Isaiah Livers and the fate of the Michigan men’s basketball team
Isaiah Livers shouldn’t have
been in the game. In fact, for over
half of it, he wasn’t.
But despite suffering anoth-
er injury in the second half, the
Michigan men’s basketball team
knew who it needed on the floor.
The Wolverines were down by
two points to Illinois with half a
second and one chance, maybe,
to pry a victory away from the
Illini (15-5 overall, 7-2 Big Ten). A
victory they desperately needed
for both their record and con-
fidence. After all, this was sup-
posed to be the one.
Livers was back. After initially
suffering a groin injury on Dec.
21 against Presbyterian, Livers
missed six games and the re-
maining Wolverines lost four of
those. Simply put, they were in
freefall, and Livers was to be the
massive inflatable mattress to
catch their fall.
But freshman wing Franz Wag-
ner fumbled the pass. The clock
drained out allowing the red
LED lights to flash and obnox-
ious buzzer to sound and signal
another bruising loss for Michi-
gan (11-8, 2-6), 64-62.
Frustrated, saddened and per-
haps a bit defeated, sophomore
guard David DeJulius then saun-
tered over to Livers and spoke a
few words to him that were rat-
tling around his mind all game.
“Thank you,” DeJulius said to
Livers. “We appreciate you.
We’re gonna have your back
because we know you’re
gonna have ours.”
To the fans, Liv-
ers’ injury per-
haps just rep-
resents
a
broken
s e a -
son. To the team, his injury rep-
resents a broken spirit.
Livers is a core component of
this basketball team and is often
pegged as perpetually placing
the team’s needs and desires be-
fore his own. After all, Livers is
the guy who asked coach Juwan
Howard to come back into the
game to make the last-second in-
bounds pass after reinjuring his
groin. He just wants to win.
Perhaps that’s what got DeJu-
lius so emotional.
“It just took the air out of us,”
DeJulius said, holding back tears.
“When you know got somebody
who care about the game, and
he’s a better person than he is a
basketball player, to see him go
down again is unfortunate.”
The circumstances of Livers’
second injury make sense the
more you think about it. Did the
injury occur during a freak in-
stance where Livers was away
from the action?
Of course not.
Early in the second half, Liv-
ers caught the ball in transi-
tion and rose for a monstrous
dunk. The noise level grew
in anticipation of the fero-
cious slam, but it never came.
Livers was fouled by Illinois
guard Da’Monte Williams
and landed awkwardly.
Running away from
the
basket,
L i v e r s
grabbed his left groin area to an
audible groan from the crowd.
The savior was bruised.
It didn’t help that Livers was
also playing great basketball.
Aside from just being this amor-
phous force that could come
back and resuscitate a strug-
gling offense, Livers entered
the game and played valuable
minutes, ending the game with a
team-leading plus-minus rating
of three.
While Livers — along with the
rest of the team — started the first
half a bit slow, he really showed
what he brings to the program in
the second.
The junior secured his fifth re-
bound early, shoring up defense
in the post and bringing ener-
gy to the boards. Then, with 17
minutes left to play, he caught
the ball from senior guard Zavier
Simpson, elevated and buried a
3-pointer to
t h u n -
der-
ous applause from Cris-
ler Center. He would
finish
with
seven
points and five boards.
The forward was back,
and he was cooking.
The shot was a momen-
tum play, giving Michigan
its first lead since early in
the first half.
Then, disaster struck.
“When he went
down, all of us were in
tears for the guy,” De-
Julius said. “We know
how bad he wants to be
out there for his broth-
ers. That was tough for
us to see that and then go
out there and compete still.”
Now with Livers’ timetable for
return unclear, the rest of the
team has to stare down the mon-
umental task of winning basket-
ball game without No. 2. A task
they’ve faced — and failed atww
— before. On top of that, they
have to elevate their team-
mate
who’s
undoubtedly
frustrated with his situation.
“Because you worry about
how he doin mentally,” De-
Julius said. “If we take a
loss without him, that’s it,
but I just want my brother
to be in a position where
he’s happy and in a com-
fortable place,
and I know he’s in a dark place
right now, and it’s just our job
to pick him up.”
With the support of his
teammates and coach-
ing staff, Livers will
undoubtedly make as
speedy a recovery as
possible, hoping that
the team doesn’t
continue to bleed
out while he’s gone.
Because if they do,
the next time the
name Isaiah Livers
is announced to roar-
ing applause at Cris-
ler Center, the games
might start to matter
less and less.
JACOB KOPNICK
Daily Sports Editor
Monday, January 27, 2020
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