeyes
wasted
no time showing just how good
they were, going 6-for-9 in the
first half of Thursday’s contest.
The impressive shooting display
killed an aggressive start by the
Wolverines and any chance they
had of completing and upset over
the No. 7 team in the country.
Michigan, a good shooting team
in its own right, tried to go shot for
shot with Ohio State from beyond
the arc, and it nearly succeeded.
But the Wolverines couldn’t quite
keep up with the efficiency of their
opponents in a 97-93 defeat.
All in all, the two teams
combined for 48 3-point attempts,
with Ohio State making 54.5
percent of its deep shots.
Buckeye guard Kelsey Mitchell,
the Big Ten’s leading scorer, hit
the first 3-pointer of the contest
with
5:45
remaining
in
the
first quarter. Sophomore guard
Katelynn Flaherty answered for
the Wolverines just 19 seconds later
with one of her own, but Ohio State
immediately hit another on the
other end, cutting short Michigan’s
attempt to gain ground.
Mitchell and Flaherty each went
5-for-8 from 3-point range on the
night and led their teams’ scoring,
with 27 and 22 points, respectively.
The final shot of the string of
threes sparked a 12-0 run for the
Buckeyes, resulting in a 16-point
lead at the end of the first quarter
that the Wolverines were never
quite able to overcome. Though
Michigan finished the game with
11 made 3s to Ohio State’s 12, it
took them four more attempts to
reach that total.
Part of what contributed to
the high number of shots was the
personnel on the court.
“Ohio
State
is
interesting
because they play four guards and
a post,” said senior guard Madison
Ristovski. “So a lot of the time, we
had four guards out there.”
Added Barnes Arico: “We stat
plus-minus and, at halftime ...
our smaller lineup was a positive
number, so we decided at that
point to try to play smaller as
much as we could.”
With more guards spreading
the floor, space opened up for
freshman center Hallie Thome to
take advantage, and she did just
that. All but six of her 21 points
came in the second half. Thome
also collected 12 rebounds to earn
her the second double-double of
her short career.
Though the Wolverines fell
short, they showed they can shoot
with the best of them.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL