This year shouldn’t be about replacing Flaherty
I

t definitely felt odd.
Last week, the Michigan 
women’s basketball team 
defeated Findlay in an exhibition. 
And for the first game in a long 
time, the name Katelynn Flaherty 
wasn’t announced emphatically, 
over and over again throughout 
Crisler Center.
But as odd as 
it was, it might 
not be a bad 
thing.
Entering this 
season, there’s 
been ample 
talk about 
how and if the 
Wolverines 
will be able 
to replace 
Flaherty, who 
graduated last spring. Michigan 
coach Kim Barnes Arico brought 
this to light just a few minutes into 
the team’s Oct. 10 media day.
“I’m sure the question of the day 
will be, you know, where do we 
go without Katelynn Flaherty?” 
Barnes Arico said. “And how is 
our team going to look without the 
program’s all-time leading scorer?”
It’s an understandable question 
to have. After all, Flaherty led the 
Wolverines in scoring the last four 
years. She was a true playmaker 
and certainly wrote a chapter of 
the school’s history.
Players like Flaherty rarely 
come around, and to be frank, 
the Wolverines don’t have what 
it takes to replace her right now. 
Yes, they have a talented point 
guard in freshman Amy Dilk, who’s 
ready to contribute right away. 
And while she may develop into a 
dominant, Flaherty-esque player 
down the line, right now she’s 
only a freshman. Thus, it’s naive to 
expect her to be Michigan’s savior 
this season.
But maybe the Wolverines don’t 
need a savior; maybe they don’t 
need to replace Flaherty. In fact, 
I’d argue that they shouldn’t try to 
replace her.
Even with Flaherty — and all 
of her dominance — the program 
only qualified for the NCAA 
Tournament once in the last four 
years, just to get trampled in the 
second round by then-No. 2-seed 
Baylor.
Now I’m not saying that the 
team accomplished nothing with 
its star player, because it certainly 
found success. Two seasons ago, 
Michigan won the Women’s 

National Invitation Tournament 
and hung its first banner. The team 
frequently spends time in the top-
25 rankings. Last season, it even 
notched signature wins against 
then-No. 8 Ohio State and then-No. 
13 Maryland.
However, let’s not forget about 
the bludgeonings this team took 
against top teams last season. 
Against then-No. 5 Louisville, 
Michigan went into halftime with 
a five-point lead only to lose by 25. 
The Wolverines had no answer 
for then-No. 3 Notre Dame — 
who went on to win the National 
Championship — or Baylor either, 
and suffered similar fates.
Let’s not forget Michigan 
held a 16-point lead against an 
average Purdue team, only to lose 
in overtime, and how the loss 
spurred a bad stretch in which the 
Wolverines lost four out of five 
games. Although they did end up 
making the NCAA Tournament, 
that slump significantly 
jeopardized the team’s chances at 
the time.
And let’s not forget the Big Ten 
Tournament disappointment, when 
the Wolverines got bounced in 

their second contest by Nebraska. 
Yes, the Cornhuskers were a better 
seed, but it was a game Barnes 
Arico’s squad could have and 
should have won.
All this is to point out that 
even in Flaherty’s senior year, the 
program was far from perfect. That 
shouldn’t be the standard. That 
shouldn’t be Michigan’s ceiling.
This program still has far 
more to accomplish. It has yet to 
truly establish itself as a national 
contender — as a force to reckon 
with.
But now, the Wolverines have 
the tools to do so.
A quick glance at the roster 
is all one needs to recognize 
the potential of this program. 
Michigan has seniors Hallie Thome 
and Nicole Munger — a duo that 
has already proved itself and will 
be key this season.
Then there are players such as 
junior Akienreh Johnson as well 
as sophomores Hailey Brown and 
Deja Church. They all flashed 
glimpses of their talent at various 
points last season and could make 
big strides moving forward.
But to top it off, Michigan has 

one heck of a freshmen class — on 
paper at least. Composed of a five-
star recruit in Dilk — as well as 
three four-stars and a three-star 
— the group was ranked No. 12 by 
ESPN. It’s the program’s all-time 
best recruiting class.
Lack of depth has been an issue 
in the past, because when a team 
only has a small rotation, the 
season becomes more physically 
demanding and takes its toll. It’s 
one reason the Wolverines often 
face the end-of-season slump.
But depth shouldn’t be an issue 
this year.
“I think the thing that we have, 
that we haven’t had since I’ve 
been here,” Barnes Arico said, “is a 
tremendous amount of depth.”
Fans can’t blame Michigan’s 
offense too much for revolving 
around Flaherty the last four years. 
When a team has top-caliber talent, 
it has to use it to its advantage.
That said, an offense becomes 
predictable when it uses only 
one weapon. This season, while 
many players have potential to 
contribute, none are set to garner 
all the attention like Flaherty did. 
Thus the Wolverines can use a 

more diverse attack, which may 
fare better against opponents.
“Definitely missing Katelynn is 
a huge — I don’t know what to call 
it — but it creates a huge deficit for 
the points. I mean, she averaged a 
lot and she contributed a lot to our 
scoring,” Brown said after practice 
on Oct. 22. “But with our team, I 
think now the floor will be open 
more because we have more people 
that are scorers.”
There’s a saying that if it ain’t 
broke, don’t fix it. I’d like to create 
my own saying: if it ain’t perfect, 
don’t replace it.
The mindset for this team should 
not be about replacing Flaherty; 
that’s too tall of a task, and the 
team wasn’t flawless with her.
Instead, the program’s focus 
should be about taking the next 
big step and competing with the 
powerhouses.
And with a roster filled with 
potential, Barnes Arico has 
the threads to strengthen the 
underlying fabric of the program 
and take it to the next level.

Kumar can be reached at 

kumarrp@umich.edu

ROHAN 
KUMAR

Friday, November 9, 2018 // TIP OFF 2018
3B 

RUCHITA IYER/Daily
Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico believes her team has “a tremendous amount of depth” — something the Wolverines have lacked in past seasons.

