8 — Friday, February 19, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Donnal finds himself as ‘M’ big man

After long quest for
confidence, junior
forward appears
ready to carry load

By LEV FACHER

Daily Sports Writer

As a high-school sophomore,

Mark Donnal sat down with
Bryan Borcherdt, a longtime
coach and family friend, to
discuss his future prospects.

Borcherdt asked Donnal a

simple question: How do you
envision your future?

The coach saw a 6-foot-9

prospect who could run, shoot
and defend, one with the potential
to succeed at the highest level.
For some reason, Donnal saw
something different.

“I remember him looking

at me, saying, ‘Maybe a mid-
major?’ ” Borcherdt said. “I
don’t think he realized.”

Donnal may not have been

aware of his potential then, but
his abilities soon became obvious
and unavoidable.

That
potential
was
never

more apparent than on June 15,
2011, when Borcherdt let a call
he never expected to receive
go to voicemail. He had since
been hired as the head coach at
Anthony Wayne High School
in Monclova, Ohio, and was
engrossed in running a summer
youth basketball camp, too busy
for the unrecognized number on
the other end.

When Borcherdt checked his

messages a few hours later, he
saw the call might have been
worth taking after all. Waiting in
his voicemail was a brief greeting
from Chris Collins, then an
assistant coach at Duke and now
the head coach at Northwestern.
Collins wanted to speak with
Anthony Wayne’s budding star in
the low post: Mark Donnal.

The Blue Devils had come

calling for a player who had

thought,
albeit
fleetingly,

his
potential
more
closely

corresponded to a program like
Toledo or Bowling Green. But
upon consulting with Donnal,
then a rising junior at Anthony
Wayne, Borcherdt could only
smile. Duke was too late.

As it happened, June 15,

2011, was also the day Donnal
committed to play for Michigan
and for John Beilein.

“Mark said, ‘Tell them I’m a

Wolverine,’ ” Borcherdt recalled.

It was a day Donnal never

could have envisioned, even
during
his
check-in
with

Borcherdt a season before.

In that year, Donnal morphed

from a player who didn’t think
he had a shot to play in the Big
Ten to a player comfortable
enough in his destination — Ann
Arbor — to turn away interest
from a program that had won
the national championship the
year before.

Donnal
says
the
decision

seems stranger now than it did
four years ago. Turning down
any level of interest from Duke
simply seemed like the natural
thing to do at the time, and he has
never regretted the decision not
to pursue Collins’ interest, saying
he was “locked in” at Michigan.

It’s not that Donnal had a

crisis in confidence. It’s simply
that those around him assumed,
perhaps too optimistically, that
he knew his
true potential.
In
the
end,

Borcherdt
and the other
influences
in

Donnal’s
life

needed
to

spell
things

out
more

explicitly.
They
told

Donnal
he

was destined for a successful
program
in
a
Power
Five

conference, not a run-of-the-mill
Midwestern mid-major.

“Just
to
hear
somebody

express that level of confidence
in me was huge,” Donnal said
of his early-career conversation
with Borcherdt. “I think that was
something of a turning point.”

Borcherdt
was
eventually

proven right. Donnal is averaging

10.2 points per
game
in
Big

Ten play this
season and has
embraced
his

role as a big
man who can
rebound, take
charges
and

play
defense,

even
against

players
who

dwarf him in

the low post.

Donnal’s
junior-year

emergence, however, was difficult
to predict. He spent his freshman
season redshirting, working to
build strength and size so he
could contend in a conference
where big men take a beating.

The work paid off, at least in

the short term. Donnal began his
sophomore season as Michigan’s
starter at the ‘5’ position, but
struggled in the early going
and quickly lost the job to true
freshman Ricky Doyle.

This year, Donnal once again

began the season as Michigan’s
starter, but once again, his early-
season
performance
wasn’t

enough to keep Doyle out of the
starting five.

Donnal scored just 3.4 points

per game that season, serving
as a jarring symbol of the
Wolverines’ lackluster year, in
which they finished 16-16 and
missed the postseason entirely —
all on the heels of an Elite Eight
appearance during Donnal’s first
year and a Final Four run the
season before.

Playing
time
came

inconsistently for Donnal last
season,
especially
as
Doyle

excelled in the early season and
Max Bielfeldt came on strong
toward the end. Donnal played 15
minutes or more just seven times,
leaving him far short of where

he’d hoped to be after his year on
the bench.

To
add
insult
to
injury,

Michigan
announced
at
the

beginning of the 2015-16 season
that Donnal had been reclassified
from a redshirt sophomore to a
junior, meaning that a potential
fifth year would have to be
earned, not assumed.

“There
are
really
two

directions people can go when
they’re frustrated,” said Donnal’s
brother
Andrew,
a
former

offensive lineman at Iowa who
currently plays for the NFL’s Los
Angeles Rams. “Some people
introvert. They go inside, they
kind of clam up. Other guys come
out, and that’s definitely Mark.
He definitely excels in his game
when things aren’t good.”

Determined to not let his

sophomore season repeat itself,
the younger Donnal did exactly
that,
punctuating
an
early-

season comeback with a 26-point
outburst at Illinois on Dec. 30.

That performance harkened

back to a similarly defining
moment during Donnal’s high-
school days. His AAU squad,
the Indiana Elite, traveled to
Bloomington in May 2011 to face
a team featuring three future
college stars: Indiana’s James
Blackmon Jr., Xavier’s Trevon
Blueitt and current Utah Jazz
forward Trey Lyles, who left
for the NBA last year after his
freshman season at Kentucky.

Donnal was unfazed.
“Mark kicked the living hell

out of them,” said Dan Dakich,
the current ESPN analyst and
former assistant at Indiana,
who coached the Elite at the
time. “He tore up Trey Lyles in
Assembly Hall when those kids
were sophomores and juniors.”

Donnal’s 23 points paced the

Elite, and his block of Blueitt’s
buzzer-beating
shot
attempt

sealed the 78-77 upset.

“I think there are definitely

parallels,”
Donnal
said,

comparing the AAU performance
to
the
breakout
game
in

Champaign. “Both were huge
confidence boosters.”

After
the
Illinois
game,

Donnal said, he felt as if a
weight had been lifted from
his back. On the court, the
difference in his confidence is
palpable, especially in games
when he’s forced head to head
with some of the country’s elite
interior players, like Maryland’s
Diamond Stone or Purdue’s A.J.
Hammons. Donnal seems to be
in the right place at the right
time far more often, and after
fighting off a bout of early-
season foul trouble, he’s playing
vertical defense and rebounding
against 7-footers, keying the
Wolverines’ upsets of then-No.
18 Purdue on Feb. 13 and No. 3
Maryland on Jan. 12.

It’s similar to the process

that took place after the early-
high school conversation with
Borcherdt, after which Donnal
says he was more able to embrace
his ability to excel. Playing with
the mentality of a player who
can excel at Michigan, Donnal
says, has been a similar process,
one that seems to be nearing its
final stages.

Confidence, though, is hardly

the only aspect of Donnal’s
emotional profile that has changed

since high school, when many
close to Donnal say he needed to
be angry to play his best.

“I told John Beilein, and I

told Jeff Meyer when they were
recruiting him, look, you can’t
be nice to Mark,” Dakich said.
“If you were nice to Mark, that
was a problem. Because if you
want him to be angry, you need
to be angry.”

Donnal chalks that up to “high-

school Mark,” saying Dakich’s
assessment rang more true in
high school than it does now.

“Coach Dakich was always

good about letting me know
there’s another gear,” Donnal
said. “The coaching staff here is
the same way. I don’t know if it’s
necessarily about a need to be
frustrated, but they definitely
let me know there’s always
another level.”

Regardless of whether he plays

to that level, Donnal displays little
emotion during games, especially
compared to teammates like
Spike Albrecht or Zak Irvin.

Donnal prefers to do his talking

on the court, and whether he’s
getting stonewalled or playing
the game of his career, that’s the
way
things

have
always

been.
The

quiet on-court
persona,
however, isn’t
necessarily
intentional.

“It’s
not

necessarily
that I prefer to
fly under the radar,” Donnal said.
“It’s just that I haven’t spent that
much time in the spotlight.”

If there’s anybody who knows

how Donnal behaves when he’s
frustrated, it’s Andrew, who
claims to hold an advantage over
his younger brother in a one-on-
one driveway basketball series
that now dates back more than
a decade.

“Everything
was
a

competition,”
Andrew
said.

“Who could drink their drink
the fastest, who could eat dinner
the fastest. We loved going in the
driveway and playing basketball
and beating up on each other.”

Mark disputes his brother’s

claim
that
he
was
at
a

disadvantage in their sibling
rivalry,
three-year
age
gap

notwithstanding.
The
two

have obvious strengths and
weaknesses. Mark, a willowy 6
foot 9, has a body better suited
for basketball; Andrew’s stocky,
6-foot-6 frame is suited better to
the duties of an NFL offensive
lineman.

As Andrew recalled, a loss in the

driveway used to generate roughly
the same emotional response —
outwardly, anyway — as a win at
Crisler Center does today.

Mark agrees that he’s not

one to clue somebody into his
emotional state or his mind’s
inner workings unless they’re
in his inner circle to begin with.
Donnal is as reserved when
speaking to the media as he was
before he was a starter averaging
double-digit scoring totals, and
rarely lets his frustration after
a loss — or, for that matter, his
elation after a win — show.

Andrew,
of
course,
is
a

member of that inner circle, and
Mark hasn’t hesitated to use

his older brother as a resource,
especially given their similar
experiences as Big Ten athletes.
Andrew
also
redshirted
his

freshman year, and though the
hiatus was more expected for
a developing offensive lineman
than for a basketball player, he
made sure to discuss the proper
mentality for a year off during
Mark’s freshman season.

“A lot of guys are physically

ready and have the skill set out
of high school,” Andrew said.
“And it’s not that Mark didn’t
— I just think that for him to be
able to compete better in the Big
Ten, he did need to get bigger
and stronger. I just told him that
it can be frustrating, because
you’re the only one that’s gonna
be redshirting. All the other
freshmen he came in with were
going to be playing.”

To add to the frustration, one

of those classmates — junior
guard Zak Irvin — made 3-point
shooting his ticket to playing time
during his freshman campaign.
Donnal, known as much for his
shooting ability as with anything
else during high school, was
forced to learn quickly that as a

‘5’ at Michigan,
he wouldn’t get
the perimeter
looks
he

enjoyed in high
school.

“In
our

league, in our
area, having a
6-foot-9 player,
I’d have been

foolish to not have him in the
post,” Borcherdt said of Donnal’s
inside-out game in high school,
when he dealt with the same
dilemma.

Beilein has spoken similarly

of Donnal’s transition, saying
he likely came to Michigan
assuming 3-point shooting would
be his meal ticket. Michigan, in
its media guides last season, even
dubbed Doyle “The Rim Rocker”
and Donnal “The Shooter.”

Donnal prefers the simpler

set
of
nicknames
bestowed

upon the pair by assistant coach
Bacari Alexander: “Thunder”
and “Lightning.”

In his renaissance, Donnal

has learned to play more like
Thunder, showing off the type
of
competitiveness
Andrew

remembers from him as a child.

“He is emotional, but he’s

emotional in his own way,”
Andrew Donnal said. “He’s not
outgoing, he’s not a hoo-rah guy
— he’s a guy who’s going to come
to work every day and do his job
and not make a fuss about it.”

Donnal has certainly never

made a fuss — not when Beilein
told him he’d be redshirting his
freshman year, or when Doyle
beat him out for the starting job
last season, or when it seemed for
a two-week stretch this year that
recent history had repeated itself.

Now carrying the confidence

of a Big Ten big man, Donnal
seems ready to carry the load
down low for the Wolverines,
doing whatever’s asked for a team
still reeling from two season-long
injuries impacting its two senior
stars and struggling to stay afloat.

For that responsibility, Donnal

finally
seems
ready.
“High-

school Mark,” as Donnal put it,
might be surprised.

JAMES COLLER/Daily

Junior forward Mark Donnal, who lost the starting job at the ‘5’ position in each of the past two years, is now back in the lineup and averaging 10.3 points in Big Ten play.

JAMES COLLER/Daily

Donnal burst onto the scene with a 26-point outing at Illinois on Dec. 30.

“It’s just that I
haven’t spent
that much time
in the spotlight.”

“Mark kicked
the living hell
out of them.”