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