2B — February 13, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
A big one in Bloomington
I
f the Michigan men’s
basketball team is still
looking for its identity
after that, it’s looking too hard.
On Sunday, the Wolverines
had their most important win of
their recent
resurgence,
an odd thing
to say days
after they
rolled their
in-state rival
by 29. But
the reason
Michigan’s
75-63 win
over Indiana
was so
impressive was about more
than Derrick Walton Jr.’s
continued scoring tear or D.J.
Wilson’s defensive dominance
— though both were critical.
It’s about time and place. It’s
about context. It’s about all the
ways the game could have gone
wrong and didn’t — because the
Wolverines wouldn’t let it.
In every moment you thought
they’d finally cave, they only
got tougher. Their senior
point guard looked like an All-
American. Their defense took
balls away near the basket. And
they did all this at Assembly
Hall, a place in which they
hadn’t won since 2009.
It was all enough to ask,
“Who are we talking about
here?”
For the first time in a long
time, the answer was the
Michigan men’s basketball
team.
Coming off a blowout
win in a rivalry that has
been torturous of late, the
Wolverines somehow delivered
a more impressive win in the
follow up. Michigan may not
have actually played any better
than it did when it dispatched
the Spartans on Thursday, but
when you take rivalry out of
the equation, Sunday’s victory
could go a lot farther.
First, and most importantly,
the Wolverines got an all-
important road win. And, again,
the context mattered. Entering
Sunday’s matchup, Michigan
was 0-6 on the road yet
probably needed to win three
of its final five road games to
have good shot at the NCAA
Tournament. With a loss to the
Hoosiers, those odds would
have decreased in a hurry. The
fact that the Wolverines won
on the road is what pushes
the Indiana win ahead in the
importance standings. It’s
one thing to win when your
home crowd is behind you,
but another entirely to do it in
hostile confines.
Second, Michigan received
its contributions from the right
places — even with one of the
most important contributors
notably absent. Walton notched
his fifth straight game with
20 or more points. Wilson
scored 13 points on 6-of-11
shooting, plus three blocks
and three steals, including
one stretch where he stole two
passes and blocked a shot on
three consecutive possessions.
Sophomore center Moritz
Wagner tallied a double-double
and redshirt junior wing
Duncan Robinson added eight
points off the bench.
And they did all of this
without much of anything from
senior wing Zak Irvin, who,
presumably, can’t stay this cold
forever. It’s hard to understate
how impressive Michigan has
been this week while getting
little to nothing from Irvin,
arguably the team’s most
important scorer.
In fact, Irvin may be the only
key piece of the team’s puzzle
that’s not in alignment right
now. And if you assume he will
eventually find some semblance
of the player he was earlier this
season, that bodes extremely
well for the Wolverines if
they can maintain this level of
energy.
That energy, along with
the staggering breakout of
Walton, seems to be the key
in accounting for this recent
run. It was best seen Sunday
through the team’s offensive
rebounding effort, including
three by Wagner, but it was also
evident from Wilson’s extendo-
arms on defense and the way
Indiana’s runs didn’t prove
catastrophic.
Energy would at least
partially explain why Michigan
won the game with relative
security, even while shooting
markedly worse (by 13 percent
from the floor and 11 percent
on 3-pointers) than they
did against the Spartans on
Tuesday.
Perhaps most important is
not what this energy caused, but
what it could be a sign of: hope.
The Wolverines have now
won four of their last six. They
have done two things — blowing
out Michigan State and winning
at Indiana — that no one on the
team had done previously. They
are peaking just in time to get
maximum exposure for their
resume-building wins.
With No. 7 Wisconsin set to
visit Ann Arbor on Thursday,
Michigan has an opportunity
for an NCAA Tournament
resume headliner this week.
And if the Wolverines do indeed
end up punching their ticket to
the tournament, they can look
back on Sunday as the day they
fortified the three things you
can’t make it through March
without: A resume, an identity,
and hope.
Bultman can be reached
at bultmanm@umich.
edu and on Twitter @m_
bultman. Please @ him.
CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily
Redshirt sophomore forward DJ Wilson and his fellow Wolverines finally won on the road, and in many ways, it felt more important than a win over an in-state rival.
‘M’ peaking heading into Big Tens
With merely a couple of
weeks to go before the Big Ten
Championships for the men’s and
women’s track and field teams,
both Michigan squads know the
most important competitions of
their seasons are still in front of
them.
But from their performances
at both the SPIRE D1 Invitational
and the Iowa State Classic,
both teams can glean one major
takeaway from their weekend
meets: they’re peaking at the
right time.
“That is what our goal is,
to peak toward the Big Ten
(Championships),” said Michigan
women’s track and field coach
James
Henry.
“And
we’re
improving … you can’t ask for
more than that.”
Spearheaded by the continued
dominance of senior distance
runner Erin Finn and freshman
phenom sprinter Jade Harrison,
the
tenth-ranked
Wolverines
capped
off
their
final
full
weekend before the Big Ten
Championships in style, with 11
athletes improving their personal
records on Saturday alone.
Harrison headlined the group’s
notable ascension, posting times
that
nearly
broke
Michigan
records. On Friday, her time of
24.23 in the 200-meter dash
came within a quarter of a second
of breaking the school record. On
Saturday, her time of 54.12 in the
400-meter dash gave her fourth
place overall and was just half a
second off the program best.
Though those records will
likely
be
shattered
before
Harrison leaves Michigan, Henry
insists that records are not her
focus.
“She’s like the team. She’s
improving, she’s a good athlete,”
Henry said. “She’s not chasing
records, she just wants to get
better.”
Finn posted a nation-leading
time of 15:34.36 in the 5,000-
meter race Saturday. The time
was also good for the SPIRE
facility record, breaking Finn’s
own mark of 15:37.31 that won
her the Big Ten title last season.
With Finn and the rest of the
Wolverines returning for the Big
Ten Championships in two weeks,
the senior will undoubtedly be
looking to best that mark once
more.
Dual-sport
athlete
Claire
Kieffer-Wright
took
home
Michigan’s only individual win
on Saturday, emerging victorious
in the high-jump. Her season-
best jump of 1.78 meters came just
two centimeters shy of her career
best.
For Henry, getting Kieffer-
Wright — also a member of the
volleyball team — into high-
jumping shape has presented a
challenge, though Kieffer-Wright
has been up to the task.
“That’s probably one of the
hardest things that I have to do
as a coach,” Henry said. “She
wants to be a two-sport athlete
and
she’s
working
in
both
sports simultaneously. I’m very
impressed with her work ethic
and patience to get better.”
For the men, another dual-
sport athlete bested his own
personal record. Junior Drake
Johnson finished as the runner-
up in the 60-meter hurdles,
earning a career-best time of 7.93
seconds at the SPIRE Invitational.
In the shot put, senior Grant
Cartwright also finished second.
Cartwright currently sits on the
outside looking in at the NCAA
Championship picture; he ranks
18th nationally, with just the
top 16 athletes advancing to the
finals.
According to Michigan coach
Jerry Clayton, “It’ll take right at
his personal best” for Cartwright
to sneak into the top-16.
The
Wolverines,
though,
recognize that the results in two
weeks at the same location will
matter more. This tune-up gave
Clayton an opportunity to send a
younger group to SPIRE and allow
them to get their feet wet in the
same location. After all, it will be
that same setting that determines
their ultimate Big Ten fate.
“I thought overall we had a
lot of consistency from event to
event,” Clayton said. “I think now
we just need to refocus and get set
on the championship and go there
with a positive attitude.”
EMMA RICHTER/Daily
Senior Erin Finn posted a nation-leading time in the 5,000-meter race Saturday.
MAX MARCOVITCH
Daily Sports Writer
MAX
BULTMAN
SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN
It’s one thing to
win when your
home crowd is
behind you
They have done
two things ... that
no one on the team
had done previously