The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday, March 8, 2018— 5A

ACROSS
1 Vaccine pioneer
Salk
6 Biblical verb
10 Sever, with “off”
13 “The Good Wife”
wife
15 Irrawaddy River
locale
16 Hubbub
17 Grilled sandwich
18 *Hobbyist’s
broadcasting
equipment
20 Checked out
21 Gather
23 Domestic sock
eater?
24 Storied climber
26 Little limb
27 *Drama in the
Nielsen top 10
four times during
the ’70s
32 Special __
35 Mets modifier of
1969
36 Noggin
37 Case in Lat.
grammar
38 Twit
39 Cuts and pastes,
say
41 Trellis climber
42 Corner PC key
43 Expert
44 Mysterious girl on
“Stranger Things”
46 “Zip it!”
47 *Ball of fire
49 “No __!”: “Sure!”
51 Lose one’s coat
52 Moves to the
melody
54 “__ Encounter”:
SeaWorld show
56 Shakespearean
“You as well?”
60 *“Oh boy, it’s
starting!”
62 First words
64 Muffin grain
65 Believe
66 Wind farm blades
67 Like some grins
68 People
69 Liquid whose
chemical formula
is a homophonic
hint to the
answers to
starred clues

DOWN
1 Zinger
2 Body wash brand
3 Largest single-
digit square
4 Genre
incorporating
elements of funk
and hip-hop
5 Transgression
6 “LOL”
7 “Right away!”
8 Dickens boy
9 Taxing and
successful
10 Coventry rider
11 Dog that licks
Garfield
12 Low-quality
14 Where many
missed
connections
occur
19 MLB’s D-backs
22 2003 holiday film
25 IV lead?
26 Bouffant feature
27 Flame-haired
villain in Disney’s
“Hercules”
28 Mennonite sect
29 Super Bowl
gathering, e.g.

30 Mediterranean
vacation island
31 Zoo doc
33 “The Hunger
Games” land
34 __ pad
40 Barely lit
41 Blood feud
43 List of notables
45 Soap chemical
48 Defense advisory
gp.

50 __ whiskey
52 Thing to put on
53 Put on
54 Look bad?
55 Slender cylinders
57 Budweiser
Clydesdales’
pace
58 Shredded
59 TASS country
61 Many years
63 “Spring the trap!”

By Brian Thomas
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/08/18

03/08/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, March 8, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

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Akienreh Johnson was ready

to let her frustration out into the
open.

Johnson had torn her ACL in

the midst of the 2016-17 season,
then gotten cleared in time for
the start of the season. She had
put in the work in practice and
extra workouts. And she wasn’t
seeing the results.

The sophomore guard met

with
Michigan
coach
Kim

Barnes Arico not about playing
time, but about finding a way to
start seeing the returns on those
hours.

“AK, you’re doing great,”

she recalled being assured by
Barnes
Arico
and
assistant

coach Melanie Moore. “Just
keep working, like, your time
will come.”

Cliches and platitudes aren’t

the most reassuring thing. There
turned out to be some truth to
them this time.

The door opened for Johnson

the following week at Breslin
Center, in the midst of an
upset loss to Michigan State.
Freshman
forward
Hailey

Brown went down with a leg
injury and Johnson’s name was
called as much out of necessity
as want. Three days later, at
Minnesota, she would be in the
rotation.

Johnson had played just 12

minutes in the last six games,
sitting on the bench for the
duration of four. When she got
on the floor during that span,
it was a stream of errors — a
turnover, a missed shot, a long
walk back to the bench.

“Okay, I know I haven’t been

playing but I have to make sure
I know the plays,” Johnson
told herself before the trip to
Minneapolis. “Have to make
sure I know multiple positions,
have to make sure I was ready.”

26 minutes and 19 points later,

it was clear she had done at least
that much.

As
the
Wolverines
await

a
likely
bid

to
the
NCAA

Tournament,
Johnson
has

emerged
seemingly
out

of nowhere as a
go-to scorer. The
contest
against

the
Golden

Gophers was the
first sign.

After the game

— a 93-87 loss for the Michigan
women’s
basketball
team
—

Johnson’s
teammates
were

impressed her output. She didn’t
even realize how well she had
played.

“All I know

is
that
we

lost,”
Johnson

said. “So after
the
game,
my

teammates
told

me,
they
said,

‘You know you
had 19 points.’
And
I
was

like, ‘Really?’ I
thought
I
had

like,
seven
or

eight.”

With that, something clicked.
Johnson was already coning

off a torn ACL when she came
to Michigan, having suffered
the same injury during her
senior year at Rogers High
School. When her knee twisted
the wrong way during an early
morning practice in 2016, she
didn’t even realize she had torn
it again.

“I went like a week walking

around on it thinking I was
gonna come back to playing,”
Johnson said. “Until I got my
MRI.”

The
second
time
around,

Johnson’s rehab was longer than
before, but she knew what was
coming. When her knee didn’t
bend, she knew it eventually

would. When she still couldn’t
walk, she knew she eventually
would.

Even so, there

were anxieties in
returning. It took
Johnson
time

to trust a knee
that had twice
suffered such a
serious injury.

“I would like

fall — and I’d be
completely fine,
like I wouldn’t be
hurt — I would
just fall,” Johnson said. “And I
would have to sit out (of practice)
because I was just nervous.”

With the sole exception of a

midseason stretch filled mostly
with non-conference blowouts,
Johnson
played
sparingly.

Whether she got on the floor
for one minute or 20, though,
her parents gave her feedback.
If
possible,
Johnson
would

watch back the tape with them.
If not, they’d watch it and give
her
feedback
—
constantly

reminding Johnson of how far
she’d come to be on the court at
all.

“It’s like a really positive

thing and they just wanna keep
my head up,” Johnson said.
“Because sometimes, you know,
you get down on yourself if you
don’t play.”

After
taking
off
against

Minnesota, Johnson has stayed
in orbit. She played the hero on
Senior Night, hitting a 3-point
dagger
against
then-No.
13

Maryland to cap a 17-point
performance, a shot she says
she knew was going in before
ever touching the ball. Johnson
joked that night her success
was
because
the
Terrapins

hadn’t included her on the
scouting report. At the Big
Ten Tournament, Penn State’s
players shouted “Right driver!”
every time she touched the ball.
Johnson scored 13 on 5-of-9
shooting in a blowout victory for
the Wolverines anyway, driving
whichever way she pleased.

Now,
there

are
no
more

frustrations.
Johnson
has

an
easygoing

demeanor about
her as she sits
in
the
Crisler

Center’s
media

room
after

practice.

“I know that

I can get to the

basket either if they know what
I’m gonna do or not,” she says.
“... I know that I can score.”

The sophomore guard has recovered from two torn ACLs in the past three seasons and now plays a big role for Michigan
After frustrating season, Johnson emerges as key scorer for Wolverines

ETHAN SEARS
Daily Sports Writer

ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily

Sophomore guard Akienreh Johnson has developed into a potent scoring threat for Michigan down the final stretch of this season.

She didn’t even

realize how
well she had

played.

“I would

have to sit out
because I was
just nervous.”

Final stretch leads back to Ohio State

P

redictions are a funny
thing.

Of course, they must

first be based
off some
prior knowl-
edge, oth-
erwise they
would have
little cred-
ibility.

Before

the season
started, the
odds were
not in the
Michigan hockey team’s favor.
After an ugly 2016-17 season,
in addition to a head coaching
change for the first time in 33
years, the team seemed likely
to head into a transition year.
In that regard, the Wolverines’
projected finish of second-to-
last in the Big Ten Preseason
Coaches Poll was a fair one.

At the same time, predic-

tions are, at best, guesses.

And with a season as long as

that of collegiate hockey — a
late-September to April mara-
thon for teams who make the
postseason — these forecasts
seem even more arbitrary.

But from the start, despite

scrutiny, this team was always
the biggest advocate for itself.

“Coming into the season,

we knew we were going to be
good,” said senior forward
Dexter Dancs. “I know a lot of
people in the media and outsid-
ers were kind of saying ‘This is
a transition year.’ ... But that’s
not what we were thinking. We
were thinking we were going to
be in the spot that we are now.”

And ‘transition’ certainly

wasn’t in this team’s vocabu-
lary. Come January, any
remaining critics had been
quieted after Michigan rattled
off four straight wins against
ranked opponents in Min-
nesota and Penn State. Come
February, it had swept Notre
Dame, the then-No. 1 team in
the nation, and become a rel-
evant player in the NCAA tour-
nament conversation.

The Wolverines have done

what they came to do this sea-
son, all while shocking those
who watched an accelerated
transformation unfold, partic-
ularly with the offensive unit.

Tony Calderone led the Wol-

verines’ offense last season
with a mere 15 goals. This year,
the senior forward has already
scored 23 goals among his 39
total points. Calderone is best-
ed by junior linemate Cooper
Marody who led the Big Ten
with 44 points — an amount
over double that of any individ-
ual on the roster last season.

Michigan, which finished

37th in the PairWise Rankings
last season, now sits tied for
No. 7 — a position that almost
assuredly locks in a tourna-
ment bid come the Selection
Show on March 18.

But make no mistake —

while the Wolverines’ season
won’t come to an end regard-
less of what happens this
weekend, by no means does
that make it any less impor-
tant.

There is only one Big Ten

team Michigan hasn’t defeated
yet this season. It is the same
team it will face Saturday in
the semifinal
round of the Big
Ten Tourna-
ment. Oh, and
it happens to be
the Wolverines’
most notorious
rival, as well.

Don’t get me

wrong, Michi-
gan doesn’t
have to do any-
thing more to
prove itself this season. It will,
barring an unforeseen circum-
stance, have a chance at a run
in the NCAA Tournament. An
exit in the semifinal round of
the conference tournament
certainly would not mar their
already rewarding season.

But defeating Ohio State

this weekend would put the
Wolverines over one final
hump. A victory in the first

round of single-elimination
play would undoubtedly spur
postseason momentum. A vic-
tory would put them one game
away from a Big Ten Tourna-
ment championship. And as
Michigan has defeated both
the Nittany Lions and Fighting
Irish this season, claiming the
title would hardly be incon-
ceivable at that point.

Getting through this week-

end, though, is going to be a
taller task. The Buckeyes have
defeated the Wolverines in all
four of their meetings during
the regular season, mostly
doing so with ease.

But as the cliché goes, the

postseason is a whole differ-
ent ballgame. At practice this
week, Mel Pearson provided
his team with a personal anec-
dote to highlight this phenom-
enon.

During his tenure as an

assistant coach for Michigan,
Pearson recalled the senior
year of Brian Wiseman and
Steve Shields — two members
of his current coaching staff.
The Wolverines had played
and defeated Lake Superior
State five times during the
regular season.

“We played

them again in
the regional
final, up at
Munn Ice Arena
in Lansing, and
the winner went
on to the Frozen
Four,” Pearson
described. “And
they beat us
in overtime. …
Lake Superior

went onto win the national
championship, and we had
beaten them five times.

“We know we haven’t

beaten (Ohio State), but we get
another kick at the can.”

Maybe the fifth time will be

the charm.

Anna Marcus can be reached

at annahm@umich.edu or on

Twitter @Anna_H_Marcus.

ANNA
MARCUS

With NCAA Tournament bid all but sealed up, Wolverines looking for elusive first win against rival Buckeyes

“Coming into the

season, we knew

we were going to

be good.”