2B — March 20, 2017
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

For Michigan fans, a week to savor

W

hatever you do, don’t 
waste this week. 

For the next three-

plus days, 
Ann Arbor 
will be one 
of 16 cities 
across the 
United States 
that gets to 
experience 
the singular 
energy that 
accompanies 
a trip to the 
Sweet 16.

At 7:09 p.m. Thursday, the 

Michigan men’s basketball 
team will tip off in Kansas City, 
Mo., against Oregon. Perhaps 
some of you will venture to join 
them. Others will gather in bars, 
lounges and dorm rooms across 
campus to hold their collective 
breath for two hours and watch 
one of the great spectacles in 
sports.

But in many ways, the real 

prize of advancing to the Sweet 16 
will come before then.

Three trips in the last five years 

may have spoiled some Michigan 
fans enough into thinking these 
just happen. But the fact of 
the matter is, regardless of the 
outcome Thursday night, the 
Wolverines have given their fans 
a commodity that is hard to come 
by and easy to lose: hope.

Consider Monday, Tuesday, 

Wednesday 
and most of 
Thursday your 
time to dream. 
There will still 
be class and 
homework and 
plenty other 
things that are 
normally worth 
your attention. 
But not this 
week. This is a 
week to make 
the plans you’ll tell your future 
children about. It’s a week to 

watch “Survive and Advance,” or 
“Hoosiers,” or even “Cinderella” 

— if that’s not too 
on the nose.

The truth is, 

it doesn’t much 
matter whether 
you followed 
basketball this 
season. There 
are so few 
opportunities 
to be in college 
when your school 
makes it this 
far that, when it 

does, you owe it to yourselves to 
make the most of it.

Some ideas:
Spend your Monday basking 

in the feeling you had Sunday 
around 2:15. Take at least one 
class off and take a walk down 
to South Campus — see if the air 
feels just a little bit different.

On Tuesday you’ll want 

to read up. Oregon’s a damn 
good team and, come tip-off 
Thursday, you won’t want to 
be double-checking who the 
Ducks’ best player is (his name 
is Dillon Brooks) or, worse, who 
Michigan’s starters are. Talk to 
a friend — any friend — about 
the game. Sports mean bonding, 
and there are few better times to 

catch the fever.

Drink on Wednesday so you 

can take in Thursday’s tension 
without feeling the pull of 
Skeeps. It’s unorthodox, but 
trust me: It’ll pay off.

Thursday evening, you’ll 

want to gather with your 
closest friends for game time. 
It doesn’t necessarily matter 
where — some prefer to be out 
with the largest possible group, 
others prefer to watch in the 
comfort of a house — but the 
shared joy of a big shot is unlike 
nearly anything else you’ll ever 
experience.

I know this sounds cliché 

coming from a sports writer who 
you may or may not suspect is 
wistful for his days as a fan. And 
you’re sort of right — the day I 
was accepted to Michigan, Trey 
Burke hit “the shot” against 
Kansas in the Sweet 16. It was 
a crazy moment, and I’d love 
nothing more than for everyone 
to have a similar experience. 
This is the weekend when that 
can happen.

But there’s also something 

about the NCAA Tournament 
that goes beyond visceral, 
personal memories.

The energy on campus — 

both in class and on the Diag 

— cannot be replicated. The 
stage will rarely be bigger; the 
lights will rarely be brighter. 
The world will be talking about 
what’s happening in Ann Arbor, 
and, if you’re lucky, you may 
even get a sunny day.

Come tip-off Thursday, you 

owe it to yourselves to have 
enjoyed that feeling as long as 
possible.

It could be gone by Friday 

morning.

Max Bultman can be reached 

by email at bultmanm@

umich.edu or on Twitter 

@m_bultman. Please @ him.

MAX
BULTMAN

EVAN AARON/Daily

The Michigan men’s basketball team is loving this run through the postseason, and you should too as the Wolverines head into the Sweet 16 on Thursday night.

You owe it 
to yourself 
to enjoy this 

feeling.

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

Introducing a new, improved Beilein

I

NDIANAPOLIS — John 
Beilein is having more fun 
than you.

Even for 

those who 
have known 
the 64-year-
old basketball 
coach for 
any amount 
of time, who 
could have 
imagined him 
firing a Super 
Soaker in the 
locker room 
for a post game celebration like 
a child who just unwrapped the 
same toy for Christmas?

That’s because the old, 

methodical, disciplinarian John 
Beilein ain’t around anymore.

Everyone, I’d like to introduce 

you to John Beilein 2.0.

This latest model of the 

Michigan basketball coach still 
has some of the features from the 
previous version you’ve grown to 
enjoy and love.

He still focuses on player 

development, still stresses the 
fundamentals and still acts 
like he’s a teacher first and a 
basketball coach second.

But as this season has gone 

on, Beilein has had less and 
less to worry about and do as a 
coach. And as it’s turned out, 
less has turned into more for the 
Wolverines.

“He’s enjoying this moment 

just like we are,” said senior 
guard Andrew Dakich. “It’s 
really cool to see our coach be so 
relaxed. He’s still the same guy, 
he’s just joking around a lot more 
and having more fun with us.”

More than any other team he’s 

managed, Beilein has loosened 
his control of the reigns at the 
helm of Michigan and given it to 
the assistant coaches and veteran 
players alongside him.

That started even before the 

season, when Beilein brought in 
assistant coaches Billy Donlon 
and Saddi Washington.

Specifically with Donlon, 

Beilein has come to view him as 
more than just an assistant as the 
season has unfolded. He’s given 

almost full control of the defense 
to Donlon and let him script a 
large part of the narrative of 
this season as it has unfolded, 
even allowing his assistant to 
vandalize a few walls in the 
process.

Whenever Michigan has 

needed an extra boost of 
motivation, or something out of 
the box, Donlon has stepped up 
to deliver that. For Michigan’s 
home game against Illinois, he 
penned “Streetfight” on the 
wall in the Crisler Center locker 
room. In Washington for the 
Wolverines’ Big Ten Tournament 
game against Purdue, he used 
that same sharpie to ink “Not 
today” on a Verizon Center wall, 
telling his players that it was 
not the day Michigan would be 

packing its bags and heading 
home.

Again on Sunday, Donlon 

was in charge of preaching the 
message of the game. He walked 
into the main area of the locker 
room with pictures of each 
players’ and coaches’ family, and 
taped them to the wall.

“Everyone had a picture with 

them and their family,” said 
senior wing Zak Irvin. “He said, 
‘When times get tough, think 
about them. Think about the 
people who you do it for.’ I think 
it really hit home for everybody 
and I think that really showed in 
the second half.”

Beilein’s faith in all of his 

assistants is higher than ever, 
and that has shown over this 
postseason run.

It’s not easy scouting and 

developing game plans in such 
a short turnaround time, and 
Michigan’s coaching staff has 
been doing a masterful job doing 
so over the past two weeks.

Beilein says his staff is more 

connected than ever. There are 
no egos in the room, everyone is 
focused on their individual role.

That dynamic also extends to 

how all the coaches interact with 
the players. Beilein says more 
than anything, his assistants 
have excelled at connecting with 
the players. The coaching staff 
has instilled a belief in their 
players that anything is possible 
moving forward, and without 
that belief, Michigan wouldn’t be 
winning these games.

“The trust has gone up 

because we’ve got a lot of juniors 
and seniors now who are really 
leading this team and playing 
good basketball,” said senior 
forward Sean Lonergan. “I think 
that’s taken some of the pressure 
off coach (Beilein) to always be 
that stricter coach because this 
is really turning into a player-to-
player accountable team instead 
of a coach-to-player accountable 
team. We’re holding each other 
accountable, which takes the 
pressure off of him a little bit.”

More than ever, the players 

are calling the shots for 
Michigan, especially in this 
postseason run. Senior guard 
Derrick Walton Jr. is now 
overriding Beilein’s offensive 
play calls from the sidelines 
multiple times a game. In 

timeout huddles, players 
are yelling at each other for 
motivation and to correct 
mistakes.

“At some point, they’ve gone 

beyond buying in, they’ve taken 
ownership,” said assistant coach 
Jeff Meyer. “We’re on the ride 
with them now. That’s the reality 
of it. They are running the 
Wolverine Express right now.”

Beilein is now focused on 

making longer-term adjustments 
based on the Wolverines’ 
strengths rather than getting 
knit-picky over every little 
mistake made.

That was on full display on 

Sunday, as Walton once again 
took leadership to coach one 
of his teammates through a 
situation Beilein would have in 
seasons past.

“Now you have guys yelling 

at each other for not doing 
their job,” Lonergan said. “You 
saw it today with Derrick after 
(sophomore forward Moritz 
Wagner) scored a big bucket. He 
looked at Moe straight after as 
he was running down the floor 
and said, ‘I’m glad you scored but 
I need you to go down there and 
get a stop for us.’ You see things 
like that, you hear people in 
timeouts always yapping in each 
others’ ear.”

The players and coaching 

staff have come together to take 
the load off Beilein and create 
something special, and Beilein 
himself is turning into a new 
man. He’s loose. He’s relaxed. 
He’s fun.

It wasn’t a personal choice, 

but more so the result of his 
changing surroundings. After 
40-plus years of coaching, 
there aren’t very many ways 
to change other than by the 
unforeseen circumstances 
Beilein has had to address 
throughout the season.

But he’s changed nonetheless. 

And for this new John Beilein, 
there’s nothing else to focus on 
but a title.

Carney can be reached by 

email at becarney@umich.edu 

or on Twitter at @br_carney.

EVAN AARON/Daily

Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein has been around the game of basketball a long time, but he’s showing a new side of himself this postseason.

BRANDON
CARNEY

