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.”