8 — Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The Wolverines’ Quinn Hughes and the process of bouncing back

With 
17 
minutes 
left 
in 
Michigan’s game against Penn 
State at Madison Square Garden 
on Jan. 26, the Wolverines 
trailed 4-0.
But 
then 
sophomore 
defenseman 
Quinn 
Hughes 
fired a shot at goaltender Peyton 
Jones, and redshirt sophomore 
forward Luke Morgan was there 
to clean up the rebound and 
send it home. After 43 scoreless 
minutes, the Michigan hockey 
team was on finally the board.
A few minutes later, the 
Wolverines were on the power 
play with a chance to further 
cut into the deficit. Penn State 
was able to clear the puck down 
the ice, and Hughes was the 
defenseman assigned to bring 
the puck back into the offensive 
zone.
As the sophomore skated 
toward center ice, Hughes tried 
to send a backward pass to a 
teammate. But there was no 
one there, and forward Alex 
Limoges picked up the puck and 
sent it past a sprawling junior 
goaltender Hayden Lavigne. It 
was the Nittany Lions’ fifth and 
final goal of the night — and the 
second that came from Hughes 
giving up the puck.
“That game against Penn 
State, (Hughes) stood up in the 
locker room after the game and 
said, ‘Hey, I was Penn State’s best 
player tonight,’ ” said Michigan 
coach Mel Pearson on Saturday. 
“First, you have to own it. I 
think that’s the first thing is you 
have to own it to be able to move 
forward and make changes. And 
he’s a smart guy. He knew it, he 
knew it. I give him a lot of credit 
for standing up in front of his 
teammates and saying that.”
After completing the first 
step of taking ownership for his 
mistakes, Hughes’ next move 
was to talk with the coaching 
staff and watch film from the 
game.
Pearson 
and 
the 
rest 
of 
his staff like to watch film 
with their players early in the 
week. Hockey is a sport more 

dependent 
on 
the 
decisions 
of an individual than other 
team sports, so every Monday, 
Tuesday and Wednesday, players 
will individually file into the 
coaches’ offices for a personal 
film session.
Hughes 
sat 
down 
with 
both 
Pearson 
and 
assistant 
coach Brian Wiseman — who 
spends his time focusing on the 
defensemen — after that game 
in New York to look at Hughes’ 
performance.
“He’s a smart hockey player,” 
Pearson 
said 
Monday. 
“He 
understands the game. At times 
they weren’t — it’s nothing he 
doesn’t know and the beauty 
of it is, it’s nothing you can’t 
overcome or you can’t correct. If 
it’s something you can’t correct 
or the player continues to do it, 

then you have an issue.
“But the way he plays, we’re 
gonna let him play his game, 
just like we would any of our 
players. There’s a certain style 
we 
play 
with 
and we’re gonna 
let 
guys 
play. 
They just have 
to 
limit 
their 
major mistakes. 
You’re 
gonna 
make 
mistakes, 
but you have to 
learn from them 
and try to limit 
them.”
It’s 
easy 
to 
look at Hughes’ turnovers in 
New York and say they’re the 
result of a player trying to get 
too cute or attempting to make 
an eye-popping play.

But according to Pearson, it’s 
the exact opposite.
“The thing with him is he 
wants to win so bad,” Pearson 
said. “He’s trying to create 
opportunities 
for us. You have 
to 
understand 
that. I don’t think 
sometimes a lot 
of people maybe 
get 
that. 
They 
just want him to 
dump it in and 
stay 
back, 
and 
anybody can do 
that. But it’s not 
in his DNA, so 
now we have to work with him 
to manage the game.”
And 
since 
that 
game 
in 
New York, Hughes has clearly 
internalized what he talked 

about with his coaches and 
worked to limit his mistakes.
His effort level has visibly 
been higher, and he’s made 
impressive plays in all four 
games since. This time, his plays 
have made Michigan’s highlight 
reel — not the other team’s. 
Hughes is refocusing on the 
little things that make him 
successful, and it’s been effective 
thus far.
“As a competitor, when you 
don’t play that great, you want to 
follow up, trying to have a really 
good game and string together 
some good games,” Hughes said. 
“That’s what I think I’ve done, 
and I think that was my mindset. 
Just to — I think it was good for 
me just to refocus and get ready 
for the following weekend.”
Added Pearson: “I think he’s 

more aware defensively, more 
aware with the puck, more aware 
when he’s the last man, more 
aware when he can jump into the 
rush versus just putting himself 
in a bad position defensively. 
Being more physical, playing the 
body more. All those things.”
Bouncing back from a bad 
game is a process, and it’s not one 
that Hughes — the No. 7 overall 
draft pick in the 2018 NHL Draft 
and one of the top prospects 
in college hockey — has a lot of 
experience with.
But 
Hughes’ 
performance 
in the last four games shows 
that he’s moved on and come 
through to the other side, and 
his comments follow those same 
lines. 
“I haven’t thought about New 
York since New York.”

BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer

Jordan Poole: Don’t call it a slump

Don’t tell Jordan Poole he’s in a 
slump. At least not to his face.
“I personally don’t like to use 
the word slump. It’s a media thing,” 
the sophomore guard said last 
Monday after he shot 3-for-9 in a 
loss to Iowa. “But there’ll just be 
games where you don’t hit shots. 
… I bounce back. That’s all there is 
to it.”
Whatever term you use, it’s 
undeniable that Poole’s recent 
shooting numbers have been below 
his usual standards — something 
that 
has 
contributed 
to 
the 
Michigan men’s basketball team’s 
offensive regression in conference 
play.
Since a Jan. 3 game against Penn 
State, Poole has shot just 19-of-63 — 
30 percent — from beyond the arc. 
Though Poole’s dislike of the term 
“slump” may come down to just 
semantics, his shooting struggles 
go deeper than a simple blanket 
term.
“One of Jordan’s issues was 
where he was shooting,” said 
Michigan coach John Beilein 
last week. “He was open, but he 
didn’t have — he didn’t need to 
be standing at the NBA line and 
shooting.”
In 
recent 
contests 
against 
Rutgers and Wisconsin, it seemed 

like maybe Poole was breaking 
through. But lost in the cheers 
after 
Poole 
drained 
a 
triple 
for Michigan’s first points of 
Saturday’s win against the Badgers 
was the fact that he still released 
the shot a few feet beyond the arc — 
the exact kind of NBA three Beilein 
wants him to avoid.
Beilein estimated that Poole has 
hit 45 percent of his shots from the 
college line in practice, but just 33 
percent from the NBA line. It’s a 
hard habit to break. After all, a shot 
is mostly muscle memory. Poole 
just gets himself open, takes the 
ball and shoots, the way he always 
has. These moments happen in a 
split second during a real game, so 
Poole has no time to look down and 
check his proximity to the arc.
Instead, to combat the problem, 
Beilein and the other coaches 
have been working with Poole to 
readjust. During a practice last 
Sunday, assistant coach DeAndre 
Haynes stood on the sideline 
behind Poole, watching to see if 
he drifted too far out. Every time 
he did, Haynes pushed him back 
toward the arc.
“It’s a hard thing,” Beilein said. 
“There’s some players with their 
GPS — it just takes time to adjust. 
I mean, they just have this feel of 
where they should be and it’s really 
hard. … And he’s not saying, ‘Heck 
with you, coach, I’m gonna stand 

over here!’ It’s the GPS thing that 
people will go through.”
The 
changes 
won’t 
come 
overnight, but if Poole continues 
to adjust his internal compass, it 
could pay dividends for him and 
the team. Meanwhile, there are 
other steps Poole has taken to put 
himself in better situations to get 
quality shots.
He’s talked to junior guard 
Zavier Simpson about how to not 
only keep passing lanes open, but 
also how to angle himself so that 
he’s in a good position to catch and 
shoot from an optimal location. 
And he’s also become tuned in to 
where his defenders are and how 
they might close out in different 
looks. That allows him to strike a 
balance between getting open and 
being as close to the arc as possible.
As for his depressed 3-point 
numbers, Poole’s just going to keep 
shooting. If there’s one thing he has 
in spades, it’s confidence, and he 
won’t let anything — whether it’s a 
few bad games or talk of slumps — 
faze him.
“Most of us shoot thousands of 
shots a day in practice and you’re 
working on shooting your shots 
and then you come to practice,” 
Poole said. “I mean, you shoot all 
the time. There’s gonna be days it 
ain’t going in and days it is. … You 
can’t change anything due to one 
game or two games.”

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Sophomore guard Jordan Poole has shot just 30 percent from 3-point range since a Jan. 3 win over Penn State.

Storako starts season with a bang

After last weekend, one thing 
was cleared up for the No. 19 
Michigan softball team: who will 
back up sophomore left-hander 
Meghan Beaubien in the pitching 
rotation.
Alex Storako answered that 
question when the freshman 
right-hander made her collegiate 
debut in the first game of the 
season 
on 
Friday. 
Storako’s 
entrance at the top of the fifth 
inning, when the Wolverines 
were trailing North Carolina State 
by two, was a testament to the 
confidence she has earned from 
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins. 
She didn’t disappoint, pitching 
the final three innings without 
allowing a single hit, which 
allowed Michigan to squeeze out 
a narrow 4-3 win.
“We were certainly excited to 
see what (Storako) was going to do 
for us,” Hutchins said. “She’s done 
nothing but get better for us.”
And from the looks of this 
weekend, Storako may be able 
to do a lot for the Wolverines. 
She gave up just nine hits over 
four games, seven of which were 
translated into runs. But things 

weren’t entirely smooth sailing for 
the freshman pitcher.
Just a few hours after her first 
collegiate pitch, the Wolverines 
started Storako in the circle in 
a game against No. 7 Arizona. 
Showing her first signs of faltering 
in the bottom of the third inning, 
Storako walked two Wildcats. 
This prompted Hutchins to visit 
Storako at the mound and provide 
some straightforward advice: Be 
confident out there.
“We want all pitchers to have 
command 
of 
their 
pitches,” 
Hutchins said. “In (Storako’s) 
case, she did a really nice job. She 
had a walk throw against Arizona 
and, more than anything, she 
needs to be very one pitch focused 
and really intense. Every pitch 
counts in this game. You can’t take 
a pitch off.
“I think (Sunday) she was 
probably a little tired. Everyone’s 
a little tired. Five games is a lot 
of games. It’s a long weekend, 
especially for a young pitcher.”
While Storako was later taken 
out of that game, she went on to 
play in games on both Saturday 
and Sunday.
Over the course of the weekend, 
Storako pitched a total of 15 
innings, just shy of Beaubien’s 18 

and far surpassing sophomore 
right-hander 
Sarah 
Schaefer’s 
single inning. Last week, Hutchins 
said she was looking for a pitcher 
to step up and allow Beaubien 
some rest. As a freshman last year, 
Beaubien pitched 217 of 371 total 
innings, a statistic that possibly 
accounted for the rise in her ERA 
towards the end of the season.
As Storako began to step into 
that role, Beaubien began to guide 
the younger pitcher.
“(Beaubien) is a great mentor,” 
Storako said. “I’m so excited to 
have her. She has such great poise 
and is someone that anyone would 
love to look up to. She’s really 
pointed me in the right direction 
at times and I love having her on 
the pitching staff with me.”
If the first weekend was any 
indication, it looks as though 
Storako will play a pivotal role in 
the pitching rotation alongside 
her mentor.
“I just want to improve on 
getting ahead of the count and 
attacking batters from the get-go,” 
Storako said. “Just staying loose 
throughout the whole game. I 
hope I can contribute to the team’s 
success because we just want to 
win and I will do whatever it takes 
to do that.”

LANE KIZZIAH
Daily Sports Writer

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins tapped Alex Storako as her No. 2 starter during the season’s opening weekend.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Sophomore defenseman Quinn Hughes bounced back from a poor performance on Jan. 26 in a 5-2 loss against Penn State with three assists in Michigan’s sweep of Michigan State over the weekend.

The beauty of it 
is, it’s nothing 
you can’t 
overcome.

