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(906) 847‑7196. www.theislandhouse.com By Roger and Kathy Wienberg ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 01/24/19 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis 01/24/19 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: Release Date: Thursday, January 24, 2019 ACROSS 1 It can cause a bad trip 4 Renders speechless 8 Late-night host with an orange- blimp running gag 13 Show of hands 14 Some Pequod crewmen 16 Tapped pic 17 Many Bach compositions 18 Sources of “Family Feud” answers 20 Soccer officials 21 Till this moment 22 Utah lily 23 Hush-hush org. 26 Rebuffed, with “off” 29 Mob scenes 31 In bygone days 33 Retailer with blue-and-yellow megastores 34 Does penance (for) 35 Clothing line 37 Go-aheads 39 Eye layer 40 Say 42 Hops hot spot 44 “Things Are Fine in Mount __”: Charley Weaver book 45 Augment 46 Unborn 48 Scale members 49 Preserves, in a way 51 Baton-passing event 54 Switch partner 55 Makes moist 57 Electrical generator 61 “The Matrix” actress Carrie-__ Moss 62 Clothing accessory, perhaps ... or what you can see in each of four groups of circles? 63 Cupcake decorator 64 Andean shrubs 65 Little piggies 66 Nero Wolfe creator Stout DOWN 1 Center of power 2 Panels illustrating film scripts 3 High capital 4 “Hey, sailor!” 5 General concerns? 6 Unit of work 7 Let off 8 Solace 9 Responsibility 10 Wii forerunner, briefly 11 Onassis nickname 12 Foreign policy advisory gp. 13 Plastic choice 15 100 sawbucks 19 Place for pins and needles 22 Salts, say 23 King’s philosophy 24 Jousting mount 25 Test for purity 27 Scottish isle 28 Half a giggle 30 Letters for short people? 31 Equidistant 32 Sparkly stone 34 Boss’ backup: Abbr. 36 Witty remark 38 __ de toilette 41 Strict diet restriction 43 __ paper 46 Whole 47 Get to work again 50 Japanese aborigine 52 Subsidiary structure 53 Belgian river 54 Phi __ Kappa 55 Dish (out) 56 Son of Zeus and Hera 57 TV network with much Shondaland programming 58 Summer sign 59 Solace for a sad BFF 60 Ref’s ruling Classifieds Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com SUMMER EMPLOYMENT SUBLETS FOR RENT HAPPY THURSDAY! Enjoy the Sudoku on page 2 ‘M’ looks to win on road At home this season, the Michigan women’s basketball team has won all eight of its contests. On the road, it’s just 2-6. Yes, the Wolverines have had a solid season thus far and find themselves squarely on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament, but road games have been their kryptonite. With recent losses at ranked opponents Maryland and Iowa, Michigan squandered two opportunities to boost its resume with victories away from Crisler Center. With another road contest on the horizon Thursday night against Indiana, the Wolverines need to fix their road woes if they wish to return back to the Big Dance for the second year in a row under coach Kim Barnes Arico. A date with the unranked Hoosiers is the opportunity to right the ship. Michigan’s players don’t see the upcoming bout against Indiana — which is currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament — as a daunting task. In the end, it appears that the team is more concerned about staying together and taking the Big Ten gauntlet one game at a time. “It’s definitely different going to someone else’s house with their crowd,” said freshman forward Naz Hillmon. “In those moments we just really need to be a team and lock in and cheer for each other.” Hillmon, who had 20 points and eight rebounds in Sunday’s 62-58 victory over Ohio State, has emerged as a key contributor along with freshman guard Amy Dilk. The two were instrumental in sparking a fourth-quarter comeback, something that the team had failed to do against the Terrapins and Hawkeyes. “(That win showed) us that we can do it,” Hillmon said. “When we’re down, we’re going to know that we can get back in the game or we know that teams can do it to us so it’s a learning experience either way for us.” Added senior forward Taylor Rooks: “We’re showing growth. We’re learning how to play 40 minutes and keeping our intensity all the way to the end of the fourth quarter.” Senior forward Nicole Munger knows that every game left on the schedule will be a battle, but she knows that the team is hungry and ready to take on any opponent, even if it’s away from the friendly confines of Crisler. “Every game in the Big Ten is gonna be like this,” she said. “It’s gonna be a grinder. We try to stay hungry and keep attacking each day, try to get a little bit better.” If Michigan wants to achieve its goals, that starts Thursday. TEDDY GUTKIN Daily Sports Writer O n Saturday, then-No. 2 Michigan went into the Kohl Center and was repeatedly stymied. It was a frustrating afternoon that saw the Wolver- ines shoot just 40.7 percent from the field, score a season- low 54 points and drop their first game of the season. But despite the woeful offensive performance, Michigan coach John Beilein remained unconcerned — at least outwardly. The loss, he insisted, was a product of Wisconsin’s stifling defense. Though Beilein made sure to remind reporters that he never wants to lose, it was seen as a welcome opportu- nity for the Wolverines to reflect and improve after two months of straightforward wins. “Credit Wisconsin, they had a great game plan defensively,” Beilein said. “They made us score over them, like Wisconsin teams always do. … So it’s just a typical loss to Wisconsin.” And for three days after the loss to the Badgers, that line of reasoning held water. Wisconsin ranks ninth in adjusted defense and has allowed just four oppo- nents to top 70 points this sea- son. Then, Minnesota came to town. Wisconsin is objectively good at defense. Minnesota is not, ranking 12th in the Big Ten in adjusted defensive efficiency. And still, Michigan couldn’t score. For over two months, the Wolverines had not dipped below 60 points in a game. On Tuesday, they did so for the sec- ond time in four days. This time, Michigan escaped with the win, thanks to a base- line jumper by redshirt junior forward Charles Matthews that beat the final horn by mil- liseconds. But despite the win, Beilein’s postgame presser car- ried a much different tone. “We gotta grow a lot,” he said. “We gotta grow a lot. We lost a 13-point lead late. How many times do you see that happen at Michigan, where we let it go like that?” Beilein was, of course, refer- ring to the four-minute, 51-sec- ond scoreless stretch before Matthews’ buzzer-beater, in which the Wolverines went 0-for-6 from the field and missed a pair of free throws. But that sentence — How many times do you see that happen at Michi- gan? — could be used to describe to any number of stretches from the past two games. It could describe the 2:52 Michigan went before scoring its first point Tuesday. Or the 18 minutes the Wolverines went without hitting a 3-pointer down the stretch. Or the nine-minute stretch of Saturday’s second half when they scored just five points, allowing a four-point lead to become a six-point defi- cit. “We definitely didn’t play our best game,” said freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis on Tuesday. “And (Beilein) let us know about that for sure.” The big- ger problem, though, is that Michigan has no discernable solution. On Sat- urday, Beilein attributed the offensive woes to his team’s 16 turnovers. Against Minnesota, the Wolver- ines slashed that number to six, but were equally unimpressive, undone by a lack of ball move- ment. “The ball’s stuck a lot and the ball’s not moving,” Beilein said, when asked to diagnose Michi- gan’s struggles. Then, he paused and offered up the type of candidness that he has rarely needed to display this season. “And here’s another thing, the fast break. Sometimes, fast break, we shouldn’t even do it. Cause we’re jogging up the court, we gotta sprint. We don’t run. (Minnesota’s) numbers in defensive transition, they’re not great. But we jog up the court and so, we can’t do it. So this is what they get, you end up get- ting scores in the 50s and 60s if you’re not willing to bust your butt to get up the court.” That sloppiness on the fast break reared its head on Tues- day, when junior guard Zavier Simpson threw a pass away in transition, allowing the Golden Gophers to curb an 11-point Wol- verines’ run and kickstart their 13-point come- back. Against Wisconsin, it was sophomore for- ward Isaiah Liv- ers who couldn’t find Matthews a 2-on-1 fast break that would have put Michigan up by five with 8:41 to play. The Wolverines never led by more than one again. But even when Michigan checked its sloppiness at the door and moved the ball like Beilein wants it to, it couldn’t find bottom. At one point midway through the first half, trying to cut into a nine-point deficit, the Wolver- ines ping-ponged the ball around the perimeter, from sophomore guards Eli Brooks and Jordan Poole to Matthews and, finally, to Brazdeikis in the corner. It was their best offensive posses- sion to that point, but as soon as Brazdeikis — who was shooting 42 percent from deep just five games ago — released, he took two quick hops of resignation, instantly knowing that he had missed his ninth three in a row, dating back to Jan. 10 at Illinois. It ended up as one of six missed threes for Brazdei- kis, who finished 1-for-7 from beyond the arc and 4-for-18 overall — part of a 3-for-22 team performance from deep. “We just gotta make them when we’re open,” Beilein said. “Some of our guys aren’t getting open, it’s because they’re chang- ing the basketball rules, saying we don’t care. Wisconsin took a player and just face guarded one of our players. And he didn’t have any help D, but that was the thing, ‘this guy’s not getting a look.’ And they’re making other people do it. And every game is different how they play us.” Then, a reporter brought Beilein back to his comments after the Wisconsin loss, when he called the loss a teaching opportunity. Were you expecting more growth? Beilein, again, had no choice but to be candid. “I was. I was. … Probably foolish of me to think, ‘Geez, we watched two days of film and it’s just gonna carry over.’ ” Mackie can be reached at tmackie@umich.edu or on Twitter @theo_mackie. Wolverines meet Nittany Lions with both teams at a crossroads At the beginning of the season, Michigan was ranked fourth in the country and Penn State was ranked fifth. Now, the Nittany Lions are last in the Big Ten, with the Wolverines only one point ahead of them. Out of all the teams in the tight Big Ten this year, there might not be two with more similar season-long trajectories meeting than when the Wolverines and the Nittany Lions face off at Yost Ice Arena Thursday and on the national stage at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. When the two teams split November’s series at State College, Michigan found itself in a sizeable hole in each matchup through the first two periods. But in the blink of an eye, the Wolverines racked up a four-goal third period to win the first game, and another one to send it to overtime in the second, only to watch Penn State’s Nikita Pavlychev score six ticks into the extra period. At that point, the Nittany Lions seemed set. With college hockey’s most dominant offense and All- American candidates like Evan Barratt and Alex Limoges, Penn State seemed destined to establish itself as one of the best teams in the Big Ten. But since then, Penn State and Michigan are 4-7-2 and 2-4-6, respectively, since that roller- coaster of a series. After lurking around the top 10 of the Pairwise, the Nittany Lions find themselves at 18th. Like the Wolverines at the beginning of the season, Frozen Four hopes were not an unrealistic ideal. But also like Michigan, it’s on the outside looking in. “They’re a good team,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “They can score a lot, they’ve scored 40 more goals than us on the year. I was looking at it — they’re dangerous. Just because they have an off-week or month doesn’t mean they’re not still dangerous. … It’s been a shot here and a bounce there, we’ve actually played pretty good. You can look at the record and say that’s not true, but a few breaks and bounces here and everything is different.” The parallels don’t end just quite there. To Michigan’s loss of sophomore forward Josh Norris to an undisclosed tear suffered at World Juniors, Penn State can raise its own World Juniors- induced loss of freshman forward Aarne Talvitie and his 16 points. The difference? The Wolverines have been here before — and it shows. When they lost then-sophomore forward Will Lockwood for the season last year, they still rebounded and found a way to get hot. Since losing Norris, Michigan has started a similar momentum with top-10 wins over Ohio State and Notre Dame. “(Penn State’s) going through what we’ve had the last couple of years,” Pearson said. “Now they haven’t had that before, I don’t know how they’re going to handle it, but it’s a similar situation.” To vault back up into the top of the Pairwise, both teams need this series to be more than a mirror of their inconsistent last one-and-a-half months. Michigan had a chance to sweep Ohio State, but let it slip through. But for all of the Wolverines’ blunders and inconsistencies, they still have a chance to be where they want to be. “Even if they’re 8-4-4, if we play our game, we’re going to be fine,” Pearson said. “And that’s what we need to make sure we’re doing, all the little things we need to do to have success. … We’ve been in every game since November 9th.” Getting back to the promised land, though, will mean more than just being on track. It’s definitely different going to someone else’s house. WOMEN’S BASKETBALL We’re going to know that we can get back in the game. RIAN RATNAVALE Daily Sports Writer ALEC COHEN/Daily Michigan coach Mel Pearson’s team must do more than split a series with Penn State, as it did in November. Michigan’s offense must improve THEO MACKIE NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily Ignas Brazdeikis finished Tuesday’s game 4-of-18 from the field. We just gotta make them when we’re open.