8 — Tuesday, March 15, 2016 Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Robinson ready for D-I tourney By SIMON KAUFMAN Daily Sports Editor Two years ago, on the first Sunday of March, Duncan Robinson crammed into his coaches’ offices with his Williams College teammates as they awaited their fate in the Division III NCAA Tournament. There was no fancy primetime two-hour Selection Sunday show, no texts pouring in from family afterward and no media waiting to talk with the team afterward. Robinson — then a freshman at the small Williamstown, Mass., liberal arts college — watched on an online stream as his team’s name was called. Williams was going to the Big Dance, except it wasn’t that big of a deal — it was only Division III, after all. Fast forward two years, and Robinson — now a redshirt sophomore guard for the Michigan men’s basketball team after transferring from Williams — will get a taste of the big Big Dance: the Division I NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee announced Sunday that the Wolverines would play Tulsa in Dayton, Ohio, as part of the tournament’s First Four. A win Wednesday would give them a No. 11 seed and a Friday night matchup against No. 6 seed Notre Dame in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2014, Robinson helped lead the Ephs to the championship game and a runner-up finish. But even so, playing at that level meant their Selection Sunday prior to the tournament had a different feel to it. “We had a little viewing party — I guess you could call it, in our coaches’ offices, but nothing to this scale,” Robinson said. “There was no media afterwards, I can tell you that.” On Sunday, Robinson got a different experience. The Wolverines watched this year’s Selection Sunday show from the Weiser Crisler Center Club — a club level-esque area of the arena, and afterward, about two dozen members of the media waited to hear from players and Michigan coach John Beilein. “The scale is a lot different, hard to compare,” Robinson said. “When we got into the tournament at Williams, I might have gotten one text from my mom. This time, I got a few more, I guess you could say.” More recognition, be it texts from friends or shoutouts from noted college basketball analysts, has been a theme for Robinson since arriving in Ann Arbor. After sitting out the 2014-15 season due to NCAA transfer rules, Robinson has made a name for himself at the Division I level. The New Castle, N.H., native broke into Michigan’s starting lineup in its 10th game and has been a staple since. He has paced 11.2 points per game to go along with 3.3 rebounds and has been the Wolverines’ best look from 3-point range, shooting at a 45-percent clip from deep. Despite his success, Robinson’s numbers dropped off midway through the season as he struggled to find his stroke. After starting the season shooting better than 50 percent through 21 games from beyond the arc, Robinson shot worse than 30 percent from the perimeter in Michigan’s final 10 regular- season games. But in the Big Ten Tournament, Robinson regained a bit of his rhythm, going off for 21 points against Northwestern and hitting a clutch 3 against Indiana that set Michigan up for a buzzer-beating victory. “This has been such a great learning experience for him,” Beilein said. “For right now, it just gives him another opportunity to validate that his performance in the Big Ten, both hitting clutch shots and just playing a lot of minutes in the Big Ten — rebounding and having assists in the tournament — validated why he’s here.” Robinson validated himself as a Division I player during the regular season. Now he has the opportunity to do it in the postseason. “This is why I came here,” Robinson said. “(The) opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. … You build it up in your head, but that moment when you hear your name called is pretty surreal.” LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily Redshirt sophomore guard Duncan Robinson will play in the Division I NCAA Tournament for the first time Wednesday. “That moment when you hear your name called is pretty surreal.” Connor (POY), Wolverines nearly sweep Big Ten awards Compher, Motte, Connor all earn first-team honors; Berenson COY By JUSTIN MEYER Daily Sports Writer Michigan took home six Big Ten hockey awards Monday afternoon, led by star freshman forward Kyle Connor as Player of the Year. “It’s a great accomplishment and I’m really honored,” Connor said. “It’s pretty cool.” The nod is an indication that the quiet left-winger has separated himself among Michigan’s stars in the Hobey Baker race. After posting 61 points in 34 games, he is considered by many voters to be the frontrunner. Boston College’s Jack Eichel won the Hobey in his first season with near-identical points per game numbers last year, but freshmen have only won the award twice and never in back-to-back seasons. The accolades didn’t stop there. In a perhaps more impressive honor, the CCM line — composed of Connor and junior forwards Tyler Motte and JT Compher — swept the first- team All-Big Ten awards. Michigan coach Red Berenson said it was the first time he could remember that happening. “We’ve had some great lines — and maybe some that could’ve or should’ve (swept the first team selections) — but this one did,” Berenson said. The CCM line has been the most dominant in college hockey this season. Connor, Compher and Motte rank first, third and fifth in the NCAA for points, respectively. The line began to jell after Christmas and never slowed down. Connor is in the midst of a 23-game point streak and Tyler Motte set a modern- day Michigan record with a 12-game goal streak. “I think we’ve just become more vocal with each other as linemates,” Compher said. “It’s easier said than done to be all equal when you’re older or younger, freshman, junior, senior or whatever it is, but I think we’ve actually done a really good job of being open to suggestions.” Sophomore defender Zach Werenski was named Defensive Player of the Year and added to the All-Big Ten First Team. The 18-year-old recorded 51 blocked shots and 28 points. Werenski emboldened his case with six points in the last three games, bringing him from 15th to tied for fifth among all defenseman. Berenson was also named Big Ten Coach of the Year — his third such honor in 32 years of coaching. Berenson previously won two coaching awards in the CCHA. “As far as the coach award, that usually goes to the team that overachieves and does better than people expect,” Berenson said. “If we did, that’s a tribute to our players and our whole coaching staff — it’s no longer a one-man coaching job.” Berenson is in the final year of his contract and undecided on his coaching future. Under his watch this season, the Wolverines are a lock to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years. “I don’t get too carried away with these coaching awards,” Berenson said. “We’ve had years where I think we’ve done a great job coaching the team we had into overachieving, but we weren’t the Coach of the Year. “Nowadays, I think its more a sign of respect and age.” Senior forward Boo Nieves rounded out the awards, receiving the Big Ten sportsmanship honor. In a down year for the Big Ten, Michigan shined this season. The Wolverines enter the Big Ten Tournament with a sure spot in the NCAA Tournament, the highest-scoring team offense in more than a decade and three viable Hobey Baker candidates. The true rewards — a Big Ten or NCAA Tournament title — are still to be had, but the announcements Monday afternoon gave an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable regular- season run Michigan strung together, and the individual heroics that made it possible. AMANDA ALLEN/Daily Freshman forward Kyle Connor’s standout freshman season earned him Big Ten Player of the Year honors Monday. “I think we’ve just become more vocal with each other.” Breaking down the dramatic shots that powered Michigan By LEV FACHER Daily Sports Writer It’s easy to attribute Michigan’s NCAA Tournament bid to a single shot: sophomore guard Kam Chatman’s already legendary 3-pointer against top-seeded Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals on Friday. Chatman, deservedly, walked away from the weekend an unlikely star. He had made just seven 3-pointers on the season before a case of mistaken identity left him with the ball in his hands and time ticking down, and his game-winner left fans around the country with an early taste of the madness March is known for. But two other shots were equally instrumental in shoehorning the Wolverines into the 68-team NCAA Tournament field. One shot came Thursday against Northwestern on a play that Michigan coach John Beilein calls “Magic,” a set for redshirt sophomore guard Duncan Robinson to find space around the perimeter. Many might have expected Beilein to call Robinson’s number, but the audacity of the play call stood out. Michigan perfectly executed the sneaky set, in which Robinson inbounded the ball from the sideline, gave it to junior forward Zak Irvin curling along the baseline and then took the outside route on a screen from sophomore forward Ricky Doyle to give himself enough space for a shot after Irvin gave the ball back. Without Robinson’s trey and Beilein’s play call, Chatman would never have been in a position to play hero the next day. “I think Stan Van Gundy was probably the coach of Orlando at the time, and I was just there watching an NBA game one time,” Beilein said on “Inside Michigan Basketball,” his weekly radio show, on Monday. “The Magic needed a 3, and Orlando ran this play for J.J. Redick. So I looked at it, and I said, ‘We’ve got to run that play.’ To this day, we’ve called it Magic.” Beilein said he first installed the play three or four seasons ago for Tim Hardaway Jr., now with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. But the Wolverines hadn’t used the play before Friday, when Beilein drew it up for Robinson during a frantic, late-game timeout. “It’s not even out there on a scouting report the last three or four years,” Beilein said. “We drew it up, we practice it once a week, at least — it seems like Duncan makes it every time. But when (Northwestern center Alex) Olah came out on him, Olah was huge. And Duncan, when we looked at the shot, the ball went a good three or four feet above the backboard, and Duncan’s shot usually arcs out below the backboard. So he had to put extra on it, and he just buried it.” It was a lot of faith to put in Robinson, a transfer from Division III Williams College. The moment wasn’t too big for him — nor was his shot the next day against Indiana, which tied the game at 69 to set up Chatman for the game-winner moments later. That Robinson 3, while equally instrumental, came on a more orthodox play call. Beilein discussed yet another non-Chatman shot that the Wolverines simply couldn’t have done without on Monday: Irvin’s overtime jumper with time winding down against Northwestern, which came just minutes after the unexpected Robinson 3. “He loves that moment,” Beilein said of his decision to give Irvin the ball for the overtime period’s final play. “I had dialed him up two or three plays before in the Northwestern game, and he missed the shot, and he wasn’t having a great night. And I said to myself, ‘Why do I keep dialing him up? I’ve got to do something else.’ ” Luckily for Michigan, Beilein’s idea to stay away from Irvin in the final moments didn’t stick around for long. “When we wanted to run that last play, (Northwestern) knew what we were running,” Beilein said. “It’s a play we run once or twice, at least, a game. I said, ‘Who do I trust out there right now to make this shot or make the right decision?’ Because (Doyle) was open rolling to the basket as well. He was wide open. I said, ‘It’s Zak.’ So I went to him, and it certainly paid off.” Michigan is hoping no such late-game drama is necessary Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, as it takes on fellow 11-seed Tulsa in a First Four play-in game. The Wolverines’ bus embarked on the three-hour drive Monday night — a trip that could end Wednesday night with a loss or last through Sunday if Michigan can get through Tulsa and then No. 6-seed Notre Dame on Friday in Brooklyn, N.Y. LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily John Beilein’s team punched its tournament ticket with a series of big shots.