In the wake of the Michigan 

Department of Health and Human 
Services’ directive to shut down 
all Michigan athletic department 
activities late Saturday night due 
to detection of the B.1.1.7 COVID-
19 strain, Christian Hubaker began 
reaching out to fellow student-
athletes. Hubaker, a senior on the 
track and field and cross-country 
teams, felt especially aggrieved 
by the decision, as it prevents the 
Wolverines from competing in 

this week’s Big Ten Cross Country 
Championships. In turn, that will 
leave Michigan athletes ineligible 
for NCAA Championships.

The 
source 
of 
Hubaker’s 

frustration, though, was a sense 
that the MDHHS directive was 
poorly aimed.

“It’s foolish to think that the 

variant isn’t gonna be around in 
two weeks and it’s probably gonna 
be a bigger deal,” Hubaker told 
The Daily. “Because we’re the only 
sector of the community that’s 
being shut down right now. And 
we’re, in my opinion, the safest 
and have the strictest guidelines 
of anyone else in the community. 

“So if we had it, the community 

definitely has it. And we’re 
worried, a lot of us are worried … 
and we’ve heard this two-week 
period thrown around a lot before 
and we’re worried that this isn’t 
gonna be a two-week thing.”

As soon as Hubaker began 

reaching out to athletes from other 
programs, he realized he wasn’t 

alone. Hubaker said he and Joe 
Pace, a sixth-year utility player 
on the baseball team, were the 
leaders in crafting the statement 
and petition that were eventually 
posted to social media Monday 
afternoon. The letter, though, 
was signed off by a “coalition of 
student-athletes,” which Hubaker 
said 
includes 
athletes 
from 

nearly every program on campus, 
including the men’s basketball and 
football programs.

“We’ve been trying to have 

it be a big, collaborative effort 
because we really want to have a 
unified voice out there between 

all athletes,” Hubaker said. As of 
late Monday afternoon, that goal 
had succeeded, with the petition 
receiving over 2,880 signatures in 
just six hours. Pace said that over 
100 athletes were in a GroupMe to 
help collaborate on the petition.

Additionally, Pace said that 

athletic director Warde Manuel 
and the rest of the administration 
“support us voicing our opinion 
and standing up for what we 
believe in.”

The athletes in charge of 

creating the petition stopped 
short of involving coaches, who 
Hubaker acknowledged are in 
a “tricky spot” as the bridge 
between athletes and the athletic 
department. 
Hockey 
coach 

Mel Pearson said on Monday 
that his “initial reaction (to the 
shutdown) was a little bit of 
shock, a little bit of surprise, a 
little bit of disappointment, a 
little bit of anger. Our players 
have done a great job. We’ve been 
negative since early July.” 

That’s a sense shared by teams 

who have been affected by the 
shutdown.

“We heard about the new 

strain and they gave us all the 
information,” Pace told The 
Daily. “And the initial thought 
process is, OK, (most teams) 
on the campus have no COVID 
cases, how does this make any 
sense?”

As of Saturday night, there 

were no positive tests on the 
men’s 
basketball, 
women’s 

basketball 
or 
hockey 
teams. 

Hubaker, meanwhile, said that 
the 
cross-country 
program 

has had one positive case since 
returning to campus in the fall. 
The case occurred approximately 
two weeks ago and was not the 
B.1.1.7 strain. The athlete who 
tested positive was quarantined 
and no other members of the 
team tested positive.

Also as of Saturday night, 

there were five known cases and 
15 presumed positive cases of 
the B.1.1.7. strain in the athletic 
department. 
Michigan 
chief 

medical 
executive 
Joneigh 

Khaldun said in a Monday press 
conference that there were 13 
known cases of the variant in 
Washtenaw County.

Because cases of the B.1.1.7 

variant have been limited to a 
handful of programs, athletes and 
coaches alike have struggled to 
come to grips with the shutdown 
being enacted throughout the 
athletic department.

“The 
consistency 
of 
the 

mandate to have a quarantine 
when we’ve all been testing 

daily and the team was testing 
negative, people feel like it hasn’t 
been a consistent application 
when it’s only Michigan athletics 
that’s chosen to kind of be in this 
position,” volleyball coach Mark 
Rosen told The Daily. Currently, 
he said, his program does not 
have any cases of COVID-19. “So 
I think there’s frustration and 
disappointment in our coaches 
right now.”

Paul Juda, a sophomore on the 

men’s gymnastics team, shares 
Rosen’s frustration. Juda was 
among a group of Wolverines’ 
gymnasts in Lincoln for a 
meet with Nebraska that was 
scheduled for Sunday when he 
found out about the shutdown. 
Due to the requirement that 
athletes 
enter 
a 
two-week 

quarantine as soon as possible, 
he and his teammates had to 
abandon plans to return to 
Michigan on commercial flights, 
instead taking an 11-hour bus 
ride back to campus.

“Not something our team 

was very happy about knowing 
our team is completely COVID 
free so that wasn’t fun at all,” 
Juda told The Daily, adding that 
neither the men’s nor women’s 
gymnastics teams have had any 
positive COVID-19 tests of any 
variant in the past two weeks.

“Given the fact that it is not 

only up to 50% more contagious, 
and the fact that it’s already here 
… I don’t see (the shutdown) not 
being extended past two weeks,” 
Juda said.

In light of that concern, the 

primary goal for the coalition 
of student-athletes is now for 
the two-week mandate to be 
revisited.

“We think that on a team-by-

team basis, if there are teams 
that have had no contact with the 
variant strand, if there are teams 
that have all healthy people 
right now, then they should 
be allowed to resume athletic 
activity immediately,” Hubaker 
said. “If that doesn’t happen, 
we’re mostly looking to get more 
transparency from the health 
department to athletes. Because 
as these things continue to be 
ruled out, these requirements of 
us, and as they have been all year, 
we haven’t had a good line of 
communication with the health 
department.”

Ethan Sears and Lane Kizziah 

contributed to the reporting of this 
story.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, January 27, 2021 — 19

Michigan defense needs 

improvement after first loss

Defense wins championships.
It’s an old adage that the 

Michigan women’s basketball 
team (10-1 overall, 5-1 Big Ten) 
struggled to adhere to in its loss 
to Ohio State on Thursday. It was 
a game that exposed one of the 
Wolverines’ biggest weaknesses 
— defense.

This season, Michigan has 

prided itself on holding teams 
to low scoring, a product of 
controlling defense. Typically 
switching from man to zone 
looks effortless, and scrappy 
defenders like fifth-year senior 
guard Akienreh Johnson and 
sophomore guard Maddie Nolan 
make opposing teams’ offense 
look sloppy.

But in the Wolverines’ closest 

win against Nebraska, winning 
by only two points, and their 
first loss of the season against 
the Buckeyes, defense was the 
difference.

As the number one team 

in the Big Ten conference in 
both offensive and defensive 
rebounds, 
Michigan 
doesn’t 

allow 
many 
second-chance 

points. But against Ohio State, 
it allowed 14. For reference, 
in 
their 
first 
match-up 

with Wisconsin (where the 
Wolverines beat the Badgers 
by 43 points) they allowed only 
three second-chance points, 
dominating the boards by a 
large margin.

Most 
of 
these 
second-

chance points occurred early 
in the first half, but kept the 
Buckeyes in the game as they 
grew a lead they wouldn’t 
relinquish. Even in a game 
where junior forward Naz 
Hillmon 
scored 
a 
school-

record 50 points, Michigan 

couldn’t 
overcome 
their 

defensive struggles to win.

“Our defense, I mean first-

half defense, was not our best,” 
said Hillmon after the Ohio 
State game on Jan. 21. “So there’s 
definitely something that we 
want to work on. We really try 
to pride ourselves on being great 
on the defensive in transitioning 
into offense, and in the first half, 
we didn’t really do that.”

Fast-break points are another 

area the Wolverines need to 
contain. These points happen in 
transition defense, something 
Michigan 
struggles 
with 
at 

times. 
Against 
Ohio 
State, 

the Wolverines allowed nine 
fast-break points, and against 
Nebraska, they allowed four. 
While nine and four may seem 
like small numbers, in two games 
where the score was within four 
points, those nine points made all 
the difference.

“They are also a team that … 

scores well in transition and I 
thought that’s how they got their 
run early on was on transition 
and off of our turnovers,” said 
Michigan coach Kim Barnes 
Arico after the Ohio State game. 
“We’ve got to get better at the 
transition (defense), especially 
against them.”

The continued loss of junior 

wing Leigha Brown due to 
COVID-19 protocol has also 
posed its challenges on the 
defensive 
end. 
Brown’s 
an 

aggressive defender that adds 
another layer of depth to the 
defensive end. Her lanky frame 
closes passing lanes and helps 
Hillmon down low with double 
teams and rebounding.

As conference play becomes 

increasingly 
competitive, 
the 

Wolverines can’t just rely on their 
offensive production but will 
need a cohesive defense to propel 
them to victory.

ABBIE TELGENHOF

Daily Sports Writer

How Michigan’s student-athlete coalition formed in the wake of 

athletic department shutdown

‘How does this make any sense?’

THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

After a weekend of uncertainty, a group of athletes took to social media on Monday to express their frustration over 
the athletic department’s pause. 

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

Against Ohio State, Michigan gave up the most points it had all season.

If shutdown derails the season, let’s take a moment to appreciate it

It’s around 10 a.m. on Sunday, 

and Katelynn Flaherty is call-
ing. We’d set this up on Saturday 
afternoon, before the news of a 
department-wide shutdown for 
Michigan athletics hit. I wanted to 
ask Flaherty, the 
leading all-time 
scorer for Michi-
gan 
basket-

ball (men’s and 
women’s), about 
this year’s team, 
which 
looks 

like it might do 
something spe-
cial. 
My 
plan 

was to talk to her, to get on the 
postgame Zoom call after Mich-
igan-Purdue in the afternoon 
and to write a column about the 
arc of the program’s growth.

Then news got in the way. 
The women’s basketball team — 

along with every other Michigan 
athletic program — is in quaran-
tine until Feb. 7. This quarantine 
means no games and no practices, 
so it is unlikely that they can return 
to play immediately after it ends. 
Right now, there are six games 
left on the Wolverines’ schedule, 
with the status of eight postponed 
games unclear. Exactly if or how 
those games get made up, or what 
it means for the Big Ten standings 
if they can’t be played, is unclear (a 
Big Ten spokesman didn’t return a 
text asking how standings would be 
decided if games can’t be made up).

It’s worth noting as well that this 

is the best-case scenario. As of Sat-
urday night, there were no COVID-
19 cases in the women’s basketball 
program (or men’s basketball or 

hockey, for that matter). As per-
tains to everything else regarding 
the pandemic, that could change. 

The University, and the Michi-

gan Department of Health and 
Human Services, aren’t playing 
around with the B.1.1.7. variant 
of the virus. It’s thought to be up 
to 50% more transmissible and, 
according to Matt Hancock, the 
health secretary in the United 
Kingdom, 10-50% more deadly. If 
this two-week shutdown doesn’t 
halt the spread of the variant, 
it’s unclear what happens next.

But even this best-case scenario 

is a shame, for the reasons Flaherty 
was calling me for in the first place. 
The Michigan women’s basketball 
team is 10-1, their first loss coming 
this week after a record 50-point 
performance from junior forward 

Naz Hillmon wasn’t enough to get 
past Ohio State. They look like a 
team that could get to the second 
weekend of the NCAA Tournament 
— which would make them the best 
team in the history of the program.

“I do think that when we are 

100%, we can compete with any-
one,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes 
Arico said after a win over Wis-
consin took them to 10-0. “I think 
our team really believes that.”

“That’s what coach (Barnes) 

Arico has talked about when she 
was recruiting me initially and 
then from the time that I was 
there,” Flaherty said. “Just to 
see it all happen, it’s incredible.”

To put that into context, when 

Flaherty came into the program 
as a freshman in 2014, Michigan 
had made the NCAA Tournament 

four times in program history. 
The Wolverines finished eighth in 
the Big Ten that year, and they’ve 
steadily climbed upwards since. 
In Flaherty’s junior year, they won 
the WNIT after an unexpected 
snub from the selection commit-
tee. “But I think after that, it kind 
of was the expectation. ‘OK, make 
the NCAA Tournament,’ ” she said.

The next two years, they did. 

Before COVID-19 canceled last 
year’s tournament, they were 
expected to make it again. And 
it seemed like — barring another 
act of God — they’d be in a posi-
tion to do so again this year.

Problem is, no one accounted 

for an act — or to use their phras-
ing, a recommendation — of 
the 
Michigan 
Department 
of 

Health 
and 
Human 
Services.

“No. Not at all,” Flaherty said 

when asked whether she could 
imagine being in this situation. 
“Just because I’m someone that 
wanted to be out there individu-
ally, working out all the time. 
That’s something that I did every 
single day when I was at Michigan. 

“But also the team aspect. Being 

able to run, just communicate, talk 
about everything, it’s definitely dif-
ferent if everyone has to quarantine. 
And then like you said, not being on 
the floor, just staying in shape and 
having that connection with your 
team. That’s really what’s going so 
well for Michigan right now, just 
how they’re playing together out 
there. I think that’s hard and it’s 
just hard not doing that for two 
weeks and then (coming) back and 
(being) expected to go out there 
and pick up where you left off. 

“I don’t think that’s fair to 

put that expectation on these 
athletes just because it’s very, 
very 
different 
if 
you’re 
not 

doing anything for two weeks.”

The program declined to 

make Barnes Arico and players 
available for questions on Sun-
day morning, which is under-
standable given they’re still 
processing the news. Suffice it 
to say, though, they have every 
right to be upset even if they 
believe the decision to be cor-
rect. So does every other ath-
lete, coach and administrator 
at the University who’s been 
trying since October to pull 
off games and practices safely.

This might have been the 

year the Michigan women’s 
basketball program took the 

next step. It still could be. 
But 
the 
questions 
hanging 

over it now are much bigger 
than just a couple of days ago.

This team may no longer be 

defined by Hillmon setting pro-
gram records, winning the Big 
Ten or an NCAA Tournament 
run. If that’s the case, it’ll be 
hard to swallow. Getting the pro-
gram to this point hasn’t been 
easy. Having it ripped away for 
reasons beyond the team’s con-
trol would border on tragic.

So, to make sure someone 

gives Barnes Arico and the pro-
gram 
that 
credit, 
we’ll 
give 

the last word here to Flaherty.

“She wanted to build up the 

program, she wanted to compete 
with the UConn’s, the Kentucky’s, 
whoever was at the top at that 
time,” Flaherty said. “And she 
wanted to pick people to come to 
Michigan that believed in that 
vision and wanted to be different 
than going to those high-caliber 
schools. To kind of be the start of 
something special, make a name 
for yourself. So I think that just 
attests to who coach (Barnes) 
Arico is, how far the program 
has come, but also all of the girls 
that have been recruited, every-
one there, just for a bigger mis-
sion. Everyone’s working together. 

“So 
I 
think 
that’s 
really 

important to note. She told me 
that however many years ago 
and here it is coming to frui-
tion a few short years later.”

Sears can be reached at 

searseth@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @ethan_sears.

ETHAN 
SEARS

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

Prior to the athletic department’s two-week shutdown, women’s basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico’s team was 
on the verge of a historic season. 

