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.”

