The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 7

Breaking down the Wolverines’ recent revival

Two days before the Michigan 
men’s 
basketball 
team’s 
thrashing of Indiana, Eli Brooks 
leaned against the blue curtains 
of the Crisler Center media room, 
his blue mesh practice pinnie 
almost blending in.
The 
junior 
guard 
fielded 
questions, most of which had 
nothing to do with the Hoosiers. 
Instead, he was asked to discuss 
the Wolverines’ recent revival.
A conversation like Friday’s 
seemed unthinkable less than 
three weeks ago, when senior 
point guard Zavier Simpson was 
suspended for the Wolverines’ 
trip to Lincoln in the midst of the 
program’s longest losing streak 
in five years. With junior forward 
Isaiah Livers already unavailable 
due to a groin injury, a loss to 
lowly Nebraska could’ve put the 
nail in Michigan’s coffin.
That night, however, marked 
an inflection point. And since 
losing four straight Big Ten 
games from Jan. 12-26, the 
Wolverines have won five of their 
last six, evening their conference 
record in the process.
“It feels like the Bahamas 
again,” Brooks said Friday.
The most telling part? He 
wasn’t even going out on a limb.
Paradise Island, of course, 
was where Michigan first put 
itself in the early national-title 
conversation. The Wolverines 
rolled to a pair of top-10 wins 
in a hotel ballroom during 
Thanksgiving week, punctuating 
the first month of the Juwan 
Howard era with a No. 4 national 
ranking.
And after limping to a 3-8 
record 
against 
high-major 
opponents in December and 
January, 
the 
Michigan 
of 
February is playing the same 
brand of basketball it did in 
November. In the last 10 days 
alone, 
the 
Wolverines 
have 
knocked off Michigan State and 
cruised to blowout wins against 
Northwestern and Indiana.

“It feels like we’re back to the 
beginning of the year a little bit,” 
sophomore 
forward 
Brandon 
Johns Jr. said Sunday. “We’re 
all so connected, trusting each 
other, knocking down shots. … 
We’re having more team bonding 
sessions. We’re getting to know 
each other more, understanding 
each 
other 
as 
well.”
Added Brooks: 
“People 
are 
having fun and 
you can see the 
smiles. 
Before 
the Northwestern 
game, something 
coach 
Howard 
preached 
was, 
‘Go 
out 
there 
and have fun.’ I 
feel like sometimes you get lost 
that it’s a basketball game. We 
lose that sometimes, just having 
smiles on everyone’s faces.”
Winning 
helps, 
especially 
when it’s against an in-state 
rival or by margins of 20-plus 
over teams at the bottom of the 
conference standings. This elite 
level of winning, however, is 
comparable to the Wolverines’ 
victories over Gonzaga and North 

Carolina in the Bahamas. Albeit a 
small sample size, Michigan has 
been the best team in the nation 
over its last five games, according 
to Bart Torvik’s power rating.
Though he suffered an ankle 
injury on Sunday — a “tweak,” 
according to Johns — Livers’s 
return from injury has improved 
the Wolverines’ 
3-point 
shooting, 
defense 
and 
confidence. 
Most 
importantly, 
though, 
one 
of 
their 
most 
impactful 
leaders is now 
more than just 
a voice coming 
from the bench.
But above all, Howard is 
beginning to come into his own 
as a coach. His hiring marked a 
storied icon’s return to Crisler 
Center, though he had no head 
coaching experience prior to this 
season outside of the low-stakes 
NBA Summer League.
Even as the successor to 
one of the finest minds in 
college 
basketball, 
Howard’s 

NBA-style 
philosophies 
were 
unsurprisingly new to a team full 
of athletes recruited to play a role 
in previous coach John Beilein’s 
system.
“Some of our players probably 
never played in a defensive 
scheme like what I taught, what 
I brought to the program,” 
Howard said Sunday. “They 
bought in, for sure, but it takes 
time and development. It’s not 
always going to click right away. 
The beauty of it is they trusted 
and 
continued 
building 
the 
habits and getting better with it.
“… We’re getting better as the 
season goes. I didn’t expect for us 
to have a great start like we did, 
but it was beautiful to get off to 
a good start. But it takes time for 
a group to learn a new system on 
the defensive end as well as the 
offensive end.”
It took losing, it took slumps 
and, most of all, it took time. But 
now, spurred by the return of 
Livers, it most certainly appears 
the Wolverines are beyond their 
learning curve.
And because of it, a season 
that once seemed earmarked for 
a disappointing finish now has a 
new life.

Cameron Weston’s roller-coaster weekend

It’s hard to imagine a series 
of events more challenging for a 
freshman pitcher making his debut 
than that which befell Cameron 
Weston last Friday night.
On a macroscopic level, a neck-
and-neck rerun of the 2019 College 
World Series provided high stakes; 
even so, Weston’s circumstance 
of usage borders on cruel and 
unusual. 
The 
right-hander 
emerged 
from the bullpen in the bottom of 
the seventh to relieve junior right-
hander Jeff Criswell, who’d held 
then-No. 1 Vanderbilt to two hits in 
six and one-third innings of work. 
Weston took the mound with one 
out and two inherited runners. 
Against his first hitter, Weston 
did what the rest of the pitching 
staff was quite happy to do: pitch to 
contact and induce a ground ball.
“We have an amazing defense,” 
redshirt 
freshman 
left-hander 
Steve Hajjar said. “Especially 
(junior shortstop Jack) Blomgren 
and (freshman third baseman 
Ted) Burton on the left side, and 
(redshirt senior Matt) Schmidt 
and (sophomore second baseman 
Riley) Bertram on the right side. 
Those guys are absolute brick walls 
behind me.”
But in that moment, a hole 

in the wall appeared. Michigan 
coach Erik Bakich elected not 
to shift against the left-handed 
pinch hitter Patrick Noland, and 
a grounder to the right side that 
could have originated an inning-
ending double play turned into 
a run-scoring single. The game 
was tied: Weston had blown the 
hold and Criswell could no longer 
receive credit for the win. 
“I thought our pitching was 
pretty good,” Bakich said. “(The 
weakness) 
was 
more 
in 
the 
department of allowing batted 
runners to get to second base, 
allowing guys to take the extra 
base.”
After coming up empty against 
his first career batter, Weston had 
to face Harrison Ray with runners 
at the corners. Ray belied his 
bottom-of-the-order 
assignment 
by using a 1-1 offspeed offering to 
lay down a safety squeeze bunt.
The ball trickled down the first-
base line, forcing Weston to make 
his first defensive play. By the time 
he’d picked up the ball, Ray was 
streaking by.
Weston had two options: throw 
home, where a tag would be 
needed, or turn around and throw 
to first, trading a run for an out. He 
chose the former, but the go-ahead 
run arrived ahead of the throw. 
A fresh set of runners stood on 
the corners, the top of the order 

was due up and there was still just 
one out. Bakich brought in redshirt 
senior left-hander Ben Keizer, 
who retired the remainder of the 
side. Keizer ended up tallying one 
and two-third scoreless innings 
and took home the win thanks to 
Schmidt’s go-ahead homer in the 
ninth.
“It was a team win for us,” 
Criswell said. “We battled. It was 
a back and forth game … It kind of 
had that post season baseball feel.”
Despite 
Weston’s 
struggles 
against 
Vanderbilt, 
Bakich 
remained confident in his young 
reliever — confident enough to call 
upon him in another high-leverage 
situation.
When 
Cal 
Poly 
made 
a 
comeback in the bottom of the 

ninth the following day, scoring 
two runs and loading the bases, 
it was Weston’s time again. With 
the winning run at bat, he induced 
a ground ball out on the second 
pitch, earning redemption and his 
first save.
“There were so many different 
breakout candidates that could 
be on the horizon,” Bakich said. 
“Just guys that had their moments 
in different games that could be 
positive contributors for the entire 
season.”
Bakich only knows of Weston’s 
in-game ability because he took 
two chances on the unproven 
freshman. Thanks to the risk, both 
know of the latter’s ability to record 
collegiate outs in the toughest of 
spots.

T

he Michigan women’s 
basketball team is no 
stranger to adversity, 
especially when it comes to inju-
ries. 
First, 
senior for-
ward Kayla 
Robbins 
tore her 
ACL Jan. 
19. Then 
her replace-
ment, 
sophomore 
guard Dan-
ielle Rauch, 
injured her hand before the 
Feb. 6 game against Purdue. 
For a Wolverines team that 
started the season with only 
11 players on the roster, los-
ing a starter and sixth player 
spelled doom. 
Then came the apocalypse. 
In the first quarter of 
Thursday’s game against No. 
19 Northwestern, where a win 
would have put Michigan in 
excellent position to make the 
NCAA Tournament, sopho-
more forward Naz Hillmon 
stayed down after diving for a 
loose ball and colliding with a 
Wildcat defender. 
A silent Crisler Center 
crowd held its breath as the 
Wolverines’ leading scorer 
walked to the bench, visibly 
experiencing pain near her 
right shoulder. With Hillmon 
limited to just 15 minutes, 
Michigan fell, 66-60. 
Still, things could have 
gone much worse. Strong per-
formances from senior guard 
Akienreh Johnson, sophomore 
guard Amy Dilk and junior 
forward Hailey Brown meant 
the Wolverines could hang 
tough until the end, despite 
sustaining a few more bumps 
and bruises throughout the 
game. 
“I could see their fight. 
They were fighting like 
crazy,” Michigan coach Kim 
Barnes Arico said. “(Johnson) 
was all over the place and 
selling out. On that last pos-
session before (Johnson) went 
down, Amy stood in there and 
took a charge, we didn’t get 
that call. You could see the 
way that they were fighting 
for each other and that’s what 
we ask for them.”
That fight disappeared at 
the Rutgers Athletic Center 
Sunday, where Michigan 
played its worst game all 
season in a 62-41 loss. The 
offense looked frozen from 
start to finish. Passes flew out 
of bounds. Nearly every shot 

either hit the rim or the out-
stretched hand of a Rutgers 
defender. Hillmon played, but 
she clearly wasn’t 100 percent, 
tallying just five points. As 
a result, the Wolverines had 
just as many turnovers (15) as 
made field goals.
This bout of adversity felt 
nothing like what happened 
earlier in the season. In the 
first two games after Rauch’s 
injury, Michigan squeaked 
by Purdue at home before 
beating Minnesota by 25 on 
the road. Both were quality 
opponents, too — like the Wol-
verines, they were still jock-
eying for spots in the NCAA 
Tournament. Michigan took 
an impossible situation and 
somehow kept playing just as 
well as it had before. 
After those two games, the 
Wolverines looked unstop-
pable. Throughout the season, 
it had faced what felt like an 
unbreakable spell of adversity 
— from turnover problems, to 
bad losses, to heartbreaking 
injuries — and still competed 
with some of the Big Ten’s 
top teams. Even after Thurs-
day’s loss to Northwestern, it 
looked like they weren’t com-
pletely dead in the water. 
“I just think it’s the culture 
that’s been created in our pro-
gram,” Barnes Arico said after 
that game. “Our kids have 
been really doing a great job 
of staying positive and trying 
to rally around the injured 
kids.”
Michigan’s season isn’t 
over. We don’t know much 
about the seriousness of 
Hillmon’s injury, and Barnes 
Arico doesn’t have a time-
frame for when she’ll be back 
to 100 percent. Maybe she’ll 
be back at full strength on 
Wednesday and hang 25 on 
Illinois. Maybe she’ll go to 
East Lansing on Sunday hun-
grier than ever and bury the 
Wolverines’ rival for the sec-
ond time this year. 
But Sunday, Michigan 
finally found a problem that 
culture can’t fix. Make no 
mistake, its ability to respond 
to adversity this season has 
been nothing short of tremen-
dous. Very few teams start the 
season with just 11 players on 
the roster. Even fewer would 
be able to compete after losing 
two key players to injury. 
None would be able to win 
after losing a Naz Hillmon.

Roose can be reached at 

rooseb@umich.edu or on Twitter @

BrendanRoose.

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Junior guard Eli Brooks said that Michigan’s recent run of five wins in six games, “feels like the Bahamas again.”

It feels like 
we’re back to 
the beginning 
of the year.

Over undefeated opening weekends, Michigan demonstrates consistency

Carol Hutchins could teach a 
class on one-pitch softball. And, in 
fact, she did. 
Over the offseason, Hutchins 
and the Michigan softball team 
read the book “Heads-Up Baseball” 
and met weekly to discuss their 
takeaways. It’s about a mentality — 
focusing on taking the game one bat 
at a time to achieve consistency at 
the plate.
And, if the past two weekends are 
any indication, the Wolverines took 
a lot away from those sessions. The 
team is starting off the season with 
a 9-0 record, including three wins 
against ranked opponents: one over 

No. 7 Florida and two against No. 
25 North Carolina. And Michigan 
hasn’t been squeaking by — six of 
its nine games have been won by a 
margin of four or more, including a 
six-inning run rule over the Gators. 
This early road success is a far cry 
from how the Wolverines started 
last season. After the first two 
weekends, Michigan limped home 
with a 4-5 record, having fallen to 
teams it trounced a year later due 
to a lack of offensive consistency. 
The Wolverines would end a game 
scoreless in the morning just to 
come back later that day and pull 
out 10 runs. 
Even within games, they would 
hit a hot streak — scoring four or 
five runs in an inning — then lay 

dormant for the remainder.
But, in 2020, consistency is the 
name of the game for Michigan. 
Not only have the Wolverines 
managed to keep their bats hot 
from game to game but also from 
one inning to the next.
“We are doing a really good job 
of not going with the roller coaster 
of ups and downs whether we have 
good innings offensively, a bad 
inning offensively,” Hutchins said. 
“Whether the other team has a 
good inning, we really just stay on 
task. We’ve been very good at the 
one-pitch softball and I think it’s 
our strength.”
In their second game of the 
season, the Wolverines got on the 
board early and kept the momentum 

going, scoring in each of the second, 
third and fifth innings en route to a 
win. The weekend against the Tar 
Heels, they did it again, scoring 
in the second inning and slowly 
increasing their lead over the next 
three innings with one run each 
inning. 
This comes from being able 
to rely on production from all 
parts of the lineup. Last year, the 
Wolverines’ RBI came mostly from 
the top of the order, anchored by 
then-freshman 
outfielder 
Lexie 
Blair, and seniors Natalie Peters and 
Faith Canfield. 
Now, Michigan is firing on all 
cylinders with big hits coming from 
the center of the lineup, highlighted 
by junior infielder Lou Allan, 

sophomore 
outfielder 
Morgan 
Overaitis and senior outfielder 
Haley Hoogenraad. 
But the Wolverines are far from 
perfect. During opening weekend, 
they 
played 
two 
consecutive 
games in which they edged out 
their opponent by a single run. The 
contest against unranked Fresno 
State went into extra innings 
scoreless. With matchups against 
powerhouses like No. 1 Washington 
and No. 6 Texas on the horizon, one 
or two runs isn’t going to cut it. 
“The most important thing I 
think our team manages is just kind 
of staying within ourselves, not 
making the highs get too high and 
the lows get too low — just kind of 
keep it a common ground between 

the two,” Blair said. “And I think 
we’ve just done a really good job as 
a team of working on that and being 
cognizant of that.”
And it’s still early. The offense 
Michigan brought to Florida in last 
year’s opening weekend wasn’t the 
same offense that showed up to — 
and won — the Big Ten Tournament 
in May. Through the rest of their 
away tournaments and conference 
play, there’s time for the Wolverines 
to change — for better or for worse. 
Nine games is a small sample 
size. Michigan’s offense could stall 
under the wear and tear of constant 
travel. Or it could keep applying 
the consistency it learned in the 
classroom, and that could make all 
the difference.

LANE KIZZIAH
Daily Sports Writer

SOFTBALL

JACK WHITTEN
Daily Sports Writer

‘M’ faces 
toughest 
adversity yet

BRENDAN
ROOSE

MILES MACKLIN/Daily
The Michigan women’s basketball team must weather Naz Hillmon’s injury.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Erik Bakich took two chances on Cameron Weston last weekend.

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer

