2B — January 27, 2020
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

M

aybe some who pulled 
up to the Lincoln 
High School parking 
lot that night knew what they 
were getting into, but I sure did 
not.
I was there — like most — to 
see Emoni Bates. Bates is the 
top prospect 
in the 2022 
recruiting 
class, accord-
ing to, well, 
everyone. 
Most recruit-
ing analysts, 
including 
ESPN’s Paul 
Biancardi, 
tab Bates as 
the best prep 
player in the nation, regardless 
of class. As a freshman, Bates 
averaged over 28 points and 10 
rebounds and led Lincoln to 
the State Title. His face subse-
quently plastered Sports Illus-
trated with the headline “Magic, 
Michael, LeBron, … Emoni?”
He was 15 at the time.
In August, an ESPN article 
compiling the opinions of over 
a dozen prep basketball experts 
ranked Bates, now 15, tied for 
the third best prospect since 
LeBron — behind Kevin Durant 
and Greg Oden, and tied with 
Derrick Rose.
The article quotes an anony-
mous scout: “He has a chance to 
be ahead of LeBron (James). I’ve 
never seen a better freshman.”
I had not parked myself on 
those rigid bleachers with any 
intention to be an arbiter of his 
legitimacy. That ship has long 
sailed. I just wanted to see it.
And yet, perhaps cynically, 
my default expectation was 
disappointment. In this Hoop 
Mixtape-ified era, when every 
highlight video is edited and 
flawlessly quaffed to only dis-
play the good, hype can be a 
dangerous drug. There’s a rea-
son LeBron remains the only 
player of this ilk to truly live up 

to the hype; it’s really hard. 
Then, as anyone with any 
mild interest in the sport must 
do, I watched him play basket-
ball. I watched him rise from 
25-plus feet; I watched him 
drive the lane, knifing through 
four flailing help defenders; I 
watched him slam alley-oops 
and toss no-look passes; I 
watched him handle the ball 
with dizzying speed and yoyo-
like control. And let me tell you: 
There’s not an ounce of hyper-
bole in these anonymous quotes 
and over-filtered Overtime 
videos.
His shot is aesthetically the 
closest thing anyone’s ever come 
to recreating that of Durant. In 
warmups, he widens his stride, 
loads his lanky 
arms and shoots 
with a silky 
smooth release. 
Few even bother 
to touch rim. 
Bates — at 6-foot-
9 — can get that 
same shot with 
the same motion 
off over anyone. 
But then the 
game starts, and 
the true wonders 
of his game begin to come to life. 
Off the tip, Bates grabs the ball, 
sprints down the court with 
haste, shakes his defender with 
a few crossovers and takes a 
long 3-pointer. It clanks rim.
Instead of sulking or relaxing 
on defense, he keeps that mania-
cal energy all game. There are 
no questions about his “motor” 
or concerns that he “drifts” or 
other euphemisms to express 
disinterest. He is here. And he 
wants to snatch your soul.
He first hits one 3-pointer. 
Then another. Then he rises for 
an alley-oop dunk and unleash-
es a scream upon landing. Every 
trip down the court is a mini-
event. Will he dribble straight 
into a pull-up? Will he try to 
make his defender fall? Will he 

put his head down and get to 
the rim?
Then, as he dances around 
the arc, controlling his defend-
er’s ankles like a puppeteer, 
Bates steps back and drains 
another three. I can’t help but 
stand up. It was like a church-
goer compelled from his seat, 
not by free will, but by the 
spiritual force of some divine 
entity. He had 19 points after the 
first quarter. Nobody seemed 
surprised. Everyone (opposing 
players and fans aside) was rol-
licking in joy. 
It was purely human, instinc-
tive shock. A 16-year-old simply 
should not be that good at bas-
ketball. He goes on to score 40 
points of his team’s 67. You get 
the feeling he 
could’ve scored 
all 67 if he 
wanted.
Rumors, as 
they do, are 
flying about 
Bates’ future. 
Some have 
entertained the 
possibility that 
he reclassifies 
to the 2021 class 
to presumably 
play at Michigan State for a year. 
The thinking, simply, is that 
it’s unimaginable this kid will 
want to play four years of high 
school basketball. It’s easy to see 
why. It’s also an open secret that 
when they negotiate a new Col-
lective Bargaining Agreement, 
the NBA will end the “one-and-
done” rule, perhaps in time for 
Bates to turn professional right 
away. 
The future may be uncertain. 
But the present is undeniable.
If you, like me, are late to the 
party: The next great basketball 
player just happens to live in 
Ypsilanti. Go see him play.

Marcovitch can be reached 

at maxmarco@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @Max_Marcovitch.

The Emoni experience

MEN’S BASKETBALL
Three good things: Honoring Chip

Three good things.
It’s the motto Chip Hills used 
while he was living through 
pancreatic cancer. It’s the motto 
he wrote so much about in his 
letter to the Michigan women’s 
gymnastics team. It’s the motto 
the team has come to live by.
Chip Hills was the dad of 
former Michigan gymnast Cailee 
Hills. In 2015, the Wolverines 
began the Flip for Chip meet. A 
way to honor Chip and his love for 
Michigan gymnastics, but also to 
remind people that sometimes it’s 
about more than just gymnastics.
“I think it’s just awesome to 
come out here and just know that 
our gymnastics can reach so many 
different people,” freshman Sierra 
Brooks said. “And there’s always 
bigger things going on in people’s 
lives than what it seems like.”
Three good things was Chip’s 
motto not only through his cancer 
treatment, but also throughout 
life. It was customary for the 
Hillsfamily to sit down at dinner 
and each say three good things 
that happened in their day. And 
the motto extended far beyond the 
Hill’s family dinner table.
“Honestly, it’s just something 
that we say in the gym all the 
time, and it can apply to so many 
different circumstances,” Brooks 
said. “It just tells us to put our 
struggles in perspective and get 

through the hard things even 
when it doesn’t seem like it. “
While there were mutliple 
positives 
resulting 
from 
the 
Wolverines’ Friday night meet 
against 
Rutgers, 
197.300 
to 
192.950, the Daily breaks down 
three that stood out.
Sophomore Natalie Wojcik’s 
beam routine
The crowd in Crisler Center 
erupted as Natalie Wojcik flipped 
off the beam, sticking the landing 
of her dismount. She posted a 
score of 9.950, the highest of the 
night. Wojcik was the NCAA 
Champion on beam last year, and 
despite a bit of a slower start this 
year, she broke through the wall 
on Friday.
“She really came out tonight 
and showed what she’s capable of 
doing,” Michigan coach Bev Plocki 
said. “Hopefully, this will give her 
more confidence to continue to 
perform at this level.”
Freshman Sierra Brooks’ all-
around performance
Despite her young age, Brooks 
has continued to dominate each 
event, at every meet. Last week, 
she was named the Big Ten 
Freshman of the Week. On Friday 
night, she continued to put that 
stellar reputation to the test. She 
competed all-around — which 
is a feat in itself for a freshman. 
Staying consistent through all four 
events, she posted scores all above 
9.800, with a 9.900 on beam. 
“Overall I’m pretty happy with 

my performance,” Brooks said. 
“It just comes down to fixing the 
small things, working on things 
for the future, but cohesively I’m 
just pretty happy with how I did.”
Team competition
As the Wolverines continue 
the high-level competition they’re 
known for, it could be hard to 
improve, but Michigan showed 
it was possible on Friday night 
by increasing their team score by 
six-tenths of a point from their 
recent meet against Illinois. Such 
improvement is due to their focus 
to detail.
“I think this meet went really 
well,” said Wojcik. “We’ve been 
working on improving things 
week to week and I think we’re 
starting to really get there.”
On Thursday, the day before 
the meet, the Wolverines’ entire 
focus was on detail. In a floor drill 
they call shoot-out, the focus was 
on making eye contact with the 
audience during a floor routine. 
For Michigan its about more 
than the skills, its about the 
performance, the show and the 
crowd. This fine attention to 
detail continues to add to the 
Wolverines’ point total. And part 
of focusing on the audience means 
remembering people like Chip.
In an opening video, the 
Wolverines 
highlighted 
the 
importance of Friday’s meet. 
“This time we compete to honor 
someone. ... This time we flip for 
Chip.”

The expectations for the 
Wolverines entering Sunday’s 
game against Rutgers weren’t 
all that high. 
The 
Michigan 
women’s 
basketball team (13-6 overall, 
4-4 Big Ten) had lost three 
of its last four contests, and 
Sunday was its first full game 
without senior forward Kayla 
Robbins, who tore her ACL a 
week prior. Even more, it was 
going up against a Rutgers team 
(15-4, 5-3) that sat just outside 
the top 25. 
Yet the Wolverines seemed 
unfazed 
— 
even 
without 
Robbins. They hit tough shots. 
They forced turnovers. And 
they dealt the Scarlet Knights 
their fourth loss, burying them, 
71-57.
“We know and understand 
that 
nobody 
is 
gonna 
be 
Kayla Robbins. Nobody in the 
country can be Kayla Robbins,” 
sophomore 
forward 
Naz 
Hillmon said. “We’re not gonna 
try to be. But somebody needs 
to take on the little things 
she did. One person can get a 
couple more rebounds, get a 
couple more points, get a couple 
more steals.”
From 
the 
start, 
the 
Wolverines’ offense did just 
that, 
captained 
by 
senior 
guard Akienreh Johnson. She 
notched seven points and two 
rebounds in the first quarter 
alone, leading Michigan to a 
20-13 lead entering the second 
quarter. Johnson finished the 
first half with 15 points and 
three rebounds. 
On the other end, Rutgers’ 
offense 
was 
a 
disaster. 
A 
backcourt violation just three 
seconds after the opening tip 
set the tone for the Scarlet 
Knights, who turned the ball 
over an astounding 15 times in 
the first half alone. 
On top of Rutgers’ sloppy 
play, a good chunk of its 
turnovers came thanks to a 
new-look 2-3 zone from the 
Wolverines defense. Featuring 

a three-big lineup — with 
Hillmon, junior forward Hailey 
Brown and freshman center 
Izabel Varejão all down low 
— the zone caught the Scarlet 
Knights by surprise and forced 
them into errors.
“We wanted to get the ball 
out of their ball handlers’ hands, 
something that 
a lot of teams 
do 
to 
us,” 
Hillmon 
said. 
“We wanted to 
make them as 
uncomfortable 
as possible and 
make 
other 
people 
make 
decisions. 
Their two ball 
handlers create 
a lot for themselves as well 
as others. We were really just 
trying to make somebody else 
take the shots and handle the 
ball the way that teams try to 
pressure us into doing.”
Visibly frustrated, Rutgers’ 
defense 
committed 
a large 
number of fouls and opened the 
door for more Wolverines to step 
up. Sophomore guard Amy Dilk 
did just that, sinking all five of 
her first-half free throws. She 
remained consistent on offense 
throughout the game, dishing 
the ball to her teammates for a 
respectable five assists.
As the game wore on, the 
Scarlet Knights buried their 
own 
comeback 
hopes 
with 
repeated errors. Though they 
cleaned up the turnovers — 
they committed just two in the 
second half — they couldn’t 
make any of the shots needed 
to make a comeback, shooting a 
poor 36.1 percent in the second 
half. They were even worse on 
free throws, going an abysmal 
5-for-13 from the line in the 
second half. 
Meanwhile, 
Michigan’s 
offense 
continued 
to 
roll. 
Spurred by her electric first 
half, Johnson added another 
nine points on a perfect 4-of-
4 shooting in the second half. 
She finished with 11 rebounds 
and a career-high 24 points — 

the first double-double of her 
career. Hillmon also notched a 
double-double, finishing with 
20 points and 12 rebounds. 
“I think (Johnson) played 
her heart out,” Michigan coach 
Kim Barnes Arico said. “I 
thought she had energy to the 
ball, I thought she had a motor 
to the ball, she 
was everywhere. 
I didn’t realize 
how 
much 
she 
scored 
offensively 
but I knew she 
rebounded 
the 
heck out of the 
ball. She’s kind of 
letting the game 
come to her, she’s 
not pressing, and 
she’s really playing with a lot of 
confidence right now.”
The Wolverines entered this 
game with a lot of question 
marks. They had already been 
struggling 
against 
quality 
teams before Robbins’ injury.
The 
season 
isn’t 
over, 
and questions still remain. 
But 
Michigan 
showed 
on 
Sunday that, despite its recent 
struggles, it can still compete 
with the Big Ten’s best teams 
— even without Kayla Robbins.

When senior forward Kayla 
Robbins went down with a season-
ending ACL injury last week, it was 
clear who the Michigan women’s 
basketball team needed to step up 
— Akienreh Johnson.
The senior guard came into 
the season expected to be what 
Robbins 
was 
— 
the 
scoring 
compliment to sophomore forward 
Naz Hillmon, the player that 
opened up the inside for Hillmon 
and, when Hillmon had an off 
night, the leader that carried the 
Wolverines to a victory.
In Sunday’s 71-57 victory over 
Rutgers, Johnson was all of those 
things for Michigan and more. 
She scored a career-high 24 points 
with 11 rebounds, her first ever 
double-double. No matter what the 
Scarlet Knights tried, she breezed 
through their defense.
“You don’t have to run a play for 
her, but she’s going to go get the 
offensive rebound or she’s going 
to make the right read, the right 
cut, the right slash to get the ball,” 
Hillmon said. “Like (Johnson) said, 
the ball finds energy, and I think 
(Johnson) does a really good job of 
that and I think coach (Kim Barnes 
Arico) knows that. That’s why she 

puts her on the opposite side, so she 
can slash, she can cut.”
Even after a couple of missed 
layups under the rim to start the 
game, Johnson nailed the team’s 
first field goal after slipping 
through the defense and catching 
an inbound pass, immediately 
going up for the shot.
It was the start of a big night for 
Johnson, giving her the confidence 
and energy to continue to make 
those slashes and cuts Robbins 
normally would.
“I just get the ball and like I 
said with my steals, defensive 
rebounds, offensive rebounds and 
once I get those, I start feeling my 
shots,” Johnson said. “We didn’t 
really change anything for me, 
but I think my teammates started 
to look for me more that I started 
scoring more.”
Atop the 3-point arc late in 
the first quarter, Johnson stared 
down a defense that left her alone. 
She made a motion towards the 
basket as if to shoot, and, when the 
defense didn’t move, she accepted 
their dare.
“In practice, I’ve been working 
a lot on my outside threat and 
slashing in the midpoint and 
working on my threes,” Johnson 
said. “So when I caught the ball, 
nobody came to me, and I gave 

them a second, nobody came to 
me again. I was like well, any 
basketball player in the world 
will shoot this shot, and if I miss 
it (Hillmon) and (junior forward 
Hailey Brown) are down there to 
get the rebounds, so I just shot it 
and it went in.”
That 3-pointer set the stage for 
a very different look in the third 
quarter, when Rutgers’ defense 
was suffocating, and it seemed 
like maybe, just maybe, the game 
wasn’t over. Barely getting the 
ball out of the corner, three quick 
passes traveled the entire front 
court in a fraction of a second, 
where Johnson waited. The result, 
a quick 3-pointer, showed the 
Scarlet Knights the game was, in 
fact, over.
And, 
in 
the 
first 
quarter, 
Johnson turned the tables in a 
completely different way.
The game was still tight and 
neither team had hit its stride 
offensively, and Johnson sparked 
a huge momentum boost for the 
Wolverines. After junior forward 
Hailey Brown hit a three to take 
their first lead of the game, Rutgers 
came down looking for an answer.
Johnson, though, had other 
ideas. Intercepting a pass and 
running down the court on a fast 
break, side-by-side with sophomore 
guard Amy Dilk, Johnson fed Dilk 
in behind the defense, who fought 
through contact for the layup and 
an and-one.
Déjà vu struck Rutgers ten 
minutes later when Johnson did 
the exact same thing — only this 
time, she took the layup and the 
and-one herself.
Her defense fed her offense, 
again.
“I think a couple years ago, 
when she first came back (from 
injury), she was able to defend, 
and then she came back and she 
was moving without the ball so 
exceptionally well,” Barnes Arico 
said. “Then she was rebounding. 
Then she was scoring.
“Now as a senior, I think she has 
put all of those things together, and 
has been really healthy and playing 
with a lot of confidence, and her 
mental part of the game has been 
at the highest level it’s ever been.”

The Scarlet W

Michigan blows by Rutgers, 71-57, in first game since Kayla Robbins’ ACL tear

BRENDAN ROOSE
Daily Sports Writer

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
The Michigan women’s gymnastics team honored Chip Hills during its meet on Friday night against Rutgers.

ABBIE TELGENHOF
Daily Sports Writer

KENT SCHWARTZ
Daily Sports Writer

EMMA MATI/Daily
Senior guard Akienreh Johnson scored a career-high 24 points on Sunday as Michigan picked up a win over Rutgers.

I think 
(Johnson) 
played her 
heart out.

MAX

MARCOVITCH

He has a 
chance to 
be ahead of 
LeBron.

