8 —Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
An unfitting end to the Fresh Five era
N
early four years ago,
Michigan basketball
coach John Beilein
welcomed
five freshmen
to his
program:
Mitch
McGary, Nik
Stauskas,
Glenn
Robinson
III, Spike
Albrecht and
Caris LeVert.
The
group was quickly dubbed the
“Fresh Five” — an homage to
the infamous “Fab Five” of the
early 1990s, arguably the best
recruiting class of all time. Four
players in that group reached the
NBA, and the Wolverines reached
the NCAA championship game
in 1991 and 1992 before a pay-for-
play scandal forced the program
to vacate those wins.
Unlike the Fab Five, the
Fresh Five were never a cultural
phenomenon, and they were
never the center of massive
controversy. They joined a team
already stocked with established
stars and NBA prospects in Tim
Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke, and
while the Fab Five arrived in Ann
Arbor two years after Michigan’s
national championship in
1989, the Fresh Five arrived
unburdened by the trophies of
seasons past.
The Fresh Five, dealing with
less hype and less pressure,
quickly made a name for
themselves anyway. Stauskas
quickly earned a reputation as one
of the nation’s best pure shooters.
Robinson proved himself to be an
elite athlete. McGary’s freshman-
year NCAA Tournament play
sparked a run all the way to the
2013 national championship
game.
Everybody remembers what
happened next. Albrecht scored
17 points in the first half of that
game to give Michigan a 12-point
lead over Louisville, and though
the Wolverines couldn’t hold their
lead, a legend was born.
After an Elite Eight run the
following season, the trio of
Stauskas, McGary and Robinson
were gone. Their early NBA
Draft entries left just LeVert
and Albrecht in Ann Arbor for
the second half of their college
careers.
That was never the
expectation.
“That year, we were recruiting
guys to be here for four years,”
Beilein said in October. “Mitch
was the only one that we felt
probably wasn’t a four-year player
at the time. I underestimated
their DNA.”
Having lost three players to the
NBA, Beilein and Michigan’s fan
base recalibrated its vision for the
future to center instead on LeVert
and Albrecht. Once again, those
expectations were shattered.
Expected to carry the team
in their final season, LeVert and
Albrecht have instead fallen
victim to injuries, appearing in
a combined one game in 2016. In
LeVert’s 11-minute appearance
Feb. 13 against Purdue, he
suffered what Beilein called
a “temporary setback” in his
recovery from a mysterious
injury to his lower left leg that
the program has long refused to
detail.
LeVert hasn’t seen game action
since, and with just four regular-
season contests remaining, time is
running out.
Relative to Albrecht, LeVert
is lucky. Albrecht’s time ran out
months ago, as he announced
in December that his attempt to
return from a pair of offseason
hip surgeries was unsuccessful
and that he was ending his career
at Michigan.
“I never, in a million years,
would have envisioned it going
like this,” Albrecht said then. “To
see my playing days at Michigan
come to an end like this — that
definitely wasn’t part of the plan.”
LeVert wears sweatpants to
games and doesn’t emerge from
Michigan’s locker room until
pregame warm-ups are done.
Albrecht joins his teammates on
the court before games, but with
the prospect of playing long since
eliminated, he’s left to focus on
his outfit instead of his jump shot
— sometimes an eye-catching
combination featuring red pants
or a pink shirt.
Neither seems likely to play
substantive minutes again for the
Wolverines. Michigan has four
regular-season games remaining,
and in the unlikely event LeVert
plays Wednesday against
Northwestern, his minutes will be
limited. It’s tough to imagine him
returning in time to reintegrate
himself into Michigan’s offense
and return to his early-season
form before the Big Ten
Tournament, or the NCAA
Tournament, if the Wolverines
survive that long.
In the seniors’ absence,
Michigan has shown infrequent
glimpses of its post-Fresh Five
identity. The Wolverines have
lived and died by the 3-point shot
and have been bullied inside by
Big Ten front lines, often falling
victim to game-ending scoring
runs against elite opponents.
The 3-point shots haven’t fallen
lately, and the results generally
haven’t been pretty, save for a
pair of home-court upsets against
Maryland and Purdue.
It’s hard to imagine Indiana
going on a 25-0 run at Crisler
Center with Albrecht or LeVert
on the floor, and it’s tough to
imagine Michigan State jumping
out to a 16-point halftime lead
four days later. It’s a senior’s job
to be a run-stopper and a rivalry-
game rally starter. But Michigan
is a team without seniors and,
consequently, a team that still has
missing pieces.
LeVert has been one of the
missing pieces before, and has
plenty of experience rehabbing
from long-term injuries. He
underwent surgery in May 2014 to
repair a stress fracture in his left
foot, then injured the same foot
the following January, causing
him to miss the remainder of his
junior year. In light of the injury,
LeVert elected to forego the NBA
Draft for another year and return
for his senior season.
“He understands the process,”
Beilein said of LeVert in October.
“He understands God’s will. He
is just working like crazy to do
everything he can to take care
of each day, and everything will
work itself out.”
Much to the chagrin of
Beilein, LeVert and Michigan
fans everywhere, everything
hasn’t worked itself out, or come
particularly close.
LeVert and Albrecht were
supposed to spend their final
weeks at Michigan on the court,
leading a team back to the NCAA
Tournament after a 16-16 finish
last season that came in no small
part due to LeVert’s injury.
The pair, who saw floor time
together as freshmen during the
2013 Final Four, instead seem
destined to spend their final
weeks at Michigan on the bench,
sitting and watching.
“Am I happy he came back?”
Albrecht said in October. “Heck
yeah, I am. I didn’t want to be the
lone senior, be the old man in the
group by myself. … I’d be lying if I
said I didn’t think about that, but
at the same time, I told him, just
know that whatever you do, I’m
here for you and I’ll be rooting for
you regardless.”
The plan, of course, was for
LeVert and Albrecht to root for
one another on the court. Instead,
they’re keeping each other
company on the bench, watching
their senior years play out without
any seniors playing.
In a twisted way, it makes sense.
The Fresh Five were unpredictable
from the moment they set foot
on campus, and this four-year
period could have ended any
number of ways that defied belief,
like Michigan’s 16-0 start their
freshman season or Albrecht’s
17-point national championship
outburst the same year.
This ending is certainly
unexpected, and it seems
destined to defy belief, though in
exactly the wrong way. Barring
a miracle, however, this much is
certain: The Fresh Five era wasn’t
supposed to end like this.
Facher can be reached by
e-mail at lfacher@umich.edu
and on Twitter @levfacher
GRANT HARDY/Daily
Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht didn’t expect to spend most of their senior seasons on the Michigan bench.
LEV
FACHER
Quick Hits: Joe Cecconi on
Netflix, roomies and Lysol
By JASON RUBINSTEIN
Daily Sports Writer
It may come as a surprise,
but freshman defenseman Joe
Cecconi’s plus-17 plus-minus rating
leads all of his fellow defensemen
in that statistical category.
For that reason, Cecconi joined
the Daily for this week’s edition of
Quick Hits.
The Michigan Daily: You lead
all defensemen on this team in
plus-minus. Do you rub that in
their faces?
Cecconi: (Laughs) No, I don’t
rub it in. I take pride in that.
TMD:
(Junior
defenseman
Michael) Downing said we should
ask about not having a goal.
Cecconi: Well, it’s coming.
Hopefully, it’s coming. He teases
me that there is something I can
do to break the slump, but that’s a
secret. I might have to pull it off.
TMD: We won’t ask what that
is (laughs). Well what was it like
rooming with (freshman forward)
Cooper Marody while he had
mono? Was he always asleep?
Cecconi: He actually went
home. He lives 20 minutes away
and he went home for three weeks,
so I didn’t have to worry about
anything.
TMD: Did you clean up his
area? Disinfect it?
Cecconi: Yeah, lots of Lysol. A
lot of cleaning. It’s still a mess.
TMD: Who is messier, you or
Cooper?
Cecconi: Cooper. I always
clean up. His side of the room is
disgusting. He’s got all his guitars
and his amps and all that crap
everywhere.
TMD: Is it annoying living with
somebody who makes so much
noise making music?
Cecconi: He actually goes
downstairs,
to
be
honest.
Sometimes
he’ll
give
me
a
performance, and I’ll be tired and
it helps me fall asleep, so it’s good.
TMD:
Why
weren’t
you
featured in his recent song?
Cecconi: I don’t know. I got to
talk to him about that. I’m not too
happy.
TMD: What were your thoughts
about that song?
Cecconi: I think I heard the
first 10 seconds; I didn’t really
listen to it (laughs). I’ll look at it
tonight.
TMD: What did you think
of (sophomore) Cutler Martin
(playing)
forward
(this
past
weekend)?
Cecconi: I liked that. Big body
up front that can hit. He brings a
lot of energy to the line.
TMD: Have you ever made
(coach) Red Berenson laugh?
Cecconi: Me, personally? I
don’t think so. I think I’ve gotten
a couple of grins or smirks. I’m not
sure if I got a laugh.
TMD: Cooper told us to ask
what you said to your grandpa
about eating the free dining hall
food.
Cecconi: So, everyone knows
about the virus going around
and I really didn’t want to
eat that food and get sick. My
grandpa and I have a really good
relationship, and I say some
funny things to him from time
to time, so I told him that you
can’t put regular fuel in a Ferrari
and he loved it. He actually put
money on my card to go eat
somewhere else.
TMD: (Laughs) That’s just
practical. I mean, you can’t get sick.
Cecconi: We got a big weekend
ahead of us.
TMD: Were you happy to get
out of Muskegon? (Cecconi played
for the Muskegon Lumberjacks in
the United States Hockey League
prior to Michigan.)
Cecconi: I was happy to move
on to be on my own. I had a billet
family there, but now I just have
Cooper. So there are no parents
who tell me I can’t stay up late.
TMD: Cooper doesn’t tell you
not to stay up late?
Cecconi: He’s the one who stays
up all the time watching Netflix.
TMD: He told us that you
needed to watch a show, “Chuck,”
and you were against it and then
watched the whole thing.
Cecconi: He told me to watch
“Chuck” and I looked at it and it
looked stupid. And I got bored
one day and turned it on. The first
episode was all right, the second
episode was good and then it was
just unreal, so I crushed it all in
two weeks.
TMD: You don’t give him the
satisfaction of telling him that?
Cecconi: No (laughs). Now he
tells me to watch “The Office,” but
I’m already watching something
good. So I kind of just blow him off.
TMD: We saw a sheet in
Madison that had the roommate
pairings. Why did you have your
own hotel room in Wisconsin?
Cecconi: According to it, I had
my own room. But I opened the
door and Cutler Martin was laying
in the other bed (laughs).
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Freshman defenseman Joseph Cecconi leads all Wolverine defenseman with a plus-minus rating of plus-17.
‘M’ looks to keep
up recent success
By TED JANES
Daily Sports Writer
The
Michigan
women’s
basketball team has two games
left to prove itself and climb
the
Big
Ten
standings.
After
a
bumpy start to
the conference
schedule,
the
Wolverines
(8-8 Big Ten,
16-11
overall)
have won four
of their last five
games,
which
has them tied
with
Purdue
and
Nebraska
at the No. 6
spot in the Big
Ten.
Coming off a 79-73 win
against Penn State last weekend,
Michigan heads to Northwestern
(4-12, 15-13) on Tuesday.
“(Beating Penn State) was
good,”
sophomore
guard
Katelynn Flaherty said after
the Wolverines’ win Saturday.
“It just gives us confidence.
It’s a big win today. They just
beat Northwestern. They beat
Michigan State. It’s going to give
us momentum going into the last
two games.”
Michigan will meet forward
Nia Coffey against the Wildcats
— a 2014 second-team All-Big
Ten selection.
Coffey averages a double-
double with 19.6 points and 10.3
rebounds per game.
She
is
by
no
means
Northwestern’s
only
option,
though. Five Wildcats average
double digits — guard Maggie
Lyon is the next highest with
17.0 points, and guard Christen
Inman follows her with 14.4.
Forward
Pallas
Kunaiyi-
Akpanah
and
guard
Ashley
Deary also average 13.0 and 12.6,
respectively.
Under the basket, Coffey will
be met by Michigan freshman
Hallie Thome. While Thome will
have the height advantage — she
is 6-foot-5 — there have been
times this season when more
experienced,
veteran
players
have outmuscled the Wolverine
freshman.
Coffey could pose a similar
threat in the post.
Out on the wings, Michigan
will likely have the advantage.
The Wolverines’ offense is led by
Flaherty, whose 22.5 points per
game is the seventh highest in the
nation and third highest in the
Big Ten. Flaherty, senior guard
Madison Ristovski and junior
guard Siera Thompson have
combined to shoot 39.2 percent on
3-pointers this year — 7-percent
higher
than
Northwestern’s
three starting guards. But the
Wolverines’ backcourt does more
than just drain 3-pointers.
While
Flaherty
leads
the
offense, Thompson captains the
defensive efforts with a team-
high 37 steals.
Northwestern has taken top
Big Ten opponents to the wire
this year, beating No. 5 Ohio
State by four points the first
time they met, and losing by just
six in the second meeting.
While
the
frontloaded
schedule put Michigan in a
rut through most of January,
the
Wolverines
have
taken
advantage
of
their
weaker
opponents to earn a higher Big
Ten Tournament seed.
Moving up in the standings
won’t be easy, though, as the
five middle teams in the Big
Ten — Iowa, Rutgers, Purdue,
Michigan and Nebraska — are
jammed into a race for seedings.
Both the Hawkeyes and Scarlet
Knights have 7-9 conference
records, putting them both only
a game behind the three-way tie
in the No. 6 spot.
Tuesday’s
game
against
the Wildcats, Michigan’s only
scheduled meeting with them
this season, gives the Wolverines
the chance to move above .500 in
conference play for the first time.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Michigan at
Northwestern
Matchup:
Michigan 16-11;
Northwestern
15-13
When:
Tuesday
6:30 P.M.
Where:
Welsh-Ryan
Arena
TV/Radio:
BTN