2B — Monday, March 12, 2018
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
I
t began with the obvious.
Michigan was the 17th
team to have its name called,
but everyone in the room knew
that would happen eight days
ago. The cheers came anyway.
Then
Saddi Wash-
ington
started clap-
ping as CBS
prepared to
announce the
No. 2 seed
in the East.
It would
have landed
Michigan
in Detroit.
But Purdue’s name was called,
and that same enthusiasm was
brought to a halt.
Then the three seeds started
dwindling.
Eventually, though, the Wol-
verines were given theirs. Now
a date with Montana in Wichita,
Kan. awaits.
It’s no secret that it took a lot
of change to get here.
Moritz Wagner needed to start
Moritz Wagnering. Zavier Simp-
son needed to clear every hurdle
to become this team’s starting
point guard. And Michigan need-
ed to follow his lead en route to
becoming a defensive nightmare.
The list could go on.
But now John Beilein has a
new challenge on his hands. He
needs to prepare for a team that
he admittedly knows very little
about. He jokes his players will
have the easy part of it in the
next 24 hours. Wagner jokes that,
with no disrespect, all he knows
is that Montana’s mascot is the
Grizzlies — which is “pretty
cool.”
And yet, the situation isn’t
entirely foreign.
“This happened a few years
ago when we played the South
Dakota (State) Jackrabbits,”
Beilein said. “We knew very
little about them. We sorta had
to figure a few things out. I’m
much more familiar with some of
the other teams that we could’ve
played. That doesn’t mean any-
thing. We’ll get as ready as we
can.”
***
At this point, it may be worth
bringing up the scrimmage — not
because of what happened in it,
but because of who was on the
other sideline.
It was closed to media and
fans, but marked the first time
the Wolverines played anyone but
themselves this year. Toledo was
their opponent and their host,
and the matchup was as official
as it could be without it counting
on either team’s résumé.
It’s where you could have
found Kyle Barlow — Toledo’s
assistant coach and a former
graduate manager for John
Beilein.
Barlow moved to Toledo as
the director of operations after
the 2014 season before being pro-
moted to assistant coach this past
year. He still exchanges texts
with Beilein now and then, and
they often see each other on the
recruiting trail.
And it just so happens Barlow’s
first year under Beilein came in
2012-13. I think you remember
how that season ended.
“That was very lucky,” Barlow
said over the phone Friday after-
noon, “and good timing.”
What you may not remember
is who Michigan played in the
first round that year — none
other than South Dakota State.
As Barlow recalled, he had
two major responsibilities that
year. The first was overseeing the
manager program. The second
was opponent scouting. He, along
with a video coordinator, would
“do a lot of the leg work”— cut-
ting clips and generating scout-
ing reports before presenting it
to the coaching staff for further
tweaking.
“That was probably my favor-
ite part,” Barlow says, “was just
the film study and growing in
that aspect.”
It’s in Barlow that you can
find one of the plenty third-party
observers that have found them-
selves a part of Beilein’s coaching
tree.
Though he was unable to
speak on record about the scrim-
mage itself, he says he tries to
watch the Wolverines as much as
he can.
He even admits Toledo’s
offense does similar things to
Michigan’s.
“Honestly,” he joked, “I try to
steal a lot of stuff that they do
and kind of make it our own.”
That, along with plenty of the
staff’s own work, clearly worked
out. The Rockets finished 23-11,
and they came 10 points shy of
earning an automatic bid in the
Mid-American Conference Tour-
nament championship.
***
But let’s return to 2013 for a
moment.
There aren’t many parallels
you can find between this year’s
iteration of Michigan and one
that had a roster with six future
NBA draft picks, other than both
being pegged to make a run in
March.
As Barlow recalls, the first
took pride in being flat-out tal-
ented. It helped that they had
Naismith winner Trey Burke,
too. This year, though, Barlow
sees something different.
“I think they have more of a
chip on their shoulder,” he says.
“And that starts with Zavier
Simpson, that they take pride in
defense and really just shutting
opponents down and almost like
embarrassing the opponents —
not embarrassing them in a bad
way, but just shutting them down
to the point where they don’t look
like (themselves).”
For Barlow, though, there is
one parallel worth noting.
“To be honest, the only simi-
larity I’ve seen is that they’ve
continually gotten better,” he
said.
He added: “You know, it’s hard
to find (a team’s strength) some-
times at the beginning of the
year. But in the middle of the year
and toward the end of the year,
he always seems to find it and
they play to their potential — and
probably above their potential.”
That progress, as always, trac-
es back to Beilein.
With examples abound, Bar-
low’s experience as a self-admit-
ted “fly on the wall” serves as one
instance within a collective.
“He would listen to every-
body,” Barlow recalls. “He was
like a mad scientist when it came
to that. … I bet he does practice
plans four or five different times
before he actually settles on a
final one. He’s just that kind of
guy.”
Victor Frankenstein had his
monster. Beilein, again, has his.
He may know little to nothing
about Montana. But that hasn’t
been a problem before.
Santo can be reached at
kmsanto@umich.edu or on
Twitter at @Kevin_M_Santo.
EVAN AARON/Daily
Michigan coach John Beilein admitted he knows very little about Montana, equating it to when the Wolverines faced South Dakota State in the 2012-13 tournament.
KEVIN
SANTO
In Montana, Beilein faces a familiarly unfamiliar challenge
SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN
Michigan set to challenge in manageable West
After a week-long respite
following
its
Big
Ten
Tournament
championship,
the Michigan men’s basketball
team finally has its NCAA
Tournament path.
The 3rd-seeded Wolverines
will face No. 14 seed Montana
on
Thursday
afternoon
in
Wichita, Kan. Michigan will
be in the West Region, with
Xavier and North Carolina as
the two higher-seeded teams,
respectively.
“We’re flattered that we have
a 3 seed,” Michigan coach John
Beilein told reporters shortly
after the bracket was unveiled
Sunday evening, “but as I said to
everybody, a 2, 3, 4 seed doesn’t
make a difference because who
can tell what the 12, 13, 14, 15
seeds are like? They’re all the
same, too. They’ve got to put
some numbers into a hat and
see how it’ll all look.”
Beilein said his assistants
and staff would be up late into
the night trying to learn about
the Grizzlies.
“Nothing,” Beilein said with
a few chuckles when asked
what he knows about his
opponent. “We played them
when I was at West Virginia in
a tournament, but it was many
coaches ago.
“I guarantee I will not be
laughing (tomorrow).”
Montana
is
ranked
71st
according
to
KenPom.com,
and was 0-4 against teams
in the KenPom.com top 100.
It finished 26-7, winning the
Big Sky regular season and
tournament title.
If Michigan is able to take
care of Montana, it would
face the winner of No. 6 seed
Houston and No. 11 seed San
Diego
State.
The
Cougars
currently sit at 17th in the
KenPom.com
rankings,
the
highest of any 6 seed in the
field. They fell just a point shy of
winning the American Athletic
Conference
Tournament,
losing
56-55
to
Cincinnati
in the tournament final on
Sunday. On short rest, they
would
indisputably
present
a challenge before perhaps
the
most
highly-anticipated
matchup in the region.
But if both teams take care
of
their
lower-seeded
first
weekend opponents, Michigan
and
North
Carolina
would
square off in Los Angeles for
a spot in the Elite Eight. The
game would be a rematch of an
early November contest that
the Tar Heels won handily,
86-71.
North
Carolina
forward
Luke Maye imposed his will
on fifth-year senior forward
Duncan Robinson in that one,
scoring 27 points.
After
that
contest,
a
disappointed John Beilein told
the media “(North Carolina)
might be that good, but we’re
definitely not that bad.
“Just watch this team grow,
you’ll like what they do.”
Following an embarassing
loss, that statement was met
with ambivalence. But it has
proven true throughout the
progression of the season.
Since then, the Tar Heels
have played up to snuff, fighting
at or near the top of the ACC as
a defending national champion
is expected to do. They won 25
games — including two over
arch-rival Duke — and lost in
the ACC Tournament final
Saturday night.
Michigan, of course, has
flipped the script just as Beilein
foretold.
The Wolverines improved
steadily, reaching a crescendo
at the Big Ten Tournament,
where they ripped off four wins
in
four
days,
including
two
against
top-5
opponents. For
many
reasons,
a
rematch
would
be
a
whole different
ballgame.
And
junior
center
Moritz Wagner
would
like
to
find out.
“We
were
a different team back then,”
Wagner said. “That’s definitely
something, as a competitor, you
would look forward to.”
And if it were to advance
past North Carolina, Michigan
would need to win one more
game
—
possibly
against
Atlantic
10
regular
season
champion
Xavier
or
West
Coast Conference champion
Gonzaga — to make the once-
unimaginable
trip
to
San
Antonio for the Final Four.
It’s no longer unimaginable.
Beilein and his team would
never entertain those chances,
of course. But the Wolverines
are one of the hottest teams
in the country, riding a nine-
game
winning
streak
into
the Big Dance.
Michigan
will
be
a
trendy
pick
in
your
bracket pool. It
currently
has
the
fifth-best
odds to win the
national title at
10/1, according
to Westgate Las
Vegas.
And it avoided the gauntlet
of, say, the South Region,
filled with heavyweights like
Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona,
Cincinnati and Tennessee.
The bracket is set. Let the
madness begin.
EVAN AARON/Daily
Junior forward Moritz Wagner is intrigued by a potential rematch against North Carolina.
MAX MARCOVITCH
Daily Sports Editor
The bracket
is set. Let
the madness
begin.