8A — Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Harbaugh’s last shot at Dantonio
J

im Har-
baugh 
did not 
need to host a 
press confer-
ence on Mon-
day. Only once, 
in fact, had 
the Michigan 
football coach 
done so during 
a bye week. 
That was a 
year ago when a spinal injury to for-
mer Wolverines quarterback Wil-
ton Speight prompted Harbaugh to 
criticize Purdue’s football facilities. 
It was a calculated message intend-
ed to spark reform by the Big Ten 
Conference.
Harbaugh started his weekly 
meeting with reporters on Monday 
with his standard fare: a limited 
update on injuries, compliments 
for his players and goals for the bye 
week — stuff that fills the morning 
sports pages but nothing that makes 
you blink twice.
That was until 19 minutes in, 
when Harbaugh pulled a piece of 
paper out from his back pocket. He 
decided it was time to deliver the 
message he had come to give.
First was his bureaucratic assess-
ment of the Wolverines and Spar-
tans’ pregame fracas. Then came 
his latest cut at Michigan State 
coach Mark Dantonio.
“It’s the opposite of B.S. Coach 
(Dantonio) said it was B.S. That’s 
not B.S., that’s fact. … I’ll go one step 
further and use Coach Dantonio’s 
words from a few years back,” Har-
baugh said, dipping his head down 
to read, “ ‘It’s not a product of a team 
but their program.’ ”
“And that’s using his words.”
Those words mean that college 
football teams are indicative of their 
coaches. And if so, the Michigan-
Michigan State rivalry has hit a new 
level of quarrelsomeness.
Harbaugh and Dantonio have 
a history of tempered ill-will that 
broadened Monday. Last December, 
after the Wolverines were picked 
ahead of the Spartans to participate 
in the Outback Bowl, Dantonio said 
he’d “just continue to concentrate 

on beating Michigan.”
Harbaugh, as he did Monday, 
made sure to counter.
“Saw Coach D comments on con-
tinuing to ‘focus’ on how ‘he’ can 
beat Michigan,” Harbaugh tweeted 
on Dec. 4. “Congrats on turning 
around a 3-9 team, plagued with off 
field issues.”
Dantonio then retorted with his 
infamous response to Mike Hart’s 
2007 “little brother” comments.
“It’s not over, it’ll never be over, 
it’s just getting started,” Dantonio 
tweeted two hours later.
Michigan State used Hart’s 
words as locker room bulletin board 
material for years. It fueled the 
Spartans to eight wins in the series’ 
past 11 meetings.
The lasting images from Satur-
day’s game will only add fuel to the 
fire. Fifth-year senior defensive end 
Chase Winovich repeated Hart’s 
quote verbatim in his FOX post-
game interview. Devin Bush Jr., of 
course, tore up the Michigan State 
logo at midfield after his pregame 
exchange with the Spartan Walk.
“I don’t blame Devin,” Harbaugh 
said when asked about his message 
to the junior linebacker. “I like the 

way our guys handled it.”
Hear that? Jim Harbaugh doesn’t 
mind his players participating in the 
pettiness. He wants them to get into 
it. His note read that teams are a 
product of their programs — and he 
has certainly chosen to battle with 
Dantonio.
It’s no surprise, then, to see the 
two sides continue to go back and 
forth. 
“That’d be like going back and 
saying ‘Oh, look at Devin Bush! 
Look at him out there, he’s out at 
midfield scraping up the logo,’ ” 
Harbaugh continued, pointing 
and working his hands in a dig-
ging motion. “After what just took 
place, I mean, that’s right out of the 
Pistons’ playbook. Do something to 
them, say something to them, elbow 
them, and then when somebody 
else does something back, then 
flop.”
Harbaugh was referring to the 
Bad Boys Era Detroit Pistons, who 
were famous for doing anything 
necessary — trash talk, cheap shots 
and pure disrespect included — to 
get under their opponents’ skin.
Whether Dantonio “orches-
trated” a “stormtrooper” march 

to provoke the Wolverines is up to 
who you ask. That is how Harbaugh 
saw it, but Michigan State released 
a statement Monday night saying it 
followed the planned protocol and 
the tradition had “never” caused 
issues before.
One way or another, Harbaugh 
came to Schembechler Hall with a 
mission: to provoke Dantonio, just 
as he thought the Spartan coach 
had done to him two days earlier.
Eventually, Harbaugh ended 
his spiel and press conference on a 
rosy note, quoting legendary radio 
announcer Bob Ufer before calling 
defensive coordinator Don Brown 
the best coach he’d been around.
Mission accomplished.
On Tuesday, however, Dantonio 
refused to answer questions about 
Harbaugh’s comments, seemingly 
ending things for the time being. 
But if the both the rivalry and 
coaches’ history is any indication, 
this won’t be the last spat between 
Jim Harbaugh and Mark Dantonio.

Calcagno can be reached 

at markcal@umich.edu or on 

Twitter at @MWCalcagno.

MARK 
CALCAGNO

EVAN AARON/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh commented on the pre-game antics between Michigan and Michigan State on Saturday.

With Gary out, Uche stars on defensive line

Eyes and ears were fixated 
as Chase Winovich repeated 
Mike Hart’s “little brother” 
remarks on television after 
topping Michigan State. All of 
the hype, eye-rolls or whatever 
you felt was translated to a 
sustained social media frenzy.
Josh 
Uche’s 
TV 
interview 
followed 
and 
hardly a peep 
was made of it. 
Speaking 
after 
Winovich, 
one 
could 
imagine, 
is a tough act 
to follow. With 
his eyes wide-
open, the junior 
defensive 
end 
was loud and clear.
“All that celebrating, all 
that 
talking 
(the 
Spartans 
were) doing before the game, 
all that just fueled the fire,” 
a fiery Uche shouted into the 
microphone. “We love that, 
man. We love that shit. Excuse 
my language, but this is what 
we do. If you want to talk 
that talk, well, we can walk 
that walk. We just came out 
and dominated like we were 
supposed to.”
Uche rarely, if ever, likes to 
talk about himself — his impact 
is often muffled amongst a star-
studded defensive unit anyway. 
But in the wake of an injury 
with an unknown timeline to 
defensive end Rashan Gary, 
Uche has seamlessly filled his 
absence and shined. His two 
sacks against Michigan State 
upped his season total to five — 
a team high.
Not too shabby for a second-
stringer.
“Yeah, Josh Uche’s playing 
really 
good 
ball,” 
said 
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh 
on Monday. “Two big sacks in 
the game. Really coming off 
the edge with speed and power, 
and impacting the games. He’s 
doing a great job.”
It’s difficult to characterize 
Uche’s play as surprising given 
the track record of Don Brown 

defenses. But the ascendance 
of Uche rests squarely on his 
shoulders.
It started with a conversation 
Brown recalled with Uche.
“After the (2017) bowl game, 
we had a discussion because he 
wanted to play more,” Brown 
remembered prior to the 2018 
season opener. “He wanted to 
fight me, I think. He wants to 
play. It’s easy to 
say, ‘Hey coach, 
I want to play. 
Let me play.’ 
Go earn it, how 
about 
that? 
How about go 
earn it? Well, 
he’s earned it. 
I think that’s 
probably fair to 
say.”
Uche’s 
no-nonsense pragmatism has 
become his trademark. It could 
just be a byproduct of being on 
the No. 1-ranked defense in the 
country through eight weeks. 
When asked about what the 
team’s trademark was, Uche 
retorted “You tell me?” like it 
was sacreligious that he was 
being asked to spell it out.
He’s blunt and confident, 
beyond 
overused 
media 

platitudes. What did he have to 
say after a second-half shutout 
and game-ending sack against 
Northwestern?
“We knew they couldn’t 
really hang with us.”
And 
after 
a 
sack 
and 
dominant performance against 
Wisconsin?
“We’ve been a dominant 
defense all year, that’s what 
we do. … If they 
gave up, that’s 
on them, that’s 
a 
personal 
problem on their 
side.”
Beating 
offenses 
into 
submission has 
been 
a 
theme 
of 
Michigan’s 
2018 
defense, 
though, 
and 
Uche has been a spark plug 
for that tendency. He is listed 
at 238 pounds and runs a 4.5 
forty-yard dash according to 
Brown, who also said he “gave 
(strength 
and 
conditioning 
coach) Ben Herbert a kiss on 
the lips for that.”
But his technique has also 
been 
revelatory. 
Scrolling 
through Uche’s Twitter, you 
can find videos he retweeted 

after 
the 
Michigan 
State 
game with hundreds of likes 
that dissects how he swatted 
an 
opposing 
lineman’s 
hands to create a path to the 
quarterback.
If Gary returns this season, 
the defense will have that 
much of an easier time staying 
as the top-ranked defense, with 
Uche maintaining a prominent 
spot 
in 
that 
defensive 
line 
rotation.
He may not 
be a household 
name 
like 
Winovich, 
Gary or junior 
linebacker 
Devin 
Bush 
Jr. 
But 
Uche 
has the same 
intensity, if not 
greater. In that same post-game 
interview, he was asked what 
he felt about Bush’s pre-game 
yelling and field stomping.
“We from the same place, 
I wouldn’t expect anything 
less than that,” Uche said. “I 
would’ve done the same thing.”
And 
he 
stared 
at 
the 
interviewer like he was angry, 
even in the most celebratory 
moment of Michigan’s season.

ETHAN WOLFE
Daily Sports Writer

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Junior defensive end Josh Uche leads Michigan’s football team in sacks with five throughout the 2018 season. 

“If you want to 
talk that talk, 
well, we can 
walk that walk.”

“We knew 
they couldn’t 
really hang 
with us.”

Michigan sweeps at 
ITA Midwest Regional

There was a lot on the line 
for 
the 
Michigan 
women’s 
tennis team as it hosted the ITA 
Midwest Regional.
The 
six-day 
tournament 
featured 22 teams, eight top-100 
ranked players and automatic 
berths 
to 
the 
Oracle 
ITA 
National Fall Championships. 
And 
once 
the 
tournament 
wrapped up Tuesday, it was 
clear the Wolverines had the 
most dominant performance. 
In an event where all players 
were 
entered 
individually 
and weren’t affiliated as a 
team, Michigan found its most 
common opponent to be, well, 
Michigan. 
Senior Kate Fahey swept the 
weekend, winning the doubles 
and singles draws. But in order 
to claim the singles crown, 
Fahey had to get past two of her 
own teammates. After breezing 
through her first three rounds 
— outscoring her opponents, 
36-4 — Fahey 
faced her biggest 
challenge of the 
tournament 
in 
the semifinal. 
Surely Fahey 
had 
played 
fellow 
senior 
Brienne 
Minor 
many times in 
practice, but this 
time 
around, 
there was more 
on the line. Either side refused 
to budge in the first set, sending 
it to a tiebreaker. Minor just 
barely took the set, giving her 
the momentum in the second 
set. She was one game away 
from the championship match, 
but Fahey rattled off nine of the 
match’s final 12 games to steal 
the match from Minor.
“I was telling my mom if Bri 
had played one more good game, 
I was out of there,” Fahey said. 
“But she played really, really 
well the whole tournament. 
… It kind of just came down to 
toughing it out, toughing that 
second set out, and the third 
set I played well again. It was 
good.”
But the battle wasn’t over. 
Awaiting Fahey in the finals 
was another teammate, junior 
Chiara Lommer. 
Fahey cruised to an early 5-1 
lead and even as Lommer tried 
to battle back, Fahey took the 
first set, 6-4. The second set 
was much less contested and 
Fahey punched her ticket to the 
National Fall Championships 
with a 6-2 victory. 
“It’s brutal,” Fahey said. “Like 
Chiara and I room together and 

we were studying together last 
night. It’s tough obviously and 
you never want to do it, it feels 
like a practice match. But it 
gets pretty competitive. I mean, 
obviously we both want to win. 
“Obviously, when I played Bri 
and Chiara, there’s both mutual 
respect there.”
While Fahey triumphed in 
the singles draw, that’s not 
the only thing she has to show 
for her weekend. Just days 
before knocking Minor out 
of the singles draw, the duo 
clinched the doubles title and 
earned themselves a spot at 
the fall championships. The 
pair outscored their opponents, 
40-13, over six games. 
The all-senior pairing isn’t 
one fans are used to. While it 
is rare for Minor and Fahey to 
play together, it usually proves 
beneficial for the Wolverines.
“I love playing with Bri,” 
Fahey said. “I love playing with 
everyone, but playing with Bri 
is special, being the same year. 
We’ve been through a lot. … It’s 
just really fun. 
I 
think 
she’s 
one of the only 
people who can 
make me smile 
on 
a 
tennis 
court.”
There seems 
to 
be 
plenty 
for Fahey and 
Michigan 
to 
smile 
about 
after 
the 
tournament they had and it 
has 
Michigan 
coach 
Ronni 
Bernstein thinking about what 
this means for January and the 
team’s spring season. 
“We have the best teams in 
the region here so it’s exciting 
to see where we are in October,” 
Bernstein said. “I thought it was 
good that we didn’t really have 
to play each other until the very 
end. You know, with so many 
people in it sometimes, they can 
play early and knock each other 
out. 
“I’m proud of the girls, we 
saw a lot of good stuff and to see 
Chiara and Kate playing each 
other in the finals is really good 
for the program.”
Fahey continues to prove 
herself as the frontrunner of this 
Wolverine squad, but there were 
many bright spots coming from 
this weekend. All Michigan 
players won at least one match 
throughout 
the 
tournament 
and four Wolverines made it to 
the quarterfinals of the singles 
draw. Bernstein is excited about 
where her team is at right now, 
but what may be even more 
exciting is where it will be next 
spring.

2020 guard Zeb Jackson 
commits to play at ‘M’

John Beilein picked up his 
first commitment of the 2020 
cycle on Tuesday night.
Zeb Jackson, a four-star 
guard from Maumee, Ohio, 
committed to Michigan over a 
final seven that included Ohio 
State, Michigan State, Butler, 
Purdue, Arizona State and 
Marquette via a video on his 
Twitter.
Jackson, who plays for junior 
guard Zavier Simpson’s father, 
Quincey, with Under Armour 
C2K Elite’s AAU program, has 
developed a close relationship 
with 
the 
Wolverine 
point 
guard.
“Zavier’s like my brother,” 
Jackson said over the phone 
last month, “so we talk a lot.”
Jackson 
never 
officially 
visited Michigan because he 
lives just 45 minutes away, 
making Ann Arbor an easy 
weekend jaunt. In addition to 
Simpson, he also mentioned 
Jordan Poole, Isaiah Livers 
and David DeJulius as players 
with whom he’s close. Jackson 
camped with the Wolverines 
in June, and though he nearly 
announced 
a 
commitment 
to Butler in August, saw his 
profile rise from there. In 
September, after coming to 
watch him work out, Beilein 

extended Michigan’s first offer 
of the 2020 cycle to Jackson.
In addition to location and 
Simpson, there was another 
connection 
working 
in 
Michigan’s 
favor. 
Assistant 
coach 
DeAndre 
Haynes, 
who took a lead in Jackson’s 
recruitment, was on Toledo’s 
staff when the Rockets offered 
him in eighth grade.
“A close relationship with 
the head coach, a place where 
I’ll feel comfortable to play 
my game,” Jackson said when 
asked what he looked for in a 
school. “Life after basketball, 
like, having a coach who can 
teach me how to be more than 
a player, be a man. Go to a 
school where a degree goes a 
long way. And my final goal is 
to go to the NBA. And win, and 
win.”
Jackson, a scorer who can 
make plays off ball-screens, 
fits well in Beilein’s system. 
On a 2020 roster that will have 
lost Zavier Simpson, adding a 
guard was an important step 
as well.
As of now, the Wolverines 
have 
allotted 
12 
of 
13 
scholarships for the 2020-21 
season, as with the 2019-20 
season, and will likely plan for 
departures between now and 
then. Four-star Ethan Morton 
is currently their only other 
offer for the class of 2020.

ETHAN SEARS
Daily Sports Writer

MEN’S BASKETBALL

PAIGE VOEFFRAY
Daily Sports Editor

“I mean, 
obviously we 
both want to 
win.”