8 — Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Two best friends experience the Big Ten Tournament

NEW YORK CITY, NY. — 

The Michigan men’s basketball 
team’s locker room was rattling 
after it dismantled Nebraska, 
77-58, to reach the semifinals of 
the Big Ten Tournament. The 
Wolverines’ Jan. 18 defeat in 
Lincoln was an afterthought. A 
date with then-No. 2 Michigan 
State loomed.

Reporters shuffled into the 

tight guest locker room, elbows 
were bumped and recorders were 
stuffed in the student-athletes’ 
faces. 
Scrums 
accumulated 

around 
usual 
suspects 
— 

Muhammad-Ali 
Abdur-

Rahkman and Moritz Wagner. 
Finding a player without a smile 
was hard.

Except for Jordan Poole. The 

freshman guard furrowed his 
brows and asked antsy journalists 
to wait a second before he would 
answer questions. He scoured 
the room, shouting.

“Where my best friend at? 

Where my best friend at?”

Poole’s missing best friend 

was fellow freshman Isaiah 
Livers. The 6-foot-7 forward 
simply hadn’t reached the locker 
room yet as he traipsed slowly 
off the court and past the team 
showers, but best friends don’t 
leave each other behind. Once 
Livers had entered the room, the 
two embraced and sat down in 
their typical spots — side by side 
lockers — and faced the media.

“He’s a big drama guy,” Livers 

said of Poole.

Drama, as they would soon 

discover, was fitting for the 
occasion. The two freshmen 
and the rest of Michigan would 
theatrically display impeccable 
chemistry in their next two 
contests en route to a Big Ten 
Tournament Championship.

Their season isn’t over yet, 

but Poole and Livers can already 
check off one of their goals on 
their college bucket list.

“It feels amazing,” Poole said 

after 
beating 

Purdue 
in 
the 

finals. 
“Being 

able to go out in 
a situation like 
this 
and 
beat 

(Michigan State 
and 
Purdue) 

and 
Nebraska 

and 
Iowa, 
it’s 

just 
amazing. 

Being 
able 
to 

experience 
something like this at such a 
historic arena puts the cherry on 
top.”

Playing 
high-stakes 
games 

at Madison Square Garden is 
usually enough to give any first-
year player pause. But for a guy 

as boisterous as Poole, that isn’t 
necessarily true. He had played 
at the Garden when he was in 
high school at La Lumiere, one 

of the nation’s 
premier 
high 

school programs.

For Livers, on 

the other hand, 
the bright lights 
and 
spacious 

arena 
were 
a 

shock 
to 
the 

system. 
The 

Kalamazoo, 
Mich. 
native 

described 
his 

high school days as spent in a 
“little, tiny gym” absent of the 
grandiose pageantry. It was 
big enough to contend and win 
Michigan Mr. Basketball, but not 
enough to walk into the World’s 
Most Famous Arena without 

awe. Like Poole, though, Livers 
found comfort in it.

“I like the atmosphere at 

Madison Square Garden,” Livers 
said. “I felt it right during shoot 
around. I was like ‘Dang, this 
is pretty big.’ That just kinda 
pushed me to play better.”

Poole 
and 
Livers 
weren’t 

significant contributors in the 
tournament — they combined 
to post just 6.8 points and 4.6 
boards each contest. Though it 
was a lackluster weekend for the 
two, they still had an opportunity 
to marvel at the big stage.

The pair took time to admire 

the history of MSG when they 
first arrived. When they settled 
into the New York Knicks’ 
locker room on Thursday to 
play Iowa — the only time the 
team suited up there during the 
tournament — they gazed at the 

wooden lockers. They saw the 
names of two former Michigan 
greats embellished on them, and 
harbored an inclination to be 
like them in the 
future.

“You got Tim 

Hardaway 
Jr. 

over there, you 
got Trey Burke,” 
Livers 
said, 

pointing out their 
lockers. “They’re 
doing what we 
wanna do in a 
couple years. It 
just motivates me 
to go out there and play hard.”

Added Poole: “We see guys 

who were in the same situation 
that we were. They just kept 
working, kept fighting and they 
were able to accomplish their 
dreams. At the end of the day, 

that’s what you play basketball 
for. … We find it motivating.”

Another 
Michigan 
great, 

2017 
graduate 
and 
current 

G-League player Zak Irvin, has 
been keeping tabs on Poole and 
Livers. And when Irvin, who 
attended the matchup against 
the Hawkeyes, embraced the 
two freshmen in the locker room 
afterwards, they conversed like 
they were longtime teammates.

“The guys before me did the 

same thing to when I came in 
even though I didn’t get to play 
with them,” Irvin said of his 
relationship with the freshmen. 
“They still took me under their 
arms. It’s the same thing I’m 
doing with them. They’re a 
talented group. They’ll be leading 
Michigan here in the future.”

Between the commotion of 

games in Madison Square Garden 
and the noise from teammates 
and former players coming in, 
basketball engulfed the social 
lives of Poole and Livers. The 
team took a brief walk around 
Times Square before their first 
game, but didn’t do much else 
besides mimicking plays in their 
hotel’s ballroom and lounging in 
their rooms.

It really was 

a business trip 
for 
the 
wide-

eyed 
freshmen. 

And even if they 
didn’t cause too 
much of a stir, 
they still deemed 
their experience 
unimaginable.

With the two 

best 
friends 

drenched 
in 

water, egging on a dancing John 
Beilein as they celebrated the Big 
Ten Tournament Championship, 
they looked ready to conquer the 
next big stage in March Madness. 
It was clear that business was 
booming.

ETHAN WOLFE
Daily Sports Editor

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Freshmen Isaiah Livers and Jordan Poole are inseparable roommates who just experienced their first Big Ten Tournament together in New York City.

“They’ll 
be leading 

Michigan here 
in the future.”

Lavigne shows off mental resiliency in sweep

Hayden Lavigne had a rocky 

start Friday.

The sophomore goaltender — 

who has championed the No. 11 
Michigan hockey team’s defense 
in the second half of the season 
as a stalwart brick wall in front 
of the net — wasn’t playing to his 
potential.

While the Wolverines (11-10-

3 Big Ten, 20-13-3 overall) got 
out to a one-goal lead, Wisconsin 
defenseman 
Tyler 
Inamoto 

started an onslaught that would 
see three total Badger goals in the 
first period.

Though Michigan would go on 

to steal a 6-5 victory and later a 
weekend sweep over Wisconsin 
(8-13-2-1, 14-19-3), that wasn’t 
evident at the 15-minute mark 
when arguably the Wolverines’ 
greatest 
defensive 
asset 
was 

left looking up into the air in 
frustration.

Michigan coach Mel Pearson 

even mentioned after the game 
Friday that he considered pulling 

Lavigne after he allowed a third 
goal in the first period.

And with the game’s momentum 

arguably on the line at this point, 
Pearson called a timeout to 
reassure his players and his star 
goaltender.

“We just talked about … (How) 

we hadn’t played yet, we hadn’t 
played,” Pearson said Friday. “We 
were just out there spectators, they 
should’ve charged us for admission 
tonight to come into the building 
the way the first 10 minutes went.

“Then we started to play. And 

it wasn’t everybody, but you know, 
a lot of guys haven’t been through 
this, we’re still a young team. … 
We were very loose, and we need 
everybody.”

He squashed the temptation 

of ending Lavigne’s night, and 
what happened next proved that 
Lavigne 
could 
withstand 
the 

pressures of postseason hockey.

“Hayden, I think the guy gave 

up five goals that maybe he had a 
tough night,” Pearson said, “but 
other than the one, I thought he 
played excellent tonight.”

Senior forward Tony Calderone 

— who scored the Wolverines’ first 
tally — started a four-goal scoring 
streak that Wisconsin would not 
ultimately recover from.

“He knows how to handle 

himself in good and bad times,” 
Calderone said. “He struggled 
in the beginning of the year but 
pulled himself out 
of it. So, I think 
he’s one of those 
guys that you’ve 
got to let him go 
and let him do 
his thing because 
you 
know 
he’s 

gonna do the right 
thing.”

And doing the 

right thing in this 
case was a career-
high 48 saves that proved to be just 
enough to hold Michigan’s one-
goal lead — good for the opening 
night victory.

While five goals allowed doesn’t 

look too pretty on the box score, 
Lavigne gave a veteran comeback 
performance where significant 
early struggles seemed miniscule 
in the end.

“I don’t think it was Hayden’s 

fault, I think we made a bunch of 
mental mistakes,” Calderone said. 
“Hayden’s been great for us all year 
and I think he played great tonight. 
I think it was a lot of mental 
breakdowns by us that caused that. 
So, no, I don’t think he needed any 

picking up. I think 
he’s pretty solid 
mentally.”

Lavigne 

continued 
his 
steadfast 

performance 
with 28 saves in 
the 
quarterfinal 

round 
against 

the Badgers with 
28 saves, though 
his prowess was 

an afterthought due to another 
round of high-output play from the 
Wolverine front line.

Lavigne’s comeback in the 

second and third periods Friday 
shows that Michigan holds a 
mentally durable backline able to 
withstand the demands of what, 
from now on, will be postseason 
single-elimination hockey.

Slow start dooms Michigan 
to sixth at Big Ten Indoors

The 
Big 
Ten 
Indoor 

Championships were in full 
throttle last weekend as the 
Michigan men’s track and field 
team finished sixth with 57 
points.

In the shot put, junior Andrew 

Liskowitz and senior Grant 
Cartwright finished fourth and 
fifth, respectively, to contribute 
nine points toward the team 
score.

The relay team, consisting of 

senior Ryan Wilkie, sophomore 
Desmond Melson, junior Matt 
Plowman 
and 
sophomore 

Andrew Lorant also added extra 
points after taking sixth place in 
the distance medley event.

“I thought we had a good day 

(on Saturday),” said Michigan 
coach Jerry Clayton. “We had 
a little bit of a rough start the 
first day. We were hoping to get 
a few more people qualified to 
the finals, but it is what it is. The 
people that we did get through, 
I thought they lined well in that 
final day which helped us finish 
as high as we could.”

The 
second 
day 
of 
the 

tournament featured a historic 
performance from the weight 
throwers. Junior Joe Ellis, in 
particular, was 
the team’s star at 
Saturday’s meet. 
Ellis broke the 
program weight 
throw 
record 

with a distance 
of 23.31 meters 
— 
breaking 

Cartwright’s 
record 
last 

season. 
Ellis 

continued 
his 
record-

breaking performance with a 
championship winning throw 
of 23.64 meters. Ellis’ record 
is 
currently 
ranked 
second 

nationally and 13th in collegiate 
history.

“It’s the first big step towards 

becoming a legendary year,” 
Ellis said. “It certainly feels 
good. Setting a personal record 
at the Big Ten Championships is 
definitely a big deal.”

Cartwright also earned a spot 

on the podium by placing third 
with a season-best toss of 22.87 
meters, losing to Penn State’s 
David Lucas.

“Penn State’s got a great team 

over there,” Ellis said. “We 
are all really close and close 
competitors. 
Me 
and 
Grant 

(Cartwright) 
were 
fighting 

against David Lucas and Morgan 
Shigo. We got more points at the 
end so job well done.”

Ellis 
and 
Cartwright’s 

combined throws totaled 46.51 
meters. Their record went down 
in the books as the farthest 
combined throw by a pair of 
teammates 
in 
a 
non-NCAA 

Championship 
meet. 
Their 

total score also finished as one 
of the best duo added totals in 
collegiate history.

Clayton 
believes 
the 

Wolverines 
should 
rank 
in 

the top 20 nationally, and is 
relying 
on 
certain 
athletes 

to get the team to the NCAA 
Championships. 
Ellis 
and 

Cartwright 
are 
guaranteed 

spots in the weight throw, while 
Liskowitz is waiting on other 

national results 
to 
see 
if 
he 

qualifies in the 
shot put. Senior 
distance runner 
Ben Flanagan is 
also hoping to 
qualify in the 
5000-meter.

“It’s 

attainable 
if 

we get all four 
of them in the 
meet,” 
Clayton 

said. “We’ve come relatively 
close to that. We always want 
people challenging for the top 
three and for the championship. 
That’s a direction that we need to 
keep working hard and moving 
towards in this outdoor season.”

MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

JODI YIP
For the Daily

EMMA RICHTER/Daily

Sophomore goaltender Hayden Lavigne shrugged off a rocky start to Friday’s game to finish with what Mel Pearson called an excellent game.

New York Jump

“I like the 

atmosphere at 
Madison Square 

Garden.”

ROBERT HEFTER

Daily Sports Editor

“Hayden’s 
been great
for us all 

year.”

“We had a little 
bit of a rough 
start the first 

day.”

