The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Friday, February 1, 2019 — 7

The 
polar 
vortex 
already 
canceled classes for Wednesday 
and 
Thursday. 
Now, 
it’s 
postponed tonight’s Michigan 
women’s basketball game against 
Iowa. The game will now be 
played on Friday at noon. 
The game is set to be an 
exciting one, with the nation’s 
leading 
scorer 
Megan Gustafson 
coming to town. 
The 
matchup 
between 
Gustafson 
and 
Wolverine center 
Hallie 
Thome 
was one that fans 
were 
excited 
to see, but that 
bout will now be 
rescheduled 
for 
Friday in the wake of Ann Arbor 
receiving some of the coldest 
weather it has ever seen. 
The bout represents a chance 
for the Wolverines (12-9 overall, 
3-6 Big Ten) to get back on track, 
coming in having lost four of 
their last five games. Michigan 
maintains a home record of 8-1, 
though, and in No. 13 Iowa, it had 
a chance to seize a signature win. 
That, for now, will be put on 
hold.
Michigan spokesperson Kurt 

Svodoba said Thursday morning 
that the postponement has made 
for a “crazy morning” so far, 
and stated that the teams have 
not yet set a date to potentially 
reschedule the game. A few 
hours later, the team announced 
the rescheduled time. Svodoba 
did, however, announce a deal 
that could excite some fans who 
will be unable to attend the game.
“Not only can (the ticket) be 

used 
for 
the 
rescheduled 
game, but it can 
also 
be 
used 
as 
a 
general 
admission ticket for any home 
game (this season),” he said.
Tickets for the original game 
can also be used Friday, though 
the game will no longer air on 
Big Ten Network. According to a 
press release sent by Iowa, details 
are still being hashed out on a live 
stream and radio coverage.

TEDDY GUTKIN
Daily Sports Writer

(The ticket) can 
be used for the 
rescheduled 
game.

Michigan 
vs. Iowa

Matchup: 
Michigan 12-9 
overall, 3-6 
Big Ten; Iowa 
16-4, 7-2

When: Friday 
Noon, E.T.

Where: Crisler 
Center

TV: Not 
televised

Due to cold weather, ‘M’ 
to play game on Friday

MILES MACKLIN/Daily
The Michigan women’s basketball team play Iowa on Friday at noon.

The underappreciated art of avoiding fouls

Over the last 15 months, 
as Michigan’s defensive star 
has ascended — taking the 
Wolverines from a team on 
the tournament bubble to the 
Final Four to a 20-1 record 
to start this season — nearly 
every reason why has been 
dissected and digested.
Assistant 
coach 
Luke 
Yaklich instilled a culture. 
Junior point guard Zavier 
Simpson and redshirt junior 
forward 
Charles 
Matthews 
enforced it. The virus took 
hold, then spread — and now, 
Michigan’s 
83.8 
adjusted 
defensive efficiency is on pace 
to be the best in the KenPom 
era.
But there is one element 
of 
this 
renaissance 
that, 
really, isn’t a renaissance at 
all. More accurately, call it a 
continuation.
The 
Wolverines 
don’t 
foul. They rank second in 
the country in defensive free 
throw rate, and since 2012, 
they’ve been worse than 25th 
just twice. That’s no recent 
development, but something 
preached within the program 
for quite a while.
“That’s stuff we’d work on 
all the time, is not reaching, 
not using an armbar,” said 
Spike Albrecht, a Michigan 
guard from 2013-17. “Things 
like that.”
In practices, the Wolverines 
can use slide drills or verbal 
reinforcement 
to 
stress 
avoiding fouls. In a game 
though, playing good defense 
while doing so is a sort of art.
“Especially on the ball, just 
picking up stupid fouls — they 
call like an armbar, instead 
your hands are up and you’re 
sliding and using your chest,” 
Albrecht 
said. 
“Cause 
you 
wanna be physical but you 
don’t wanna foul.
“Essentially you’re fouling 
with your chest instead of your 

arms, because lots of times, 
if a ref sees an arm in there, 
they’re more inclined to call it 
versus, ‘Hey, his hands are up.’ 
But you’re still making contact 
with the dude. Sometimes 
you can kind of get away with 
fooling the refs a little bit.”
This iteration of Michigan 
doesn’t just defend physically 
without 
fouling. 
It 
has 
perfected the art, and you 
don’t need to look too far to 
see it.
This is how 
Simpson turns 
opposing point 
guards 
— 
or, 
in 
Tuesday’s 
case, 
Ohio 
State 
center 
Kaleb 
Wesson 
— into overly 
frustrated 
playthings. It’s 
how Matthews 
has turned himself into a 
potential 
NBA 
commodity 
despite 
shooting 
just 
32.3 
percent from 3-point range. It’s 
how junior center Jon Teske 
has gone from merely tall to a 
dominant rim protector.
Anyone 
who 
has 
asked 
Michigan coach John Beilein 

about Teske in the last year 
has been treated to a range of 
hand motions, demonstrating 
his want for Teske to use 
verticality in the paint. After a 
65-49 win over Ohio State on 
Tuesday, Beilein had nothing 
but praise.
“He was trying to slap at the 
ball when the guy was coming 
up,” Beilein said. “He’d run 
his arms through him and use 
verticality, all the time. Now 
he’s learned to 
do it — wait, 
wait, be more 
selective 
with 
shots you can 
block.”
Teske may be 
the most overt 
example. 
He’s 
far 
from 
the 
only one.
Avoiding 
bad fouls is a 
part of Michigan’s defensive 
culture, as much as anything 
else. One of the keys behind a 
great defense, it turns out, is 
overwhelmingly simple.
“I don’t wanna say, ‘Hey, 
we don’t foul.’ We try not to 
have bad fouls,” Beilein said 
Thursday. “And if you look at a 

game, there’s three or four bad 
fouls every single game, that if 
you can avoid those, that could 
be the difference between a 
one-and-one, a guy in foul 
trouble, right, or a double-
bonus. So we try to avoid that.
“It’s 
just 
every 
day 
in 
practice, we’re very physical 
with how we practice, but 
bad fouls are pointed out 
every minute. And sometimes, 
people want to start every 
practice, ‘How are we gonna 
practice? Hard. How are we 
gonna practice? Smart.’ And 
smart is, don’t put them to 
the foul line. We can’t defend 
the foul line. We can’t defend 
a foul shot. So the one way to 
avoid that to happen is, don’t 
put them there carelessly.”
In this sense, Beilein has 
been the perfect complement 
to Yaklich. Asked on Tuesday 
who’s behind the emphasis, 
sophomore 
guard 
Jordan 
Poole struggled to come up 
with an answer.
“Coach B hates fouls,” he 
said, “and coach Yak loves 
defense, so —”
Then Isaiah Livers stepped 
in to finish the sentence.
“It works perfectly.”

In need of more than a series split, Wolverines to face Golden Gophers

It’s 
crunch 
time 
for 
the 
Michigan hockey team.
Coming off another series split, 
it must begin to make up ground 
in the Big Ten standings. Save 
dropping both games to Michigan 
State before the holiday break, 
the Wolverines have split every 
conference series.
Nine 
games 
remain 
for 
Michigan in the regular season, 
all against conference opponents. 
Heading into this weekend’s series 
at Minnesota, the Wolverines are 
only one point ahead of the three-
way tie for last place in the Big 
Ten. Eight points separate them 
from first-place Ohio State. At 
26th in the Pairwise rankings, at 
least 10 spots separate them from 
a potential at-large bid.
If Michigan hopes to make an 
NCAA Tournament appearance, 
it will need to begin coming out of 
weekends with more than three 
points.
The Wolverines can start by 
sweeping the Gophers, who are in 
third place — three points ahead 
of Michigan — in the Big Ten 
standings. By picking up their 
first sweep, the Wolverines will 
leave the company of Penn State 
as the only Big Ten teams without 

one.
“We have (felt a sense of 
urgency) 
for 
a 
little 
bit 
now, 
I 
think,” 
said 
Michigan 
coach 
Mel Pearson. “So 
that’s why coming 
off 
the 
(series 
split) — it was 
disappointing you 
know — at Ohio 
State when you 
have the lead in 
the third period. 
And then played pretty well but 
made some bad mistakes in New 
York — because you can’t get 
those points back. And as you look 
at the standings, everything’s so 
tight. One game and you go from 
third place to last place, seventh 
place. So, it’s a huge shift there 
so yeah, we understand that, and 
we have to make sure we dial it up 
even another notch here and the 
last nine games that we have.
“I wouldn’t call (the rest of the 
games) must-win but the points 
are very critical. I mean, you don’t 
want to be at the end of the year 
after the regular season and say, 
‘Well, if we would’ve won this 
game here then we would’ve been 
on home ice.’ You don’t want that, 
so that’s how we’re approaching 
this, it’s a process.”

But as far as the rankings go, 
Pearson sounds unconcerned.
“You do A, B, C, 
D and you’ll have 
a 
good 
chance 
instead of looking 
at the standings,” 
Pearson 
said. 
“We don’t talk 
too much to the 
players about the 
standings or that. 
It’s 
just 
trying 
to do everything 
we can for that 
next game and give them the 
information they need to go out 
and execute and have a great 
game.”
Barring a late-season run, 
Michigan will most likely need 
to win the Big Ten Tournament 
to make a postseason appearance. 
If the Wolverines can manage 
to stay in the top half of the 
table, they are assured home-ice 
advantage in the first round, best-
of-three series of the tournament 
— and with every series split that 
passes, it is looking like the sole 
route to the NCAA Tournament.
Prior to the team’s flight to 
Minnesota, Pearson was asked 
whether he feels comfortable 
relying 
on 
the 
conference 
tournament to earn a bid.
“At this point I think we might 

have to be,” Pearson said. “The 
way the Big Ten Tournament is 
set up — I don’t 
want to say it’s 
any easier than 
any other league, 
but you have a 
better chance. If 
you can get past 
the first round, 
then you’re just 
in a single game 
format. It doesn’t 
matter where you 
play or who you 
play, you have to try and find a 
way to beat them once to move on, 
and that’s what it is. … And I think 
it’s more of a toss-up who is going 
to win that game because there is 

so much balance in the Big Ten.
“First round is a little tougher 
because if you’re 
going to be on 
the 
road, 
you 
have to go in and 
win two out of 
the three games 
and that’s a little 
more 
difficult 
to 
do 
on 
the 
road. 
Winning 
one game, hey, 
anybody 
would 
take that chance.”
It’s a chance Pearson is willing 
to take. And it’s a chance he will 
have no choice but to take — 
unless the team strings together 
back-to-back wins.

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

JORGE CAZARES
Daily Sports Writer

EVAN AARON/Daily
Michigan coach John Beilein has always emphasized playing physically while avoiding fouls on defense.

Sometimes you 
can get away 
with fooling the 
refs.

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
The Michigan hockey team must stop splitting series if it is to make a miraculous run to the NCAA Tournament

You do A, B, 
C, D and you’ll 
have a good 
chance.

I wouldn’t call 
(the rest of the 
games) must-
win.

