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Thursday, May 17, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS

Five years later, Trey Burke 

discovers a new beginning

Trey Burke lined up across 
from Corey Person with only 
winning on his mind.
This wasn’t a practice drill 
between the two guards — 
Burke a sophomore on his way 
to winning National Player 
of the Year, Person a walk-on 
in his senior year. Nor was it 
a pickup game after practice. 
It wasn’t even on a basketball 
court.
In a football tailgate lot out-
side Michigan Stadium, the 
Michigan 
men’s 
basketball 
team was hosting an event for 
recruits, and a pickup football 
game had broken out. Playing 
wide receiver, Burke’s competi-
tive urge kicked in.
“He wanted to win so bad — 
not only did he want to win, he 
wanted to embarrass (Person),” 
recalled then-graduate man-
ager Kyle Barlow. “And (Burke) 
dominated him.”
It didn’t matter that this was 
a different sport. It didn’t mat-
ter that this was as informal a 
setting as you could get. Burke 
had to win, and he did.
That was what every bas-
ketball recruit visiting Ann 
Arbor realized that day— and 
what the Wolverines’ coaching 
staff had come to understand 
a year prior—when they saw 
Burke play against live com-
petition for the first time at a 
closed-door scrimmage against 

Toledo. Trey Burke, it turns out, 
makes a strong first impression.
On that day in October 2011, 
Burke had walked into the 
scrimmage with Stu Douglass, 
the presumptive starter at point 
guard. Instead, video analyst 
Pete Kahler, assistant coach 
LaVall Jordan and administra-
tive specialist C.J. Lee watched 
together, mouths agape, as 
Burke came off the bench and 
gave Michigan its answer.
Almost immediately, Burke 
stripped the ball from an oppos-
ing player, blew by Toledo’s 
transition defense and scored. 
He followed that by coming 
off a ball-screen and nailing 
a jumper, then picking up an 
assist. The coaching staff had 
known Burke was good, but not 
this good, and not this soon.
“We’re like, ‘Whoa. We 
might need to give this kid the 
key to the car,’ ” Kahler said. “It 
was just very clear right away 
that (Burke) was just more ath-
letic and more skilled than any-
body on the court.”
“It was the first experience 
of him in live competition,” 
Lee, who played point guard at 
Michigan between 2007 and 
2009, added. “And it was some-
thing that was just noticeable. 
It’s like, ‘This guy is made to do 
this.’ ”
When Burke came out, the 
offense slowed down. When he 
checked back in, it sped right 
back up. This wasn’t just a few 
good minutes. It was a precur-

sor for the next two seasons.
Anyone with eyes knew 
then and there that Burke was 
simply better than Douglass. 
Including Douglass.
“Stu went up to (Michigan) 
coach (John) Beilein and said, 
you know, ‘Coach, we gotta 
start him at the point,’ ” Kahler 
recalled.
It took all of one game — 
the opener against Division II 
Ferris State — for that to come 
to fruition. Three days later 
when the Wolverines faced 
Towson, Beilein heeded Dou-
glass’ advice. The starting job 
belonged to Burke.
Burke’s legend starts there 
and, for now, ends 18 months 
later with a seemingly clean 
block, a whistle and a national 
championship game loss to 
Louisville. 
Everything 
that 
happens after is often consid-
ered a mere footnote because 
until four months ago, Burke 
was just another player who 
peaked in college before flam-
ing out at the next level. Burke 
still may end up being just that, 
but he’s as close to rewriting 
that script as ever.
 ***
There’s a formula to a season 
ending: Coaches frustrated, 
teammates nervous for the 
impending finish, shots that 
normally fall rimming out. In 
the 2013 Sweet 16 against Kan-
sas, Michigan was following 
that to a T—until Burke broke it.
Burke had been trying to 

rally the troops throughout the 
second half, telling his team-
mates in timeout huddles it 
wasn’t over, they could come 
back — all the things you say 
partly because you believe 
them and partly because not 
saying them would be admit-
ting defeat. It wasn’t until the 
Wolverines were down eight 
with two minutes to go and 
Burke forced a 10-second call 
on the Jayhawks’ Elijah John-
son that they became more 
than platitudes.
At that point, LaVall Jordan 
started to holler, using a white 
Gatorade towel to smack the 
raised court, getting louder 
with each shot.
As Burke kept hitting shots 
— a stepback 3-pointer over Jeff 
Withey to cut the deficit to five, 
a transition layup to cut it to 
three — Jordan began ignoring 
the playcalls Kahler suggested 
to him.
“Pete!” Kahler remembered 
him yelling. “Just let that boy 
rock!”
When Burke hit a shot, 
Jordan would scream, “That 
boy is special!” annunciating 
each word by hitting the towel 
against the court, sending fluff 
towards Kahler, as the rest of 
the bench stared, wide-eyed, 
the Wolverines pulling ever 
closer.
Still, Michigan needed to 
foul Johnson and pray for a miss 
on the front end of a 1-and-1 to 
have a chance to tie at the end of 
regulation. Whether Johnson 
made or missed his free throws, 
the plan was the same: get the 
ball in as fast as possible, set two 
high ball-screens for Burke and 
go from there.
Everyone knew the last 
shot — Michigan still needing 
a 3-pointer to tie — belonged to 
Burke. But he wasn’t supposed 
to pull up, at least not from 
30 feet. He did anyway and 
drained it.
“The follow-through was 
like a goose-neck,” said then-
junior guard Tim Hardaway 
Jr. “It was perfect, pretty, you 
couldn’t teach it any better.”
“After (Burke) hit the shot 
… and then we all went to the 
timeout, he kept saying, ‘We’re 
not losing this game,’ ” then-
senior guard Eso Akunne 
recalled.
The Wolverines still had to 
defend with 4.3 seconds left, a 
situation they had blown ear-
lier in the season after a Hard-
away triple had seemingly won 

a game at Wisconsin. But after 
Naadir Tharpe’s try at a game-
winner fell short, Michigan 
could see an impending loss on 
the face of every Kansas player.
Throughout that year — 
even with a starting lineup that 
included three other future 
NBA Draftees — Michigan had 
leaned on Burke, and Burke 
had delivered. Now, with the 
season on the line, he had done 
so again.
“It’s almost like a warm 
blanket,” Kahler said. “You’d go 
on the court and (know) that, 
no matter what happened, we 
had that great chance of win-
ning. We were probably gonna 
win because we had Trey 
Burke on the team.”
The blown lead oozed into 
the Jayhawks’ body language 
and the comeback into Michi-
gan’s, as Burke rollicked around 
the court, scoring the Wolver-
ines’ first five points of over-
time. All the while, Jordan kept 
thwacking that towel.
“Just let him go!” Kahler 
recalled Jordan belting. “Don’t 
need to run plays, just set a ball-
screen, let him go to work.”
When the buzzer sounded, 
handing Michigan an impos-
sible 87-85 victory, it had Burke 
to thank.
“Probably next to getting 
married, one of the best feelings 
in the world,” Kahler said. “I’m 
serious.”
***
Needless to say, Burke hadn’t 
expected to be taking commer-
cial flights to Canton, Ohio and 
Greensboro, and North Caro-
lina four years later. But with 
his basketball career in need 
of a revival, life took Burke to 
White Plains, New York, home 
of the G-League’s Westchester 
Knicks.
Four years after Burke 
played in front of the entire 
country during the Final Four, 
he was running point in front 
of barren arenas off the beaten 
path. At Michigan, Burke had 
been vocal in huddles during 
games, but often led by exam-
ple. Now, at age 25, he was one 
of the team’s oldest, most expe-
rienced players.
With the Wolverines, the 
closest Burke had come to men-
torship was when Caris LeVert 
— another future NBA player 
from the Columbus area and 
a year behind Burke — came 
to Michigan. The two trash-
talked, telling each other, “You 
can’t guard me,” until there was 

no choice but settle it on the 
court. They played before prac-
tice, after practice — even on 
gamedays, at least until Kahler 
kicked them out of the gym.
“They would go back and 
forth — who can’t guard who, 
or who would win 1-on-1 — 
and then there was just sorta, 
‘Alright, shut up and grab a ball,’ 
” Person said. “Next thing you 
know, they’re at it again.”
In 
Westchester 
though, 
Burke embraced being the old 
guy in the locker room.
Burke told teammates where 
they had to be in practice. He 
told them about his time in the 
NBA — about how, early in his 
career, an opposing player blew 
by him for a layup and how 
Burke realized this was differ-
ent than college — and about 
anything else they asked. In 
film sessions, he spoke up.
“We had about seven or 
eight rookies — everybody was 
instantly willing to listen and 
learn, because not too many 
times, coming in your first year, 
you get that cool of an opportu-
nity to have somebody like that 
around,” said Paul Watson Jr., 
a Westchester guard last sea-
son. “... Trey was a leader for us 
instantly.”
And, most importantly, after 
his career had sunk to its low-
est point, Burke was having fun 
again.
In one contest against the 
Fort Wayne Mad Ants, he was 
held scoreless in the first half. 
The Mad Ants focused their 
entire defense around trapping 
him. Then Burke came out of 
the locker room and went on a 
tear, scoring 28 in the second 
half of what became a victory.
“(Burke) told the guys (at 
halftime), he said, ‘I’m good. 
You guys keep doin’ what 
you’re doin’. You guys are open 
and I’m gonna find you,’ ” said 
Westchester 
Knicks 
coach 
Mike Miller. “... And then (in) 
the second half, it balanced out 
and he went on one of those 
runs.”
Miller and Burke’s team-
mates alike all knew from 
the day he signed, the Knicks 
would call him up eventually. 
When that call finally came in 
mid-January—bringing Burke 
a little less than an hour south 
and a second chance— there 
was little room to squander it.
***

FILE PHOTO / DAILY
Former Michigan point guard Trey Burke hopes to extend his lease on basketball life and expand legacy

ETHAN SEARS
Daily Sports Writer

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