Adrien Nunez’ battle back to relevance
Last season, on Nov. 12, Adrien
Nunez was thrown to the wolves.
Following a wrist injury to
freshman phenom Franz Wagner,
Nunez — a sophomore that barely
sniffed the floor the season prior —
was thrust into a starting position.
A guard with daunting range and
3-point shooting ability, Nunez was
billed as a solid force in Michigan’s
offense throughout his career. It was
the other side of his game, though,
that left people worrying
From
the
early
minutes
of
Nunez’s tenure as a member of the
starting squad, this flaw became
widely apparent — perhaps at no
more obvious moment than in mid-
November, his second start, against
the Bluejays.
The game began with both teams
sporting young rosters and nobody
really knowing what to expect, but
Creighton set an aggressive tone
early and targeted Nunez.
Bluejay guard Mitch Ballock sat at
the top of the key with the ball in his
hands and Nunez across from him.
Ballock drove to the hoop. It would be
the ultimate test of Nunez’s on-ball
defense, less than a minute into his
starting role.
Ballock sped past Nunez and got
an easy two points at the rim.
“(Ballock) blew by me, and I was
like, ‘Oh, snap. I need to get this
together,’” Nunez told The Daily.
“That was the moment I was like, ‘Oh,
I really need to work on this.’ Just
getting comfortable in that position.”
From that point on, Nunez’s battle
with defensive consistency proved to
be an arduous one.
The rest of the season, Nunez’s
defense — among other things — did
not improve to the point where he
would see consistent minutes for the
Wolverines.
As the games left in the regular
season dwindled down, so did
Nunez’s
playing
time.
Wagner
returned to the lineup and Nunez
returned to the bench. Some games,
Nunez would only see a handful
of minutes, playing the role of an
offensive
specialist.
Others,
he
wouldn’t see the floor at all.
“Yeah, it’s tough, it’s a change,
going from nothing to a lot to not
a lot again,” Nunez said on Jan. 8.
“I’m just working everyday. Working
before or after, gaining (coach Juwan
Howard’s) trust to really put me on
the court.”
Nunez took it in stride, though,
not allowing himself to fold in
frustration.
Howard saw potential in Nunez.
The kind of potential that makes
a coach dig to find the crux of his
player’s deficiencies and hammer out
inconsistencies. In Howard’s mind,
the best way to dow that came during
particular drills in practice.
Unlike other coaches Nunez has
played under, Howard’s mentality on
how to run drills in practice is simple:
You run it until you get it right.
“That was a big thing,” Nunez
said. “He made sure I was getting it.
For some coaches, if a player doesn’t
get it the first time or second time,
they move on, but … I could mess
up 10 times, he’d make me do it over
and over and over again until I got
it, which showed how committed he
was to getting me better.”
“That was a big aspect, and it’s
a big trust thing with coach now
because I know he’s invested in me.
He’s gonna stop practice for me just
so I can get the drill.”
Nunez wasn’t the only player
singled out like this, and some take
to it more than others. Sometimes,
it can fan the flames of that player’s
frustrations and insecurities. For
others, though, this crucible of
performance shores up faith in the
coach and their aptitude for the
team’s array of concepts.
“I want to be coached,” Nunez
said. “I’m not gonna shy away from
that, and I feel like that is a good
quality to have, just wanting to be
coached. … There are definitely guys
who will get frustrated when he
would, not pick on you, but make you
do the drill over and over again.”
Nunez used his coachability as his
north star throughout the season,
and eventually that guiding light
led him into Howard’s office at the
beginning of February. Between the
repeated drills and lack of consistent
play and playing time, something still
wasn’t clicking for Nunez.
He needed help. Enter associate
head coach Phil Martelli.
Martelli is a veteran coach that
spent 24 years as the head coach of
St. Joseph’s. Initially sorted into one
of five players Martelli was tasked
with keeping track of academically,
Nunez had already established a
rapport with him, one stretching
back to Martelli’s initial recruitment
of Nunez in high school.
But after discussing how he can
improve with Howard, the pair
struck up a new kind of relationship.
One based on growth and film study.
Jenny Lessard — Nunez’s mother
— knew her son and Martelli’s paths
would cross again. She just knew it.
Through much of his senior
season at Bishop Loughlin High
School in Brooklyn, NY, Martelli
made his recruitment of Nunez to St.
Joe’s personal. Through one stretch
the summer before the guard’s senior
year, Martelli visited 13 of Nunez’s
games in a row. He wanted him in
Philadelphia, bad.
Then, Nunez broke the news to
the veteran coach: he wouldn’t be
coming to the City of Brotherly Love,
instead pursuing a postgraduate year
at St. Thomas More Prep School in
pursuit of other offers.
Nunez had moved on from the
Hawks, but that didn’t stop Lessard
from
texting
Martelli
with
a
seemingly divine piece of foresight —
“Our paths will cross again.”
With an extra year, Nunez’s
recruitment took off and he secured
an offer from coach John Beilein.
Two years later, Nunez and Martelli
reunited in Ann Arbor, continuing
the relationship forged in Brooklyn.
“I recruited (Nunez) very hard
coming out of high school, it was just
a joy,” Martelli said. “It was ingenious
by coach Howard to put us together,
not that the other guys would’ve done
just as well, but we were in a good
place starting out. There was a trust
there.”
That progress started with Nunez
making one simple concession: He
didn’t know how to study film.
Sure, like any player, he had
watched plenty of film, but what the
sophomore was saying was that he
didn’t know how to see it. He didn’t
know how to watch all 10 players on
the floor at the same time and have
the wherewithal to ingest what was
happening and why.
“Anybody
can
watch
film,”
Martelli said. “I think a player
watches himself, but you have to
watch, and I mean it’s not rocket
science, but you have to be able to see
the whole play even when you’re not
involved with the ball.”
The film study with Martelli has
continued into the unexpectedly
abrupt postseason with the coach
sending Nunez game clips and
inspirational sayings.
Watching film, running drills over
and over, for Nunez, it’s all part of the
mental aspect of the game. He knows
he can physically do what’s required
of him because he’s done it before at
some point or another.
He just needed to do it in front of
thousands of people.
Through nearly all of his in-game
appearances, Nunez knew something
was off. He was uptight, worried to
death about whether he would make
a mistake or squander his quickly
vanishing playing time — it was a self-
fulfilling prophecy of failure.
“I didn’t have that mentality
to just act free like the way I was
playing before,” Nunez said. “I was
so worried about either getting taken
out or making a mistake, I was so
focused on that that it kinda crippled
me in that way.”
Since stepping into Howard’s
office to tackle this mentality
problem, Nunez has done nothing
but try to loosen up and make the
most of his time on the floor and,
simply put, have fun. The Brooklyn
native is even using all of his newly
found free time in the coronavirus-
related quarantine to reflect and find
a solution.
One outlet for Nunez to step out
of his comfort zone comes from the
popular app TikTok. The social media
platform is used for a variety of goofy
videos, and Nunez had adopted it to
show himself dancing or expressing
comic concepts. Currently, Nunez
has 41,000 followers and nearly
700,000 likes on his posts.
“People think I’m fooling around,
but that’s taking me out of my comfort
zone,” Nunez said. “It’s something
that I never liked, to be showy. I
never liked to have the attention. I’ve
always been so reserved and tense
trying to do everything right, but
now I’m acting like a goofball in front
of thousands of people, and just being
loose, that’s a big thing.”
Largely due to his lack of success
this past season, many people
speculated Nunez’s name would be
first up in the transfer portal.
With his first recruiting class,
Howard made it clear the quality of
talent coming to Ann Arbor would
only rise, and Nunez struggled to fit
into the rotation even with plenty
of opportunities. But when the
pandemic hit and the season ended,
the decision to stay was a no-brainer
for the sophomore.
“I definitely talked a little about it
with my parents, but nothing really
serious, like, ‘Oh I wanna stay here,’
I didn’t want to pack everything up,”
Nunez said. “I know that if I can
make it here, I can make it to the next
level. Even if I kill at another school,
it wouldn’t be the same, so I just
decided to stay.”
Buried in his decision to stay is the
idea that this will be the sophomore’s
first season having the same coach
and system from the year prior in
nearly five years. Going from high
school to prep school to Beilein to
Howard has meant a lot of different
systems and learning curves. A
creature of routine, Nunez is more
confident with a year of Howard’s
plays under his belt.
Now that begs the question: What
will Nunez’s role on the team be in
the seasons to come?
Nunez wants to be known as an
all-around player, not just a shooter.
That means tackling his weaknesses,
including on-ball defense, being able
to come off screens and playing off a
shot fake.
One aspect he personally wants to
tackle is his ball-handling abilities.
With point guards Zavier Simpson
and David DeJulius leaving the
program due to graduation and
transfer, respectively, the vacuum
at that position is one of the biggest
question marks for the team. Nunez
could be ins+++trumental in filling
that void.
The bottom line for Nunez,
though, is self-awareness. He knows
what he needs to work on and is not
shying away from the challenge.
So perhaps the next time Nunez
steps on the floor in a maize and
blue jersey, he won’t be watching an
opposing ball handler fly past him on
his way to an easy bucket. Through
relentless practice, film study and
self-awareness, Nunez will flash a
smile after showing the product of
his trials and tribulations.
JACOB KOPNICK
Daily Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Junior guard Adrien Nunez is working on improving his defense and confidence.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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