6A — Thursday, October 31, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘Cees in Space’: Ruiz hitting stride

Cesar Ruiz sat atop the 
podium, 
smirking 
frequently 
and bantering with junior guard 
Michael Onwenu to his right. 
The confidence oozed — perhaps 
due to the 57-carry, 303-yard 
demolition his unit had just 
orchestrated, perhaps simply a 
product of his happy-go-lucky 
attitude.
“We said in the locker room 
we knew what kind of game 
it was going to be,” Ruiz said 
after the game. “We changed 
the openers a little bit. We knew 
we were gonna be ground and 
pounding a lot today. It’s the 
game we’ve been waiting for. We 
love running the ball. And just, 
we knew today was gonna be 
the day we were gonna be able to 
showcase it.”
It wasn’t simply that Ruiz 
and the rest of the offensive 
line had its way with a physical 
Notre Dame defense, but the 
manner in which it happened. In 
a persistent rain, the Irish knew 
Michigan was going to run. 
The Wolverines did so anyway, 
putting hat on hat, winning 
individual matchups, completely 
taking over the game en rout to a 
45-14 win.
When 
Ruiz 
arrived 
at 
Michigan, the offensive line 
was 
among 
this 
program’s 
biggest flaws; his commitment 
was a major boon. Now, that 
group appears to be the team’s 
foundation, and the Notre Dame 
game was just the latest evidence 
of the group’s evolution. The 
coaches said Ruiz graded out the 
highest among a group of highly-
graded linemen on Saturday. 
“I thought he had his best 
game as a Michigan Wolverine,” 
said 
Michigan 
coach 
Jim 
Harbaugh on his radio show 
Monday night. “He was doing 
so many athletic things in this 
ball game. He had a touchdown 
block. And on that one, where he 
did pull and got the block on the 

linebacker, you actually see him 
checking the gap before he went 
on his pull.”
Ruiz 
has 
started 
from 
day one, arriving with the 
Wolverines after a year at IMG 
Academy in Florida. He was 
a top-tier recruit, as close to a 
finished product as they come. 
He appeared in 10 games in 
2017, his freshman season, and 
started at guard in the final five 
— both merited by pure talented 
and warranted by necessity.
Still, there are times in every 
successful 
collegiate 
career 
when things really click — when 
the speed and complication 
ceases, and football becomes 
football again. Ruiz always 
had too much talent to fail, 
but there have been times of 
inconsistency in the first couple 
years of his career.
Any such struggles appear to 
be ways of the past now.
“I have two starting centers 
in 
the 
National 
Football 
League, both started as rookies. 
He has that kind of ability some 
day to get to that point,” said 
Michigan offensive line coach 
Ed Warriner in April 2018, the 
spring preceding Ruiz’s second 
season. “Not yet, he’s just a 
young kid. But if he keeps going, 
I know what they look like.”
That was, presumably, mere 
months after the two had met. 
All Warriner had to do was 
flash Ruiz’s high school tape to 

know he’d be relying on Ruiz 
early and often. All Ruiz had 
to do was toss a cursory Google 
search of Warriner’s history to 
understand why that need went 
both ways.
The comfort level with Ruiz 
is now obvious, and all parties 
are reaping the benefits.
“He’s good in space — we 
tease him, ‘Cees in space,’ We 
joke around about that. We 
got into a situation with the 
defenses where we were playing 
where we were able to pull him 
some, get him on the perimeter, 
and he likes doing that.”
Added Harbaugh: “The level 
of him understanding the game 
has really grown where he can 
know the front, see rotations 
now and even when he goes 
to put his head between his 
legs to snap the ball back to 
Shea,” Harbaugh said. “He’s 
got a pretty good idea where 
his man is going to be even if 
that linebacker moved or that 
down-lineman 
moved. 
It’s 
extraordinary.”
After Saturday’s game, Ruiz 
and Onwenu were asked a 
question about whether this 
kind of performance had been 
building. Onwenu went first, 
providing a diplomatic answer.
Ruiz nodded immediately, 
smiled and nudged toward his 
microphone. 
“I knew it was coming sooner 
or later.”

Defense mixing in more zone looks

Five 
months 
after 
The 
Game happened, Don Brown 
was still getting asked about 
it. His vaunted defense, one 
that dominated 10 straight 
teams and seemed like a train 
rolling into Columbus last year, 
couldn’t stand up to Ohio State.
The 
Buckeyes 
whipped 
Michigan, scoring 62 points on 
the back of crossing route after 
crossing route, with the basic 
man-coverage 
beaters 
doing 
their jobs. And when spring ball 
came around last April, Brown 
was still answering for it.
It was clear at the time 
that Brown, the Wolverines’ 
defensive coordinator, wasn’t 
about to back away from his 
philosophies. Not now, not at 
age 64, not when he’s piloted 
one of the best defenses in the 
country since first stepping 
into Schembechler Hall in 2016. 
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t 
going to address the issue at 
hand.
That 
brings 
us 
to 
last 
Saturday, as Notre Dame dialed 
up play after play designed to 
beat man coverage. When he 
saw zone, quarterback Ian Book 
reeled.
“We have been playing a lot 
more zone,” said cornerbacks 
coach 
Mike 
Zordich 
on 
Wednesday. “I think it’s helped 
in a lot of aspects, especially in 
the passing game, cause they’re 
not expecting it.”
Michigan doesn’t need to 
be a zone team to be effective 
running zone. Football is a 
chess match — if you can throw 
something different at your 
opponent than what they’re 
expecting, 
you’re 
probably 
going to come out on top.
That was what happened 
Saturday, as Book stared into 
the zone coverages like a test 
he hadn’t studied for. It didn’t 
help that there was a monsoon 
during the first half, or that 

Brian Kelly’s playcalling didn’t 
seem to account for the weather. 
But Book finished 8-for-25 
with just 73 passing yards. “I 
definitely think he was a little 
confused,” said junior safety 
Brad Hawkins on Monday.
Brown’s base zone coverage 
is called “Eagle.” It’s not new 
— he’s had it in his playbook 
for a long time — but he’s now 
deploying it more liberally.
As far as self-scouting goes, 
any evaluation of Michigan 
under Brown would have shown 
a team married to single-high 
coverage with a tendency to 
blitz liberally. That, to be clear, 
is not a bad thing. Anything 
that gets you to the sustained 
success Brown has had is the 
opposite.
But a lack of ability to do much 
else well put the Wolverines on 
the back foot in Columbus last 
year. And ultimately, beating 
teams of that caliber is still the 
hump Michigan still needs to 
get over.
Against 
Notre 
Dame, 
a 
rival and a top-10 team, the 
Wolverines managed to shut 
things down with a healthy 
mix. They still know who they 
are, and they certainly aren’t 
about to stray from Brown’s 
aggressive philosophy. “Within 
all that zone coverage, there’s 
still pressure,” Zordich said. 

“So that is a big plus for us.”
Still, 
adapting 
to 
each 
opponent has been an emphasis.
“Every week, Don does add 
a little different flavoring into 
it,” Zordich said. “Little change 
in the pattern, here or there. 
You have to make changes 
weekly, but the core of it pretty 
much stays the same, and that’s 
how you get better.”
As Michigan tries to bridge 
the gap that has defined the 
program, going from a team 
that makes its living against 
lackluster 
competition 
to 
one that can beat anyone, 
adjustments like that are a 
necessity.
Ohio State exposed that hole 
last year, and Brown seemed 
to slam it shut against Notre 
Dame.
“It 
definitely 
has 
teams 
guessing,” Hawkins said. “Has 
quarterbacks guessing.”
It 
doesn’t 
solve 
every 
problem for the defense, and 
the Fighting Irish should not be 
mistaken for the Buckeyes. But 
it is clear that while everyone 
was still dwelling on Michigan’s 
problems last spring, Brown 
was working on a solution.
“Don Brown called a great 
game,” said Michigan coach 
Jim Harbaugh on Saturday. “He 
really had it wired. Can’t say 
enough about that.”

Wednesday night’s exhibition 
against Division II Northwood 
offered an opportunity for the 
Michigan 
women’s 
basketball 
team to showcase its talent 
working at peak level. 
Leaning on their superior size 
and tough defense, the Wolverines 
ran 
with 
that 
opportunity, 
dominating the Timberwolves, 
97-46. 
Michigan opened the night 
on a 12-0 run and finished the 
first quarter up 30-11, behind 
senior forward Kayla Robbins’ 
eight points on 3-for-3 shooting. 
Keeping up the pressure, it put 
Northwood into foul trouble early, 
drawing four fouls in the first three 
minutes of the game. This forced 
the Timberwolves into a more 
tentative approach defensively, 
opening up space down low. 
As a result, the Wolverines’ 
bigs feasted, spearheading the 
team’salmost unfathomable 58 
points in the paint. 
“I think (scoring in the paint) is 
something that our team has got to 
do this year,” said Michigan coach 
Kim Barnes Arico. “Because our 
post game is our strength, and our 
ability to score in the paint.”
Senior guard Akienreh Johnson 
aided the Wolverines’ dominant 
offensive attack early on, adding 
seven first-quarter points of her 
own, including a 3-pointer that 
helped Michigan balloon its lead 
at the end of the first quarter. 
In 
the 
second 
quarter, 
sophomore forward Naz Hillmon 
and freshman forward Izabel 
Varejão stepped up. Hillmon 
tallied seven points on 3-for-3 
shooting before she was subbed 
out midway through the quarter. 
She and Varejão, who notched 10 
points of her own in the second 
quarter, proved to be a lethal one-
two punch on both sides of the 
ball. Their length helped them 
to anchor defense that held the 
Timberwolves to just eight points 
in the second quarter.
“I feel like me and Naz have 
a really good game together,” 

Varejão said. “Because I can shoot, 
and she can post up.”
Varejão was just one example 
in a game full of young players 
seizing the opportunity to shine 
against inferior talent. Sophomore 
forward Emily Kiser — who 
didn’t see much playing time as a 
freshman — tallied 10 points on 
4-of-4 shooting, and freshman 
guard Michelle Sidor notched 
eight points on 2-of-6 shooting. 
Freshman guard Maddie Nolan 
added four points of her own — all 
from the free-throw line. 
“Michelle is a power shooter,” 
Varejão said. “ … She made a few 
threes, she was being patient. 
Maddie hustling — that’s her 
thing, she hustled. So I feel like 
we (freshmen) did what we were 

supposed to do.”
The Wolverines maintained 
their 55-19 halftime lead with elite 
defense, holding Northwood to a 
dismal 25 percent shooting in the 
third quarter and 34.5 percent 
over the whole second half. 
“(We used) our length to get 
steals, 
deflections 
and 
tips,” 
Johnson said. “Even something 
as small as close out, put your 
hands up, really takes away their 
shot and makes their shooting 
percentage go down.” 
Added Barnes Arico: “Our 
communication (on defense) was 
better (than in practice). We 
were way more aggressive from 
the tip. We didn’t sustain it for 40 
minutes, but that’s our next step 
in our development.”

The 
Michigan 
women’s 
basketball team began its season 
on Wednesday with an exhibition 
against Northwood. With three of 
its main rotation players from last 
season not returning, it was an 
opportunity for the Wolverines’ 
younger players to earn minutes 
before the regular season.
Michigan’s 
three 
freshmen 
— guard Maddie Nolan, guard 
Michelle Sidor and center Izabel 
Varejão — all took advantage of 
their first in-game opportunity to 
impress the coaching staff.
Varejão was the standout of 
the trio. In 21 minutes, she led 
the team with 18 points, shooting 

8-for-10 from the floor — tacking 
on six rebounds, three blocks 
and two steals. When she was on 
the floor she made her presence 
felt 
the 
paint, 
scoring 16 points 
inside, and her 
teammates 
continued to look 
for her for easy 
baskets.

“It 
feels 
great, honestly,” 
Varejão 
said. 
“Before your first 
game, 
being 
a 
freshman, you’re 
a little nervous. 
… It’s my first time playing college 
basketball, and then I go out there 
and I play well like I did today. 
It just encourages me for next 
game.”
Varejão also showed that she 
can be a threat from 3-point 
range. Towards the end of the 
fourth quarter she attempted a 
three, and while it did not fall, her 
shot appeared comfortable from 
deep. An ability to score in the 
paint and on the perimeter could 
make Varejão a difficult player to 
defend.
“I usually shoot threes but today 
didn’t have many opportunities,” 
Varejão said. “...it’s hard to block 
(6-foot-4) players especially if it’s 
threes, so it just gives me more 
options in the game.”
While 
Varejão 
racked 
up 
statistics, 
Nolan 
impacted 
the game in ways that didn’t 
necessarily show up in the box 
score and earned minutes with 
four of the starters to start the 
fourth quarter. In the second 
quarter, Nolan missed a three, but 
hustled to get her own rebound 
and found sophomore forward 
Naz Hillmon under the basket, 
which resulted in two free throws. 
In the fourth quarter, Nolan dove 
on the floor for a loose ball, a play 
that caught the attention of senior 
guard Akienreh Johnson.
“Maddie came in and got down 
on the ball,” Johnson said. “I don’t 
know if you guys have seen her, 
but she’s got that knee brace, but 
she’s still on the ground, she does 

not care.”
Of the three freshmen, she was 
not as highly-touted of a recruit as 
Varejão and Sidor, but Michigan 
coach 
Kim 
Barnes Arico saw 
a lot positives in 
her game.
“I think any 
time 
you 
can 
have 
a 
player 
that understands 
their 
role 
and 
buys into what 
you need them 
to do to help 
the 
team 
be 
successful, they 
are an unbelievable addition to the 
team,” Barnes Arico said. “She’s 
just gradually getting better and 
better each and every single day, 
and I’m gaining confidence in 
her ability to really help us be 
successful.”
Sidor 
showed 
how 
her 
quickness could be a game-
changer 
for 
the 
Wolverines. 
Throughout the second quarter, 
Sidor had the opportunity to run 
the point and consistently pushed 
the pace. She scored six points in 
her six minutes in that quarter 
alone, along with an assist and a 
steal.
“I think we really want her 
to push the pace, but that kid 
is a scorer,” Barnes Arico said. 
“She’s a bucket-getter and I 
think she really needs to have 
that mentality on the floor for us 
because she does shoot the three 
exceptionally well and she can 
score around the rim. So I want 
her to be aggressive, and I was 
happy with her ability to do that 
tonight.”
Not 
only 
did 
the 
trio’s 
performance impress coaches, 
but it also gave Michigan’s 
experienced players confidence 
that 
the 
freshmen 
can 
be 
important 
contributors 
this 
season.
“I was so excited,” Johnson 
said. “Iz was able to make some 
great moves. Michelle has been 
getting rebounds … I think they 
just played really great, and I was 
really very happy for them.”

Northwood, no problem

Michigan cruises past Northwood in exhibition on Wednesday, 97-46, starting on a 12-0 run and never looking back

MAX MARCOVITCH
Managing Sports Editor

BRENDAN ROOSE
Daily Sports Writer

JACK KINGSLEY
Daily Sports Writer

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Junior center Cesar Ruiz graded out as the best offensive lineman on Saturday.

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Defensive coordinator Don Brown has his defense playing more zone.

KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily
Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico guided her team to an easy win in Wednesday’s exhibition against Northwood.

She’s just 
gradually 
getting better 
and better...

