AN EVENING WITH SAFA AL AHMAD

NOVEMBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. | RACKHAM AUDITORIUM

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

“

Throw out the records,”
said Michigan coach Jim
Harbaugh early Monday
afternoon, a wry smile subtly
forming on his face. “There’s a
cliché you can use when you play
this type of
game.”
Whether
he believes
that or not
— his team
staring down
the barrel of
a bout against
4-5 Michi-
gan State on
Saturday —
matters little.
This is a week that annually
breeds the kind of teeth-gritting
clichés of coachspeak, muttered
monotonously and meaning-
lessly. Respect for the opponent.
The importance of rivalry games.
All business.
Those clichés will evaporate
the moment the ball is snapped
and will be ripped to shreds after
a victor is crowned mid-after-
noon Saturday.
Then everyone
will gather again
one year from
now to rehearse
this charade
once more.
The reality is
you can’t throw
out the records.
You can’t ignore
the nosedive the
Spartans have
taken, nor the ramifications of
what a beatdown on Saturday
might mean. This is not 2015,
two ranked opponents duking
it out in Harbaugh’s first year,
surely an even-handed promise
of things to come. It’s not 2016,
one side rampaging toward real
postseason hopes, the other just
praying to play spoiler. It’s not
2017, two hapless sides assigning
meaning to a game that other-
wise would have none. And it’s
not 2018, two ranked opponents
playing an ostensible elimination
game.
You can’t throw out the
records here because the records
tell all. This is one side trying
to cling to a fading sense of who
it once was, the other looking

to send that crisis into turbo.
This is Jim Harbaugh trying
to deliver a knockout punch to
his most formidable foe. This is
Michigan trying to bludgeon a
Michigan State program slowly
sinking in quicksand. The onus is
on the Wolverines to grab hold of
the reins.
Underneath those annual
platitudes Monday, the hints
of that mentality were readily
apparent.
“You can’t let them get their
heads up,” said junior corner-
back Ambry Thomas. “Try to
step on their throat and stay
there all game. You know that
they’re going to treat this game
like their Super Bowl.”
Then asked what he sees of
the Spartans’ offense, a group
that ranks 96th of 130 teams in
total offense, Thomas said: “I see
a team with a lot of talent, hon-
estly. They just haven’t figured it
out yet.”
Harbaugh’s hesitancy this
week is understandable, though.
His counterpart, Mark Danto-
nio, has beaten
Michigan eight
of his 12 years at
Michigan State,
including two
wins in four
tries against
Harbaugh. Even
with a talent gap,
the Spartans
have found ways
to muck these
games up, slow
them down and even win them.
In 2017, Dantonio’s crew ran the
ball 40 times, picked off Michi-
gan quarterback John O’Korn
three times and held on for a
14-10 win in the pouring rain. It
was a master class in coaching,
beginning to end.
That’s what guides Har-
baugh’s trepidation heading into
a game in which all signs point
toward a blowout.
“On high alert for every-
thing,” Harbaugh said. “Specifi-
cally, we understand that Coach
Dantonio is a master motivator.
There could be trick plays on
special teams. Punt fakes, field
goal fakes. Everything needs
to be alerted and prepared and
ready for.”

Still, what exists amidst Har-
baugh’s suppressed fears cannot
simply eliminate what’s right
there in plain sight. Dantonio
and Michigan State are 15-18 in
Big Ten play over the past three-
plus years. They are fresh off
blowing a 28-3 lead at home to
a mediocre Illinois team. There
are questions swirling about the
future of the greatest coach in
that program’s modern history.
Those questions are real, and
perhaps lasting.
“Whatever’s happened to
them, has happened,” said
sophomore defensive end Aidan
Hutchinson. “Regardless of what
happened to them, we’re going
to go out there and play our
game.”
Play our game. Throw out the
records. High alert. This week,
the typical clichés are out there
to grab onto if you so choose. But
they do a disservice to the abnor-
mal stakes at play this weekend.
How about instead of throw-
ing out the records, we throw out
the pretense: If Michigan does
what it should do on Saturday, it
will shatter the balance of power
in this rivalry for the foreseeable
future.

Marcovitch can be reached

at maxmarco@umich.edu or on

Twitter @Max_Marcovitch.

Aidan Hutchinson knows what
this rivalry is all about. He grew
up in Dearborn, less than 100 miles
from both schools. He heard stories
about it from his dad, a standout
linebacker at Michigan in the
early 1990s. In high school, he was
recruited by both sides.
Monday afternoon, standing
in front of a rivalry-sized swarm
of cameras inside Schembechler
Hall, that experience is what led
him to declare Michigan State “our
biggest rival,” before realizing what
he said and pausing. “Or, maybe our
biggest rival.”
It’s a declaration that would
seem ridiculous in 49 states, with
Ohio State looming in two weeks.
But not here, where this rivalry
— and your side of it — defines
friendships and shapes childhoods.
That’s
the
reality
that’s
encompassed Hutchinson’s life for
the past 19 years. And now, four
days from the Spartans’ biannual
trip to Michigan Stadium, it’s the

reality that stares him in the face.
Because for all his experience on
periphery of this rivalry, Saturday
is Hutchinson’s first time truly
on the inside, as a key cog in the
Wolverines’ defense.
“It’s completely different (to play
in it),” Hutchinson said. “I think it
intensifies the rivalry even more.
You watch it, you kind of get the
feel of the rivalry. But when you’re
actually in it — you’re hitting them,
you’re talking a little bit — that’s
when things kind of intensify.”
The preparation, in a football
sense, isn’t any different. Film
study
started
the
day
after
Michigan’s last game, much like
it will for Indiana next week.
More experienced players haven’t
been inundating underclassmen
with words of advice. When the
Wolverines take the field, there
won’t be any special ceremonies or
alterations to the routine.
But the difference is tangible.
“It’s about who’s the big brother
and who’s the little sister in this
state,” said junior cornerback
Ambry Thomas, providing the

day’s requisite viral rivalry quote.
“That’s what it’s really about.”
For Hutchinson, the difference
is more understated, coming from
his ingrained knowledge of what
this game means.
It’s also more personal, coming
from his friendship with Theo
Day, a reserve quarterback for the
Spartans.
“The talking has definitely
started between me and him,”
Hutchinson said. “… I don’t know
if I can tell you what he said, but
some words were said between
us. He was talking a little bit about
the game. I’m just pumped to play
him.”
It’s a familiar refrain for anyone
who listens to these rivalry week
pump-up speeches masquerading
as press conferences.
Every year, in-state players
position themselves in front of
cameras and talk about their
relationships on the other side,
often with brash declarations
included. And then, every year,
the in-game jawing follows suit,
crescendoing in the most physical,
personal game of the Wolverines’
season.
“Obviously there’s going to
be a little bit more stuff after the
whistle,” Hutchinson said. “I’m
expecting that because of how this
rivalry has been in the past.”
For players like Ben Bredeson or
Carlo Kemp, that part is normal by
now. They’re the ones who know
better than to provide any bulletin-
board material, instead emitting
a respect for the opponent that
won’t land them any cheap shots
Saturday afternoon.
Hutchinson might be expecting
it, having gotten a few snaps last
year. But for now, all he can do is
wait.
That, and get ready for the self-
described most important game
he’s ever started.
“Last year, I came in as a backup,
only got a couple plays,” Hutchinson
said. “But I’m expecting to do some
big things in the game.”

State of animosity
Michigan readies for Michigan State with programs facing opposite directions as program outlooks hang in rivalry balance

‘M’ tries to weaponize two-big looks

If you can’t think of a
time when Jon Teske played
alongside another big man last
season, it’s for good reason.
For the Michigan basketball
team, those instances were
few and far between. Now-
departed
forwards
Ignas
Brazdeikis
and
Charles
Matthews played significant
minutes on last year’s team,
and
then-sophomore
wing
Isaiah Livers also saw time off
the bench. That, coupled with
the fact that the Wolverines’
didn’t have a true backup ‘5,’
prevented
then-freshmen
Brandon Johns Jr. and Colin
Castleton from making a major
impact.
That’s no longer the case.
After
Brazdeikis
and
Matthews left for the NBA
Draft, Livers assumed a role
as a starter. Now sophomores,
Johns and Castleton spent
the summer in Ann Arbor,
where
they
gained
much-
needed muscle ahead of their
anticipated spikes in playing
time. Howard envisions both
players as pieces capable of
scoring at all three levels,
holding their own on the
glass and guarding multiple
positions.
Against Appalachian State
last
Tuesday,
Johns
and
Castleton all looked much-
improved. The duo accounted
for 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting
and grabbed five rebounds.
Perhaps it was the undersized
opponent or natural maturity
of being a year older, but it
shouldn’t come as a surprise to
see the immediate returns of
hiring first-year coach Juwan
Howard, who developed young
big men like Hassan Whiteside
and
Bam
Adebayo
as
an
assistant with the Miami Heat.
“Everyday,
(Howard)
is
working us out one-on-one,
all the big guys, and he’s the
coach that’s getting down and
dirty with us,” Castleton said
at Michigan’s media day in
October. “He’ll push us, bump
us and stuff like that, and he’ll
teach us while we do it. … I

don’t think it’s like (what) any
other coach can do because
he’s that position player.”
With
no
shortage
of
frontcourt talent in the Big
Ten this season, Howard used
last Tuesday’s season-opener
to flex his own team’s muscle.
After Teske scored 11 points
in just over four minutes,
the
Wolverines
showcased
variations of his lineup that
featured multiple big men.
While Teske may be the
lone center in the starting
lineup, two of Michigan’s three
rotational big men were on the
floor together for 14 minutes of
the first half. The Wolverines
reaped the benefits, outscoring
the Mountaineers by 10 points
in that timespan.
“As far as defense-wise,
we can show the other team
multiple lineups,” Castleton
said. “I think it’s great as far as
versatility and on the offensive
end it’s good too because we
have a great high-low game,
and me and (Teske) can both
shoot the ball. … We can spread
the floor out and we’re both
two really big bodies on the
glass as well.”
There
weren’t
many
interior challenges against an
Appalachian State team that
doesn’t have a player taller
than 6-foot-9 on its roster,
while the Wolverines’ three
rotational big men are at least
that tall.
Tuesday night, a Creighton
team with only one healthy
player taller than 6-foot-8
visits
Crisler
Center.
That
player
is
6-foot-11
center

Kelvin Jones, who is now on
his fourth college after stints
at UTEP, Odessa College and
Idaho State.
From Howard’s perspective,
though, his team’s interior
success boils down to more
than just size.
“It’s
been
effective
for
us,” Howard said. “Jon is an
excellent passer, a high-IQ
player, (he’s) always going
to make the right play, never
going to try to do anything he
cannot do. … Brandon, with his
activity and energy, he’s been
ready every time his name has
been called on. He’s been able
to produce, and so has Colin.”
Added Castleton: “(Passing)
is one of the things in (Teske’s)
game that people don’t really
talk about. He has so many
other tools he can show and
different things on offense
and defense he does so well
that overpower the passing
ability he shows, but passing
is probably one of his best
attributes.”
Teske’s
passing
could
become the key to sustaining
success with multiple big men
on the floor against formidable
Big
Ten
defenses.
When
Michigan
can’t
overwhelm
teams with size alone, high-
low ball movement between big
men can open opportunities
that
otherwise
wouldn’t
present themselves.
But to Johns, the appeal is
simpler.
“It’s like huge towers out
there,” Johns said. “We’re so
big, our size disrupts a lot of
defenses.”

MILES MACKLIN/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has a chance to beat Michigan State and Mark Dantonio at home for the first time.

Try to step on
their throat and
stay there all
game.

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Sophomore forward Colin Castleton will have an increased role off the bench.

MAX

MARCOVITCH

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor