Norris out for season with undisclosed injury
Josh Norris — a sophomore
forward
who
ranks
second
on the Michigan hockey team
in points — will miss the
remainder of the season, the
team
announced
Thursday
morning.
Norris
sustained
an
undisclosed injury at the 2019
World
Junior
Championships
earlier
this
month and has
not dressed for
the Wolverines
since returning
from
the
tournament.
His injury will
require season-
ending surgery.
“It’s
disappointing to have my season
end and I’m going to miss being
on the ice with my teammates
every day, but it’s something
that I have to take care of,”
Norris said in a statement. “I
am looking forward to working
hard during rehab and am
excited to get back on the ice.
I’m going to be here supporting
my teammates throughout the
rest of the season and wish them
the best of luck.”
Norris’ 10 goals through the
first part of the season is tied
for first on the team with junior
forward Nick Pastujov. His 19
total points rank second behind
sophomore defenseman Quinn
Hughes, who has three goals
and a team-leading 19 assists for
a total of 22 points.
Prior to the World Juniors,
Norris
centered
Michigan’s
top line and was leading the
team in points. He was the 19th
overall pick in the 2017 NHL
Entry Draft by the San Jose
Sharks, though his rights have
since been traded to the Ottawa
Senators.
“I feel bad for Josh. He
was
having
an
outstanding
season,” said Michigan coach
Mel Pearson in a statement.
“Knowing him, he will work
extremely hard to come back
stronger and become an even
better player. We look forward
to having Josh continue to be a
part of our team this season.”
Both Pearson and Norris’
comments left the idea of
whether Norris will be back
with the Wolverines next season
or sign with Ottawa open to
interpretation,
though Pearson
said
Thursday
that he expects
Norris to be back
next year.
“We’ve
had
some
conversations
prior
to
the
injury,” Pearson
said
Thursday
in
his
office.
“We haven’t discussed any of
that since the injury because
we want to focus him on getting
healthy and that. But I do (think
he’ll be back). Now, having said
that, he might, he might not be.
I mean, he’ll have options. We’ll
just see how that plays out, how
his recovery goes and how he
thinks. What he wants to do.”
Moving forward, Michigan
must find a replacement for
Norris. It’s hard to replace him
with just one player — and the
Wolverines aren’t planning to
try to do that.
But
since
they’ve
been
without him for six games
already, Pearson has a better idea
of what the team might look like
in his absence. In the six games
without Norris,
Michigan posted
a 2-2-2 record,
including
two
road wins over
top-15 teams in
wins at No. 4
Ohio State and
No.
12
Notre
Dame.
“In that six
games, I liked
a lot of things
without him,” Pearson said. “So,
we’ve already played without
him. I think that’s a key. If all
of the sudden we just found out
today, you’re going into a big
weekend and wow, you don’t
have him, then there’s a little
more, I think, panic or concern.
Because of that, I think we’ll be
in good shape. You don’t replace
— no one’s going to step up and
replace a player like (Norris),
especially how well he was
playing.”
And though Norris is the
second Wolverine in two years
to miss the second half of the
year
after
a
season-ending
injury at the World Juniors —
junior forward Will Lockwood
saw his sophomore campaign
cut short after a
shoulder injury
last
year
—
Pearson doesn’t
plan
to
stop
allowing players
to
attend
the
tournament.
“There’s
some concern,”
Pearson
said.
“But
we’ve
done it for years
here at Michigan and I guess
our stance is we’ll always do
whatever we can to support
U.S.
hockey
and
especially
the World Junior team, the
World Championship team. If
we have players that have the
opportunity to play there, then
we’ll continue to support that.”
BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Sophomore forward Josh Norris will miss the remainder of the season after sustaining an undisclosed injury.
“I feel bad. ...
He was having
an outstanding
season.”
“We’ve already
played without
him. I think
that’s a key.”
‘M’ falls to Iowa, 75-61
Thursday night, the Michigan
women’s basketball team looked
to get its first road conference
win of the season.
That was set to be a tall task
as the Wolverines were slated
against No. 22 Iowa — a squad
led by forward Megan Gustafson,
the nation’s leading scorer — but
despite the odds Michigan trailed
by just three points at halftime.
After the break, though, the
Hawkeyes turned it up a notch.
They started to push the tempo
and saw results. Fewer than
three minutes into the quarter,
they drained a triple from the left
corner to make it a 10-0 run.
The
Wolverines
called
a
timeout but never recovered.
Iowa (13-4 overall, 4-2 Big
Ten) widened the gap, handing
Michigan (11-7, 2-4) a 75-61 loss
— the team’s fourth loss in its last
six games.
“Through our growth process
and through our improvement
is the decision-making when
other teams are going on a run,”
said Michigan coach Kim Barnes
Arico to WTKA. “… We called a
timeout. We tried to regroup,
I mean, we had a better fourth
quarter but we were down a little
bit. And we scored in the fourth
quarter; we just couldn’t get the
stops that we needed to get.”
Contrary to recent games, ball
handling wasn’t an issue. Prior
to the game, the Wolverines
averaged
a
whopping
16.7
turnovers per contest, but against
the Hawkeyes, they lost the ball
just seven times.
Rebounding was not alarming
either. Michigan was outmatched
by just four boards while the
team actually won the battle for
offensive rebounds.
Shooting, however, was a key
problem. The Wolverines went
1-for-15 from beyond the arc,
with the lone 3-pointer coming at
the start of the final quarter.
The Hawkeyes, on the other
hand,
excelled
at
shooting.
Michigan often double-teamed
Gustafson, but that left her
teammates open. They finished
the game shooting 57.6 percent
from the field — a step up from
Michigan’s 41.8 percent.
“We miss a lot of shots and we
gotta get better at finishing some
of those shots too,” Barnes Arico
said. “And then we gotta get some
key stops when we need to, and I
think we need to understand the
sense of urgency with that.”
The game was set to be a battle
between senior center Hallie
Thome and Gustafson.
Gustafson had the upper-hand
to start the game. She scored from
under the basket on her team’s
first offensive possession and
then further imposed her will
by blocking Thome on the other
end. Thome would fight back, but
Gustafson still led her team with
21 points and 16 rebounds.
Iowa’s guards added to the
offensive clinic, showing off their
ability to attack the basket early.
This — coupled with Gustafson’s
success — helped the Hawkeyes
establish a five-point lead a few
minutes into the contest.
Freshman
forward
Naz
Hillmon
soon
checked
in,
though. She missed a shot from
close right away, but got her
own rebound and capitalized on
the second-chance opportunity
to give her team a spark. She
finished with a team-high 16
points.
Less than a minute later,
Hillmon dove to the floor to win
a loose ball around midcourt.
This led to a bucket from junior
forward Kayla Robbins.
Sophomore
guard
Deja
Church then followed suit. She
immediately stole the ball near
midcourt and took it to the basket
to give her team a 16-10 lead.
But the Hawkeyes countered
with a 6-0 run to tie the game at
the end of the opening frame. The
remainder of the first half was a
balanced affair, but ultimately, it
wouldn’t matter.
The previously untold story of Zavier Simpson’s recruitment to Wisconsin
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
ROHAN KUMAR
Daily Sports Writer
ANNIE KLUS/Daily
Junior guard Zavier Simpson was recruited by Wisconsin before committing to play basketball for Michigan.
On Saturday afternoon, the
Michigan
men’s
basketball
team will stake its claim to be
the nation’s top-ranked team
for the first time in half a
decade.
If it does, Zavier Simpson
will have helped the Wolverines
defeat the school he almost
attended.
It
seems
impossible
to
imagine now — with Michigan’s
and
Simpson’s
identities
inextricably intertwined — but
four years ago, the pair had
barely crossed each other’s
radars.
The
Wolverines’
recruiting efforts were centered
around
now-Michigan
State
point guard Cassius Winston
and, as a result, Simpson had
yet to even consider Michigan.
Instead, the junior point
guard
seemed
destined
for
Wisconsin. Now, four years
later, neither Quincey Simpson
— Zavier’s father and AAU
coach — nor Lamont Paris, the
assistant coach who nearly
recruited him to Madison, can
recall which major conference
school was the first to enter
Simpson’s recruitment.
The consensus? It wasn’t
Michigan.
It may have been Wisconsin,
but Quincey also remembers
Illinois
and
Northwestern
heavily pursuing his son at the
time. The Badgers, though,
were the most comfortable
option for the Simpsons. Paris
and Quincey grew up just 30
minutes apart — Quincey in
Lima, Ohio, where he raised
Zavier, and Paris in Findlay,
just 35 miles up the road. They
got to know each other in the
early 90s, facing each other
in high school basketball, and
have maintained a relationship
ever since.
So
when
Paris
began
recruiting Zavier, it was a
natural fit for both.
“It was an easy conversation,”
Quincey
told
The
Daily.
“Because, like I said, he’s from
Findlay
and
we’ve
known
each other. So it was really
comfortable talking to him.
But I do remember when that
process
started.
They
just
reached out to me and we just
kind of built a relationship and
we built a rapport.”
“I first knew (Quincey) and
then I saw Zavier was coming
up and was a good player,”
Paris, now the head coach at
Chattanooga,
added.
“And
I knew where he had been
recruited and what kinds of
schools were recruiting him.
It probably was, originally, not
at the Big Ten level, which, we
didn’t care that much about. I
just knew he was a good kid and
a good solid player and a good
leader.”
Quincey, though, knew not
to magnify the importance
of previous relationships, or
which school offered when.
A former Division II player
himself, he instead advised
Zavier to concern himself with
fit and development — two
boxes which Wisconsin ticked
just as well.
“It was intriguing because
Wisconsin has been known
for the way that they develop
players,” Quincey said. “And so,
seeing some of the guards that
they have had
in the program,
we were really
happy that they
were
keying
on
my
son’s
recruiting.”
Then,
the
summer
after
Simpson’s
junior
year
of
high
school,
everything
abruptly changed. A friend of
Quincey’s was a scout and told
him that both Michigan and
Michigan State were heavily
pursuing
Cassius
Winston.
Whoever didn’t get Winston,
he explained, would be left
without a point guard.
Quincey knew the Spartans
coaching staff through an old
AAU player of his, but had no
previous
relationship
with
Wolverines coach John Beilein
or his staff. Still, he reached
out to then-assistant Bacari
Alexander to gauge Michigan’s
interest. Soon, both Alexander
and Beilein began showing
up to Simpson’s AAU games.
Beilein, though, acknowledged
that his interest in Simpson
was dependent on Winston’s
decision.
“He just said, ‘Hey, if I ever
get
the
sense
that I may not
get
(Winston),
then I’m gonna
go in hard with
(Zavier).’
And
we
understood
that,”
Quincey
said. “Most kids
probably would
take that as a
diss,
we
took
that
as
being
honest, and we respected that.”
But soon after the Wolverines
started pursuing Simpson, it
became clear that Winston was
destined for East Lansing. So
only one week after using one
of their five official visits with
Wisconsin
that
September,
Quincey and Zavier hit the road
for what would become the first
of countless drives up I-75 to
Ann Arbor.
It took less than half the
visit for Quincey to be sold on
Michigan, but he didn’t want to
force a decision on Zavier. A few
hours later, on the drive home,
he found out he didn’t have to.
Zavier was ready to commit.
“We always kept a pros and
cons list for every school,”
Quincey said. “And there were
absolutely no cons when we
visited Michigan. Every box
was checked, so there was
nothing else to wait around
for.”
Within
days,
Simpson’s
commitment
was
official,
stunning the Badgers — and
every other school that had
pursued him.
“I hadn’t heard Michigan that
much,” Paris said. “I had heard
a couple other schools, but I had
not heard Michigan so that was
kind of out of nowhere.”
Then,
Paris
paused
and
took a moment to reflect on
Simpson’s recruitment process
— something he hasn’t done in
years.
“Anyway, it works out how
it’s supposed to work out.”
Three
years
on,
the
Wolverines
can
have
no
disagreements.
THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer
“I had not heard
Michigan so
that was ... out
of nowhere.”
8 — Friday, January 18, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com