2B — Monday, March 19, 2018 SportsMonday The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Putting a spotlight on women’s sports In observance of Women’s History Month, The Daily launches a series aimed at telling the stories of female ath- letes, coaches and teams at the University from the per- spective of the female sports writers on staff. Former managing sports edi- tor Betelhem Ashame kicks off the series with this column. T his month is almost universally known for March Madness, the single best sporting event of the year. In the past weekend of the NCAA Tournament, there was the historic 20-point upset of No. 1 overall seed Virginia at the hands of No. 16 seed UMBC — the only time the lowest seed has beaten the top seed in the men’s tournament. There was No. 13 seed Buffalo putting together a 20-point win of its own over No. 4 seed Ari- zona to secure the first tourna- ment victory in program history. There was No. 11 seed Loyola- Chicago advancing to the Sweet Sixteen on the back of not one, but two game-winning shots against No. 6 seed Miami and No. 3 seed Tennessee, respec- tively. And of course, there was the shot that wrote Jordan Poole’s name in Michigan lore, as the freshman guard — with his legs stretched wide apart and a hand directly in his face — made an improbable, miracle shot to beat the buzzer and punch the third- seeded Wolverines’ ticket to Los Angeles for the Sweet Sixteen. But you already know all that. I’d bet my bracket money on it. There’s probably a lot about this weekend you know noth- ing about, though. For instance, there’s more than one NCAA Tournament in March. And this isn’t the first time a No. 16 seed topped a No. 1 seed. Harvard upset Stanford in the women’s tournament 20 years ago. That fact might catch you by surprise. It certainly did for me when I saw it on Twitter, in rela- tion to UMBC’s feat. I’m just as old as that game, and I had never heard of it. There have been notable upsets in this year’s women’s tournament, too. You just prob- ably didn’t know about them. There was No. 12 seed Florida Gulf Coast stunning No. 5 seed Missouri with a double-digit victory — despite the Tigers’ best player dropping 35 points — becoming the lowest seed to advance to the second round in the 64-team field. There was No. 11 seed Central Michigan securing a win over No. 6 LSU for the first tourna- ment victory in program history as the first 11-seed to win since 2015. Mere hours later, there was No. 11 seed Buffalo pulling off a 20-point upset as well by beating No. 6 seed South Florida to also earn its first tournament victory in program history. And Michigan, which made the tournament for the first time since 2013, advanced out of the first round with a double-digit win over Northern Colorado, but expectedly couldn’t pull off an upset of its own against No. 2 Baylor in Waco, TX. Even as a female former man- aging sports editor of this paper, I admittedly didn’t know much about the women’s tournament this year, either. Besides that Michigan part, I had to do some searching to find out what I just told you. While the men’s tournament has been broadcast all over CBS, TNT and TBS, the women’s tournament has been relegated to ESPN2 — the secondary chan- nel of the network branded as the worldwide leader in sports. That isn’t a new phenomenon for women’s sports. Even on the professional level, for example, the WNBA constantly finds itself stuck on ESPN2, while the NBA spreads its games between ABC, TNT and ESPN. With a lower volume of coverage, it isn’t hard to see why women’s sports struggle to come out from behind the shad- ows. There’s more you should know about this weekend as a Michi- gan fan. The swimming and diving team finished in fourth place at the NCAA Championships and secured a team trophy — earn- ing 267 points, the third-highest total in program history — for the first time since 1996. Nine swimmers, one diver and four relays scored points, includ- ing three national runner-up finishes, to help the Wolverines become the first Big Ten team to earn a top-five finish since that same year. The gymnastics team cap- tured its fourth Big Ten regular- season title in the past six years with its 15th win of the season at the Big Five Meet. Michigan now has an opportunity to claim its fifth consecutive Big Ten Cham- pionship next weekend as well. The water polo team ran its win streak to 15 games with three more victories over ranked opponents to finish off its non- conference slate — the sixth time in program history the Wolver- ines have achieved that many consecutive victories. The softball team did one bet- ter and extended its win streak to 16 games with four victories by a combined margin of 35-0, including an exclamation mark courtesy of freshman right- hander Sarah Schaefer, who tossed the first perfect game of her Michigan career. Those are just five of the 14 female teams that don the maize and blue. I could go on, but I’ll stop there. A few synopses don’t do jus- tice to these teams. Their stories are just as layered and their accomplishments are just as important as those of the men’s teams that have been in the spotlight all this time. They just haven’t received the same level of attention. There’s one more thing you should know about, if you didn’t already. March is also Women’s History Month. It’s an oppor- tune time to put a spotlight on these women. It’s our responsibility to write about them. It’s your responsibil- ity to read about them. Women’s sports have been undervalued in society for a long time, even after Title IX. If you didn’t already, hopefully now you know. So over the course of the next two weeks, in accordance with Women’s History Month, my fellow female sports writers and I will be putting a spotlight on their stories. They deserve to be told. We are here to do the telling. Ashame can be reached at ashabete@umich.edu or on Twitter @betelhem_ashame. EVAN AARON/Daily The men’s basketball NCAA Tournament is going on, but there should be more attention paid to women’s sports. BETELHEM ASHAME A familiar miracle WICHITA, Kan. — You’ve seen that play before. Alright, so you haven’t seen that exact scenario, with Jordan Poole hitting an improbable, contested three to send the Michigan men’s basketball team to the Sweet Sixteen. But you’ve seen that set before. Think back to January, when the Wolverines needed free throws from senior guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman to overcome Maryland. It’s the same set. Freshman forward Isaiah Livers inbounded the ball with a baseball pass to Abdur- Rahkman, who turned at half court and tried to make a play. Back then, he got into the paint and was fouled. This time, he was cut off by Houston defenders, and he had to dish it off to Poole. And the fate of the entire season rested in the hands of the boisterous, inconsistent freshman from Milwaukee. Even before that, it would have been hard to console Abdur-Rahkman with the hope that the play has worked before. Moments earlier, he missed a layup that would have tied the game with six seconds left. He kneeled under the basket after the whistle blew, watching his college career flash before his eyes, as the Cougars had a chance to ice the game away at the free-throw line. “I think people were down. I especially was,” Abdur- Rahkman said. “But I’m a leader, so I have to keep that stale face and show strength. Coach (Beilein) was trying to boost us all up, because we were all kind of down. We thought it was over.” Duncan Robinson was in a similar position. With 2:06 remaining, he was called for his fifth foul in a tie game. It was just the fourth time the fifth-year senior forward had fouled out in his Michigan career, yet there he was, walking to the bench for quite possibly the final time in his Michigan career. Junior forward Moritz Wagner went over to Robinson and tried to tell him that this wouldn’t be his last time, that he had seen his team pull out close games before and that he was about to see it again. But it’s hard to believe at that point. “Michigan’s done so much for me, and I just didn’t want to go out that way,” Robinson said. “You know, that second half I didn’t feel like I played well. I just — I want it more than anything for my teammates, my coaches, this fanbase, the whole University, and I didn’t want to go out like that. For a second there, you try not to go to that place mentally, but I was fighting it. I was fighting it.” John Beilein might have been the only one who kept the faith. Maybe it was just the coach’s façade they must put up to keep their team calm, or maybe it was that he knew his end-of-game play had worked before. Either way, after Abdur- Rahkman’s missed layup, he called his team over to talk about the situation. Beilein pointed to the clock. He was trying to get his team to believe that they had one last chance. “We had a lot of time that we’ve been practicing the play,” Beilein said. “We decided we were going to run it. We had time.” Added Livers: “He literally said, ‘Look. Look at that much time. That’s too much time. We’re good, we’re gonna go with that famous out-of- bounds play.’ He has a lot of trust in that play.” But it isn’t just that the play had worked before or that the Wolverines have won close games before. Jordan Poole has literally hit that shot before. Just last week, when Michigan held an open scrimmage, Poole hit a game- winner from almost the same area of the floor. “It’s like the same spot,” said fifth-year senior guard Jaaron Simmons. “That’s crazy to me. That’s crazy to me. But shoutout to JP, man.” That’s not all, either. Livers says he’s seen Poole take the shot countless times before. In fact, he takes it at the end of his warm-up routine. “I definitely just dream of shots like this,” Poole said. “I’m the one that, when the clock’s going down at shootaround, I’m the one dribbling and waiting to see if I can make the last shot. I missed it earlier when we were doing shootaround, but this last one I didn’t miss.” There’s one more place you’ve seen that shot before. It’s in your dreams. Any kid who has ever touched a basketball has taken that shot in their driveway. You count down the seconds in your head, like Poole at shootaround, and you wait until the last possible moment to heave it from deep and send your hypothetical team to a championship. It isn’t the same, because Poole’s shot was real, but you’ve seen that shot before. On Saturday night, Beilein called his go-to play with the season on the line, trying to salvage more time for Abdur- Rahkman and Robinson and the rest of this team. Poole got the shot that he and so many others have dreamed about taking. And despite everything going on around him, it was easy to see it go in. EVAN AARON/Daily Freshman guard Jordan Poole hit the game-winning, buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift Michigan to a 64-63 win over Houston in the NCAA Tournament. Jordan Poole’s shot may have seemed like a prayer. But it’s something many should be familiar with. MIKE PERSAK Managing Sports Editor “I think people were down. I especially was.” “I definitely just dream of shots like this.”