4B — March 14, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
forward D.J. Wilson. But the
Boilermakers size was too much
for Michigan to contain.
Unable to compete in the
paint with Purdue, Michigan
relied on its shooting to stay in
the game. A jumper from junior
guard Zak Irvin tied the game
at 21 midway through the first
half, and a 3-pointer from junior
guard Derrick Walton Jr. cut
Purdue’s lead to single digits
midway through the second.
But each time, the Boilermakers
responded
by
overpowering
Michigan in the paint.
After Irvin’s jumper, Swanigan
fed 7-foot-2 center Isaac Haas
down low, and Haas put in
an easy bucket over Donnal.
Following Walton’s second-half
3, Hammons pushed his way
into the paint on the other end
and drew a foul from Donnal
— Donnal’s third of the game.
Swanigan hit both of his free
throws to push the Boilermakers’
lead back to double digits.
In the second half, Michigan’s
shots
stopped
falling,
and
Purdue
turned
Wolverine
misses into makes on the other
end. After shooting 43 percent
in the first half, Michigan
struggled in the second, going
11-for-33 from the field in the
final 20 minutes and finishing
6-for-25 from 3-point range.
Abdur-Rahkman
—
who
scored a team-high 15 points on
7-for-11 shooting from the field —
was Michigan’s best option, but
he got little help from teammates
as the Wolverines missed seven
of their final eight shots to close
the game.
“We’ve been very up and down
the last month with our shooting,”
Beilein said. “Guys that are really
good shooters haven’t been able
to make shots. Now Purdue does
have the best defense, you look at
their stats, 3-point defense, I don’t
care what defense it is, they’re
the best at it, so let’s credit them
instead. At the same time we did
have some open looks that just
didn’t go in.”
Ultimately,
though,
it
was
Michigan’s inability to compete
with
Purdue’s
overpowering
big men that was the difference
in the game. The Boilermakers
outscored the Wolverines 44-28
in the paint and collected 15 more
rebounds than them.
Ofili, Finn lead sixth-place finish
Michigan earns
best place at NCAA
Championships
since 2008
By MATTHEW KENNEDY
Daily Sports Writer
Last year, senior Cindy Ofili
fell during the preliminaries
of
the
60-meter
hurdles,
destroying
her
NCAA
title
ambitions in the process. This
year, a similar stumble nearly
shattered her dream once again.
But instead, she came home
with a national championship.
“It happened so quickly, so
I couldn’t think,” Ofili said. “I
stumbled, and I went straight to
my form.”
In the preliminaries of the
60-meter hurdles at the NCAA
Indoor
Championships,
Ofili
tripped off the block. Unlike last
year, though, she was able to
regain her composure and finish
the race.
It was no certainty that Ofili’s
run would be fast enough to
qualify her for the final race.
Rather, she had to anxiously
wait for the remainder of the
preliminary races to finish.
Fortunately for Ofili, she reset
her form after faltering early,
and her qualifying time gave her
the eighth — and final — spot in
the championship race.
“Going into the race, I knew
once I got past the preliminary
round, it was anybody’s game
from
there,”
Ofili
said.
“I
went into it with confidence,
knowing that I’ve been in the
national stage multiple times,
and nothing is different. It’s just
another race.”
This
time
around,
Ofili
didn’t have a problem off the
block. She ran the 10th-fastest
time
in
NCAA
history
—
finishing in 7.89 seconds — and
came home with the national
championship.
With the win, Ofili garnered
10 of Michigan’s 31 points,
helping the Wolverines earn a
sixth-place finish overall, their
best since 2008.
Ofili, though, wasn’t even
Michigan’s top contributor on
the day.
In two distance events, junior
Erin Finn was running near
the
front,
with a shot
at a national
championship
in each.
Finn wasn’t
able to muster
quite enough
at
the
end
of the races,
though,
and
finished
second behind
Notre
Dame’s
Molly
Seidel
in both the 3,000-meter and
5,000-meter runs.
Still, the races were not a
disappointment. In the 5,000-
meter, Finn bested her indoor
personal best by 14 seconds
and set a new school record in
the process. The two runner-
up finishes made Finn an All-
American in both events, and
contributed
a
team-high
16
points to Michigan’s NCAA
Championship cause.
“Individually,
I’m
very
happy,” Finn said. “But I would
be lying if I
said I didn’t
want to win.
It
definitely
opened up my
eyes a little bit
more to show
that I belong
not
just
fighting for an
All-American
spot,
but
fighting
for
the
national
championship
spot.”
Also earning points for the
Wolverines was the distance
medley
relay
team,
which
finished in fourth place with
a time of 10:59.05 — earning
Michigan five more points. The
race was competitive until the
end, but the relay team fell two
seconds short of a national title.
“As a team it was so, so cool
to get sixth place,” Finn said.
“That’s as high as we were ever
ranked all season, and that’s
higher than we came in ranked,
so that was very exciting. To be a
top-10 national team, when there
are so many schools that have
track teams, is very, very cool.”
Despite the sixth-place finish,
the season is only halfway over.
This championship was just
for the indoor portion of the
season, and the outdoor portion
still lasts another three months.
For the Wolverines, resting and
regrouping is their priority. After
all, they certainly earned it.
“We’re going to take it down
for a bit now,” Finn said. “There’s
a progression of the training and
we’re going to start all over. We
have a good base from indoors,
and we’re going to build on this
come outdoor (season).”
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Senior Cindy Ofili won the national title in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.89, 10th-fastest in NCAA history.
PURDUE
From Page 1B
LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily
John Beilein’s team earned one of the final spots in the NCAA Tournament.
“I went into it
with confidence
... It’s just
another race.”