The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday, March 22, 2018 — 5A
ACROSS
1 Fall face first
while skiing, say
6 Mighty silly
11 Part of ROM:
Abbr.
14 Longest-serving
prime minister of
India
15 Austrian actress
Berger
16 Kanye West’s
“I __ God”
17 Soda fountain
come-on?
19 Monarch catcher
20 Brooklyn
Dodgers legend
Campanella
21 In questionable
taste
22 All excited
24 Radiant glow
25 Italian cheese
26 Earthquake
coverage?
31 Aids in illegal
activity
32 Roberts of “That
’70s Show”
33 Comic Martha
34 One-named
singer with 15
Grammys
36 Neeson of “Love
Actually”
40 Continue gabbing
42 Ship’s seepage
43 List in a quiz
program recap?
47 Latin ballroom
dances
48 Berlin octet
49 One of a Dumas
trio
50 Civil rights leader
Chavez
52 __-tip steak
55 Barnyard sound
56 Lower hulls
fortified?
59 Directional suffix
60 Missouri tribe
61 Not-giving-up
phrase
62 Completed
63 Fishing boot
64 Taboos, and a
hint to the four
longest puzzle
answers
DOWN
1 Career for a sci.
major
2 Flight-related
prefix
3 Unspecified folks
4 Sportswriter
Berkow
5 Clucks of
disapproval
6 __ School: art
movement
featuring NYC
scenes
7 Top out
8 Very dark
9 Abbr. in some
Québec
addresses
10 Contributes
11 Oscar-nominated
“Flashdance”
song
12 Arise
13 San __, California
18 Asian dress
23 Contender for the
crown
24 Steve Rogers, for
Captain America
25 Composer of the
opera “Alfred”
26 At a distance
27 Chicago-based
law org.
28 Illegal fwy.
maneuver
29 Court worker
30 Co. that merged
with Continental
34 Queen’s subjects
35 “And how!”
37 Sort
38 Sit in a cellar,
maybe
39 Club __
41 Base
entertainment
42 Persian Gulf
monarchy
43 Persian Gulf
native
44 Release
45 Egyptian leader
for whom a lake
is named
46 Union foe
47 Gained control of
50 Dressed
51 Advantage
52 1982 sci-fi film
53 Defaulter’s risk
54 Time to beware
57 Spanish
she-bear
58 Frat letter
By Robert and Marlea Ellis
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/22/18
03/22/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, March 22, 2018
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
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Jordan Poole’s next challenge
It doesn’t matter if Jordan
Poole
never
makes
another
basket. He’s already cemented
himself
into
Michigan
basketball lore.
You’ve probably seen the shot
a thousand times. Awkwardly
released, fully covered, a heave
in desperation. Yet it still found
nylon, of course.
On
Tuesday,
Poole
told
reporters he was poked in the
eye during the game, making it
feel like he had a film over his
pupil. It’s even more reason why
the play is one of the most — if
not the most — improbable shots
of the NCAA Tournament.
Naturally,
attention
has
swarmed Poole. Standing in
a water-soaked locker room
amidst a blinding artillery of
camera lights, he opened his
phone to 532 texts a half-an-
hour after the buzzer. They came
from close friends to middle
school teachers to pastors in his
hometown Milwaukee.
Poole said his Instagram
account has nearly doubled in
followers up to roughly 51,000,
which makes for the most on the
team — something the freshman
wasn’t hesitant to point out.
Enough people on Twitter even
mistook him for Jordan Peele,
prompting the Oscar-winning
“Get Out” director to fire off an
ironic tweet about his jump-shot
practice paying off.
Oh, and Poole graced our
Sports Monday cover — clearly
the most exciting of all.
As of Tuesday, Poole said he
has watched the video of the
shot at least 500 times. Even at
that number, he said it doesn’t
get old.
“Every time I watch it,” Poole
said, “I keep getting goosebumps
and butterflies because it’s just
amazing that I hit the shot.
“I just can’t not smile every
time I look at it, like, ‘Yo, I
actually hit that.’ ”
There’s probably no other
Wolverine who would enjoy
these circumstances more than
Poole. Guys like sophomores Jon
Teske and Zavier Simpson, along
with even captains Duncan
Robinson and Muhammad-Ali
Abdur-Rahkman are relatively
reserved when swarms of media
gather around after big-time
performances.
But that’s not Poole. He was
born for the spotlight, relishing
almost all the focus that’s come
his way.
“I mean, he’s got a lot of
confidence, and he’ll tell you
about it, too,” Michigan coach
John Beilein told reporters on
Saturday.
It’s
that
confidence,
or
“overdose
of
swagger”
as
Beilein said in
a TV interview
directly after the
buzzer-beater,
that
allowed
Poole to drill the
shot and create
memories
for
Michigan players
and
fans
that
will carry on for
years.
But
there’s
still basketball left to be played.
After all, just two wins separate
the Wolverines from the Final
Four. And that’s where Poole’s
quandary comes. His “overdose
of swagger” can be exactly that
sometimes: an overdose.
Early in Big Ten Play, heat-
check 3-pointers,
lapses
on
defense
and
the
occasional
failed highlight
would
irk
Beilein, making
an
already
short leash even
shorter. As such,
Poole
played
just 10.5 minutes
through
the
season’s first 16 games.
But
Poole
soon
began
executing
the
simpler
maneuvers — “winning plays”
as Beilein describes them — and
was rewarded with more agency
and playing time.
And after a sturdy drought,
Poole began to take off in late
January. Fifteen points against
Ohio State. A trio of 3-pointers
against Maryland. A posterizing,
SportsCenter-top-play
dunk
against Penn State. Poole was so
effective that he began cutting
into Charles Matthews’ minutes
— the redshirt sophomore guard
who led Michigan in scoring
during non-conference play.
“(Poole) wasn’t in the rotation
because he was learning so
much about basketball that he
wasn’t helping us,” Beilein said
Feb. 20. “He was going to help
us win games, but he matured.
He got better.”
But
then
the
Big
Ten
Tournament hit, and Poole’s
shot was off. After a 1-for-
9 effort in the quarterfinals,
freshman forward Isaiah Livers
was asked about his roommate’s
struggles.
“He’ll pop out of his slump
sometime,” Livers said. “He’s a
natural scorer.”
“Slump?” Poole interjected
from the locker over.
“You’re in a slump right now,
bro,” Livers responded.
“Watch tomorrow. I’ll pop out
of it.”
But under the bright lights of
Madison Square Garden, Poole’s
attempts simply wouldn’t fall,
finishing with just 13 total
points over four games.
Last Saturday, however, he
still hit the shot. All the pressure
and all the talk of a slump has
become a distant thought.
But
now,
the
Wolverines
need a strong Poole to beat
Texas A&M on Thursday. The
Aggies thwarted No. 2 seed
North Carolina’s interior on
Sunday. The Tar Heels failed
to open up lanes for slashers
and opportunties on the block,
shooting
an
abysmal
6-for-
31 from beyond the arc and
allowing Texas A&M to advance
in emphatic fashion.
To
avoid
the
same
fate,
Poole and Michigan need to
knock down 3-pointers — and
efficiently
so.
That
means
making those winning plays and
avoiding heat checks — despite
the greatness of Poole’s last shot.
And
to
his
credit,
even
through all the hype, new
Instagram
followers
and
celebrity shootouts, Poole seems
to understand just that.
“(Coach) definitely told me to
live in the moment, and take it
all in,” Poole said. “But it’s only
so long you can do it before you
move on to the next game.”
The freshman guard has cemented himself in Michigan lore. Now, he and the Wolverines will look to take down Texas A&M
MARK CALCAGNO
Daily Sports Editor
EVAN AARON/Daily
Freshman guard Jordan Poole entered school lore when he hit a last second, game-winning 3-pointer to give Michigan a 64-63 win over Houston.
“Every time
I watch it, I
keep getting
goosebumps ...”
Abdur-Rahkman, Michigan look to solve shooting struggles against Aggies
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Michigan shot under 40 percent from the floor and 28 percent from deep in the first two games of the NCAA Tournament.
this time of year. The Wolverines
snuck into the Sweet Sixteen
despite struggling to score.
If that performance is repeated
this weekend, they might not be so
fortunate.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — There
are two lines of thinking when a
good team plays badly.
One is that it’s a problem to be
taken seriously, because any sort
of slump in the postseason can
easily spell doom for a team.
The Michigan men’s basketball
team, after shooting under 40
percent from the floor and 28
percent from deep in two games
last weekend, has taken the
second train of thought. The
Wolverines believe their play, and
their shooting in particular, will
regress to the mean eventually.
“We didn’t make them last week,
but we’ve got to stay encouraged
and still have that confidence to
take and make open shots,” said
senior
guard
Muhammad-Ali
Abdur-Rahkman. “That’s what
we’ve been doing, we haven’t
really changed anything.”
“We’ve been winning,” added
sophomore guard Zavier Simpson.
“We’re on a good winning streak.
We want to continue what we’ve
been doing, and hopefully the
shots fall. We want to make sure
everybody stays confident, and
when (the shots) fall, that’s when
it’s a whole different ballgame.”
For
Michigan,
that’s
the
positive side of things. Even with
lackluster shooting numbers, it’s
still playing basketball because
of freshman guard Jordan Poole’s
game-winning
shot
against
Houston.
And to a man, it seems the
Wolverines are thinking positively
about their next opportunity to
break out of their slump against
Texas A&M on Thursday.
“Zavier takes pride in that,”
said freshman forward Isaiah
Livers. “He was like, ‘Dang, we’re
up two and we’re not even playing
our best right now,’ at halftime.
And I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re right,
X. We’ve just gotta come out and
play better.’ And that’s why I said I
was really looking forward to this
game to see what happened over
the week and if we’re gonna hit
that shot or not.”
The
concerning
side
to
Michigan’s shooting struggles last
week is that there isn’t a strategic
change that can be made to fix it.
The Wolverines got good shots
against Houston and Montana,
but they weren’t falling.
Shooting
is
variable,
and
it’s contagious. When a good
shot doesn’t go in, there isn’t
much more to do but shrug your
shoulders and shoot it again the
next time. Michigan coach John
Beilein said as much Wednesday.
“I see us just going to play on,”
Beilein said. “We were fortunate
to be here, and we played the best
basketball we could play. It wasn’t
as good as some of our other
games, but that just happens.
Everybody is always asking for
reasons why. There is no reason
why. It just happens. They’re
19-year-old kids. It just happens.”
So what do you do in practice
the next week to improve you
shooting? You shoot.
At least with that, according to
Beilein, there is a silver lining.
“Yesterday, we did our shooting
drills, and it was the highest
numbers we’ve ever gotten as
a team as far as our shooting
drill,” Beilein said at his press
conference Tuesday. “It was just a
five-minute shooting drill, but the
lowest guy had 55 threes in five
minutes, and that was the lowest
guy. And the standard used to be
50 until we became good at it, and
now it’s 60. Of our 12 players, 10
got 60.”
And there is the confidence
again. Every Michigan player and
coach says that the shooting woes
won’t continue. After all, this is
the same team whose offense lit
up Madison Square Garden to win
the Big Ten Tournament.
But they’d better be right. The
margin for error is much less
MIKE PERSAK
Managing Sports Editor