8 — Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Lin, Michigan go down to the 
wire to beat No. 15 Kentucky

Kentucky’s 
Enzo 
Wallart 

prepared to return a serve from 
Michigan junior Carter Lin in 
the right corner of the backcourt. 
Wallart struck the return and the 
ball torpedoed back over the net, 
landing just outside of the singles’ 
sideline. Lin dropped to his knees 
and the rest of the Michigan 
men’s tennis team rushed the 
court, piling on top of each other 
and tackling the No. 6 singles 
player as the crowd at the Varsity 
Tennis Center erupted.

In the final match of the day, 

with the two teams tied at three, 
Lin propelled the 18th-ranked 
Wolverines to a 4-3 victory in 
a thrilling third-set tiebreaker 
over the 15th-ranked Wildcats on 
Saturday.

“That’s why I play college 

tennis,” Lin said. “That feeling 
is amazing. Big points and big 
matches like this, having the 
whole team with you. Having 

that pressure, I like it. It’s a good 
feeling.”

The win gave Michigan (6-1) 

its third victory over a ranked 
opponent this season — a major 
improvement from just two years 
ago, when the team went 1-7 
against ranked competition.

“We’ve come a long way from 

two years ago,” said Michigan 
coach Adam Steinberg. “It’s a lot 
(of emotion). It’s great to see these 
guys have these types of wins and 
enjoy all the hard work they put 
in.

“It’s just a lot. We’ve just 

started from ground zero and 
look where we are. A million 
things go through your head and 
to see Carter win (the match) like 
that and the guys enjoy (it), that’s 
what it’s all about.”

In the decisive, match-winning 

No. 6 singles matchup, Lin 
and Wallart stayed fairly even. 
Wallart took the first set 7-5, and 
Lin countered with a 7-5 win in 
the second frame. Lin never led 
in the third set until the game-

clinching 
tiebreaker, 
battling 

back from 0-1, 1-3, 3-4, 4-5 and 
5-6 deficits.

It was a hotly-contested match 

that saw the Kentucky coaching 
staff argue against several of 
the 
officials’ 
decisions, 
with 

the height of the disagreement 
coming when Wallart received a 
code violation for arguing a call 
that gave Lin his second point and 
moved the third set to a 2-3 score.

“The one thing he did really 

well was he made me earn every 
single point,” Lin said. “He didn’t 
really give me any free points. … 
He just gave me a tough time. He 
fought like crazy.”

Sophomore Myles Schalet and 

junior Alex Knight also added 
singles points for the Wolverines. 
The 
afternoon’s 
narrative 
of 

resilience and endurance was 
representative in both matches, 
with 
Schalet 
quickly 
falling 

behind 0-2 in the first set and 
Knight trailing 1-3 in the second 
set of his match. The two would 
both come back, earning victories 
in the No. 2 and No. 5 singles 
matchups, respectively.

The doubles point ended up 

being the difference maker in the 
match, which Michigan earned 
with victories in No. 1 doubles 
— from senior Jathan Malik and 
freshman Connor Johnston — 
and No. 3 doubles — from Schalet 
and senior Kevin Wong. The 
Wolverines won both matches 
assuredly with 6-2 scores.

“I feel like we have found the 

right matchups,” Steinberg said 
of the team’s doubles pairings. 
“It’s not 100 percent yet, but I feel 
like those three teams (are) good 
at every position. We feel like we 
can win at 1, 2, or 3.”

Above 
everything 
else, 

Saturday’s emotional rollercoaster 
provided the team with a marquee, 
season-defining victory.

“This is a lot. This is our best 

win of the year without a doubt,” 
Steinberg said. “Two of the 
next three matches are against 
top-10 teams, so this is a great 
springboard for that. We needed 
this, this is the next step in our 
program.”

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Junior Carter Lin won a third-set tiebreaker to clinch the match for Michigan.

EFE EDEVBIE
Daily Sports Writer

Late-game losses becoming Michigan’s biggest burden

M

INNEAPOLIS 
— If there’s one 
consistency Michigan 

has shown throughout its wildly 
inconsistent season, it’s that no 
deficit is too large to overcome. 

In 

countless 
games, the 
Wolverines 
had been 
able to dig 
themselves 
out of the 
holes they 
created. 
Against 
Texas, Penn 
State and 
Wisconsin, Michigan faced 
second-half deficits that had 
the Wolverines under immense 
pressure, just a crack away from 
breaking. Michigan bent to its 
limit, but never broke, and that 
sort of resiliency has been a 
defining characteristic of the 
Wolverines all season.

But as great as Michigan’s 

mental fortitude has been, it 
isn’t always good enough. For 
every one time the Wolverines 
have been able to overcome 
those sorts of deficits, it feels 
like they’ve fallen short two 
times more.

Michigan has 10 losses on 

its record — seven of which 
by single digits, five of which 
the Wolverines had a second-
half lead and three of which 
Michigan had the ball with the 
chance to win or extend the 
game on the final possession.

To put it simply, the 

Wolverines shouldn’t be a 
10-loss team. They have too 
much experience, talent and 
endurance to keep on fumbling 
these late-game situations, 
or even be in them in the first 
place.

Sunday night was the latest 

episode of the late-game 
horror show Michigan has 
been putting on all season, 

and it encapsulated all of the 
Wolverines’ struggles.

For 35 minutes, Michigan 

and Minnesota were in a 
jabbing match, 
exchanging 
buckets and 
leads on every 
possession. That 
all changed 
when a technical 
foul called on 
the Wolverines’ 
bench and a 
four-point play 
extended the 
Golden Gophers’ 
lead to eight with under three 
minutes to go.

With its back up against 

the tallest wall it has faced 
all season, Michigan came up 
with the right combination of 

explosiveness, calmness and 
determination to avoid complete 
collapse in the moment, and 
come up with a response. 

Between senior 
guard Derrick 
Walton Jr, 
sophomore 
forward 
Moritz Wagner 
and redshirt 
sophomore 
forward DJ 
Wilson, the 
Wolverines went 
on a 12-4 run, 
culminating in 

Wilson’s last-second three to 
send the game to overtime.

The Wolverines had climbed 

out of another seemingly 
insurmountable hole and 
had five minutes to use that 

momentum to make Minnesota 
pay for leaving the door open.

“We thought once it got to 

overtime, the game was ours,” 
Walton said. “We 
were making 
the right plays, 
and down the 
stretch, even 
though a lot of 
stuff didn’t go 
our way, we still 
got a chance to 
win.”

But everything 

that went right 
for Michigan 
in the final two minutes of 
regulation went wrong in 
overtime. The Wolverines 
opened with two turnovers, 
missed two 3-pointers and saw 
junior guard Muhammad-Ali 

Abdur-Rahkman come up empty 
from a trip to the free throw 
line.

Michigan melted in crunch 

time again, 
after it played 
some of its best 
basketball to get 
there.

That final 

eight-minute 
stretch captured 
what could be the 
most regrettable 
trend the 
Wolverines have 
developed and 

struggled to correct all season.

Michigan has shown time and 

again that it’s capable of putting 
up points in a hurry when it 
absolutely needs to. But in other 
situations, the Wolverines have 

shown a harmful tendency 
to freeze on offense when it 
matters most.

That began way back in 

November against Virginia 
Tech, when Michigan scored 
just five points in the final 
five minutes to give away the 
game. In Iowa, the Wolverines 
had the ball in a tie game with 
16 seconds left, only to turn 
it over before getting a shot 
off. Wisconsin held Michigan 
scoreless at the Kohl Center 
for over four minutes while it 
rattled off 15 unanswered points 
towards the end of the game.

The Wolverines had the 

chance to step on their 
opponents’ throats and put 
each of these games away 
with relative ease. Riding the 
adrenaline from Wilson’s shot, 
they could have done the same 
at Minnesota.

But Michigan let another 

golden opportunity to close out a 
win slip away against the Golden 
Gophers, and those missed 
chances are starting to compile 
for the Wolverines.

NCAA Tournament teams 

are expected to know and show 
that they can finish close games, 
and Michigan hasn’t done a 
good enough job of convincing 
anyone it can do that against 
good teams.

If the Wolverines continue to 

collect these late-game losses, 
their Selection Sunday could 
become a reflection on “what 
if” rather than a celebration of 
“what’s next.”

With that in mind, Michigan’s 

bubble status will have this team 
feeling like its back is against 
the wall from here on out. If 
there’s one thing we know about 
the Wolverines, it’s that they 
respond best when there’s no 
other option.

Carney can be reached 

at becarney@umich.edu or 

on Twitter @br_carney.

JEREMY MITNICK/Daily

Senior guard Derrick Walton Jr. and the Wolverines encountered their season-long problem of closing out games once again against Minnesota on Sunday. 

“We thought 
once it got to 
overtime, the 

game was ours”

BY THE NUMBERS

Michigan vs No. 15 Kentucky 

Singles match 

victories

No. 2 Schalet: 
 

6-3, 6-3

No. 5 Knight: 

6-3, 7-5 

No. 6 Lin: 

5-7, 7-5, 7-6 

“Down the 
stretch … 

we still got a 

chance to win”

BRANDON 
CARNEY