Nine days and two games isn’t
much time for Juwan Howard to
have it figured out, but it’ll have to be
enough.
The last time
Isaiah
Livers
got hurt, the
Michigan men’s
basketball team
failed that test.
It’s easy to for-
get now — that
2019-20
team
wasn’t as good
as this team,
that season’s end overshadows every-
thing in a way this season’s won’t.
Howard, of course, remembers.
“We had some experience in this
last season when Isaiah went down,”
he said on a Zoom call Sunday. “I
can’t recall how many games he
missed last season. I just feel bad for
Isaiah.”
To refresh his memory, Livers
missed 10 games. Michigan went 5-5
in those games, not to mention a loss
against Illinois after Livers left the
game with an injury. The Wolverines
went from a pretty good team to one
that was losing four straight home
games.
But that was a team whose ceil-
ing was nowhere near this one’s.
This team can win a national title. It
might even be able to win a national
title without Livers, its best 3-point
shooter and second-leading scorer.
That, at least, is still the goal.
“I think I’d be lying,” freshman
center Hunter Dickinson said at the
Big Ten Tournament, “if not every
single player in that locker room fully
believes that we are the best team in
the country and that we will still win
the national championship.”
That was right after a one-point
loss to Ohio State knocked Michi-
gan out of the Big Ten Tournament,
when the Wolverines were still reel-
ing, having learned the night before
that Livers had suffered a stress
fracture in his foot. The only game
Michigan has played since then, a
first-round matchup against 16-seed
Texas Southern, amounted to a
scrimmage with the window dress-
ings of March.
So, what do we know about Mich-
igan without Isaiah Livers? Probably
less than we think we do.
“Every guy has to step up, it’s not
just one particular guy,” Howard
said. “And Brandon (Johns Jr.) is
the guy who’s filled in as far as the
starting lineup, but not putting any
added pressure on Brandon. It’s each
and every guy who understands that
when a player goes down, we sup-
port him, but we gotta of course trust
that the other guys (are) gonna be
out there on the floor, they’re gonna
go out there and compete from start
to finish.”
Johns, at least in the last two
games, has held his own. Michigan
even got some encouraging signs
from freshmen guard Zeb Jackson
and forward Terrance Williams
against Texas Southern; though,
that was the second-worst team the
Wolverines have played all year by
KenPom rank.
All of that is, in a lot of ways, ancil-
lary. Good for the Wolverines if they
can survive a few minutes with their
deep bench on the court. Howev-
er, they won’t beat LSU on Monday
without getting more from the best
five players in their rotation.
That means Hunter Dickinson,
who fouled out against Texas South-
ern after committing six turnovers.
And Franz Wagner, who fouled
out against Ohio State and hasn’t
reached double-digit scoring in
the last two games. And Chaundee
Brown Jr., who has a total of three
points since Michigan announced
that Livers has a stress fracture in
his foot.
Point guard Mike Smith looked
ready to go against Texas Southern,
with 18 points in his first ever NCAA
Tournament game. So did senior Eli
Brooks, hitting early 3-pointers to set
the tone. The rest need to follow.
They didn’t when Brooks was
hurt, earlier in the year. That’s when
Michigan played its worst game of
the year, a blowout loss on the road
at Minnesota. When Brooks went
out with an ankle injury at Mich-
igan State in the season’s last reg-
ular season game, the Wolverines
couldn’t handle that either, losing
70-64. It might be easier to play
without Livers than without Brooks
— Michigan has wing depth, but not
guard depth. But that doesn’t mean
it’s easy.
With Livers, Michigan is a team
whose depth is its strength. Without
him, it’s a team that will go as far as
its best five can take it. The Wolver-
ines can’t have foul trouble, a cold
Chaundee Brown, a turnover-laden
performance from their best player.
They can survive without Livers,
sure, and certainly they can do so
against an LSU team that ranks 121st
in adjusted defensive efficiency —
third-worst of any remaining NCAA
Tournament team.
But the margin for error is low.
Really low. Give the Tigers a window
and they’ll run right through it.
“LSU, they’re very skilled, yes
they do have a backcourt of two
amazing players in (Javonte) Smart
as well as (Cam) Thomas,” Howard
said. “We’re gonna do our best to try
to contain them.”
Those guys — Smart, Thomas
and Trendon Watford — are some of
the best scorers in the country. It’ll
be on Michigan’s guys to meet the
moment, and it’ll be on Howard to
figure out how.
Sears can be reached at searseth@
umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_
sears.
14 — Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Inside Erik Bakich’s decades of recruiting success
In Michigan’s third game of the
2021 season, Griffin Mazur took
a short stride and a quick swing,
sending the ball skywards before it
landed just over the left-centerfield
fence for a grand slam.
Mazur’s teammates charged out
of the dugout, swarming him with
hugs and backslaps. But Michigan
baseball fans watching from home
probably didn’t feel as familiar.
He was making his second ever
appearance for the Wolverines, but
he wasn’t a freshman.
The fifth-year senior catcher is one
of six transfers joining Michigan this
season. In most of Michigan coach
Erik Bakich’s tenure, he has almost
entirely recruited high schoolers
and relied on their season-to-season
development, but he elected to add
the additional dimension of ready-
made graduate transfers this season.
The Wolverines’ 7-1 start is less
a reflection of Bakich’s ability to
develop than his ability to recruit,
a skill that he’s honed for nearly 20
years.
***
Long ago, Erik Bakich wasn’t
particularly interested in coaching,
let alone recruiting. He graduated
from East Carolina, where he hit
.315 with a 1.000 fielding percentage
in 2000, before beginning a short
professional playing career with
several independent league teams.
In the fall of 2001, Bakich was
taking batting practice on the East
Carolina campus when Pirates
coach Keith LeClair approached him
with news that a volunteer assistant
coaching position had opened at
Clemson.
“I said, ‘Really, do you think
I should have interest in that?’ ”
Bakich asked LeClair.
“And then I took another swing,
and immediately after watching me
take another swing, he said, ‘Yes, you
need to be interested in that.’ ”
Slightly crestfallen, Bakich took
his coach’s advice, and soon after,
took the position.
Despite poor conditions — he
was compensated in T-shirts and
Gatorade bars, and the Southern
heat often woke him up at night —
Bakich loved his season at Clemson.
He worked closely with Tigers
assistant
coach
and
recruiting
coordinator Tim Corbin, a former
National Assistant Coach of the Year
who shared Bakich’s penchant for
long hours and hard work.
Corbin taught Bakich how to
recruit, often by example.
“He was extremely thorough,”
Bakich said. “He made a ton of
phone calls, did a lot of digging and
background checks and gathered
information. He knew a lot about
every player before he even went to
go watch him play. And then when he
would go watch them play, he would
be the first one there and the last
one to leave, just paying attention to
every little thing. So many recruiters
just show up at game time, watch
the game and leave, and maybe
don’t sit in the front row and see the
mannerisms and the body language
and the interaction with teammates
and coaches.
“Everything is a piece. It’s one
gigantic puzzle, and every piece
of information that you can get
determines if this is the right fit for
the program or what type of player
you’re getting. Getting to know the
family and how the kid was raised is
such a large dynamic that goes into
putting these puzzle pieces together.
“He was just the best I had seen
doing all of it.”
Impressed by Corbin’s affinity for
thoroughness, Bakich followed him
to Nashville as an assistant coach
and recruiting coordinator when
Corbin became Vanderbilt’s head
coach in 2003.
“(Bakich) told me that I couldn’t
hire anyone better than him and that
no one would care more about the
program than him,” Corbin said. “He
didn’t say that in a bragging manner
at all; he said it because he believed
in it.”
The Commodores weren’t the
powerhouse they are today. They
had been SEC bottom-dwellers for
the previous decade, and Bakich,
Corbin and pitching coach Derek
Johnson initially received far more
rejections than acceptances from
recruited players. According to
Corbin, the coaching staff had to
work hard to establish a recruiting
foundation.
Modern perspective shows that
they succeeded.
A few seasons into Bakich’s seven
year tenure, Vanderbilt reached the
NCAA Regionals and successfully
recruited eventual major leaguers,
like Mike Baxter and Ryan Flaherty,
with greater regularity. In 2005, the
Commodores pulled in the nation’s
top-ranked class, led by left-hander
David Price.
Price went to nearby Blackman
High School, where he starred in
baseball and basketball. Bakich
noticed his outstanding athletic
ability — including a loose, whippy
arm that fired fastballs at a higher
velocity than nearly anyone — as well
as the need for some refinement.
“You could tell that this was
somebody who, 25 pounds from now
and a couple of birthdays away, is
going to be something super special,”
Bakich said.
Price was selected in the 19th
round of the MLB draft after his
senior year of high school, but he
chose to go to Vanderbilt in large
part thanks to the expert recruiting
ability of Corbin and his staff. Corbin
won him over with bold predictions
for the future that included an
SEC championship and a No. 1
selection in the 2007 MLB draft,
both of which came true. Bakich
played a key role in securing the left-
hander’s commitment by building a
relationship with Price’s parents.
“I think once the parents have a
mindset of, ‘We want our child to
go to school,’ then the child has a
mindset of going to school,” Corbin
said. “If (it’s) open-ended and the
parent allows the child to make a
decision … they usually go down a
different route. And I think (Bakich)
cultivated a good relationship with
Bonnie and Deb, in order to get
David here.”
Beyond a search for talent,
Bakich and Corbin prioritized the
recruitment of players with excellent
character. Nearly 20 years later, they
continue to reap the benefits of those
choices. Price made a $2.5 million
donation to improve Vanderbilt’s
baseball facilities, and Bakich stays
in regular contact with several
players, including Baxter, Antoan
Richardson and David Macias.
“As coach Corbin would say, those
are the paychecks that you continue
to get, whether it’s a wedding invite
or a birth announcement or a job
promotion,” Bakich said. That’s the
best part of recruiting — building
lifelong relationships.”
***
After a combined eight years as
the head coaches at Maryland and
Michigan, Bakich’s multitude of
experience has shown its value in
the prominence of under-recruited
players turned Wolverine stars.
In 2018, Bakich sat with stopwatch
in hand in the grandstand at Lincoln
Trail Community College to watch a
guy best known for his high school
football abilities. Jordan Brewer
went 1-4 — two groundouts, a single
and a strikeout. But Bakich was sold,
impressed with his footspeed when
he put the ball in play, his defense in
center field and his high energy.
The two shared a post-game
dinner at Subway, during which
Brewer talked about his Native
American
background
and
upbringing.
Their
conversation
informed Bakich that regardless of
the type of player Brewer would be at
Michigan, he would add a lot of value
to the program with his personality
alone.
Brewer, who hit .360 with 12
home runs and 73 RBI in his two
seasons at Lincoln Trail, had
multiple scholarship offers, but his
positive interactions with Bakich
made the choice easier.
“He really cares about you and
gets to know you super quick,”
Brewer said in an interview with
MLive. “He knew all about me even
before I went up there to visit. I am a
huge family guy, and when I saw he
knew me and my family already, that
was huge. I was already bought in.”
In his one year with the
Wolverines, Brewer led the team
in batting average (.329), hits (81),
slugging percentage (.557), stolen
bases (25) and several other offensive
categories. But Michigan’s biggest
offensive asset in 2019 — who
surpassed even Brewer in advanced
metrics like runs created and wOBA
— was Jordan Nwogu, another
lightly-recruited
former
football
player. Nwogu earned an academic
scholarship to the University and
only committed to the baseball
program during the fall of his senior
year in high school, quite late in the
recruiting process.
Bakich would never have noticed
either of these eventual standouts
if he strictly recruited through the
traditional channels like showcases,
or if he evaluated players on the
basis of physical skills alone. He had
learned the importance of attention
to intangibles like work ethic and
character from Corbin.
“There are kids all over the
country who are very talented
physically,” Bakich said. “But you just
can never compromise with those
intangible skills. Nothing will ever
replace old fashioned hard work.
And when you start to get to know
how these kids were raised, what
makes them tick and what drives
them, you start to understand very
quickly that any deficiencies they
may have physically, they’re going
to figure it out because there’s a high
care level for what they’re doing.
But you won’t know that unless you
really do the digging to find out.”
***
Bakich’s recruitment of Brewer
and Nwogu paid off nearly instantly,
with the two leading the Wolverines
to a College World Series appearance
in 2019. It netted the program long-
term returns, too, with more and
more talented high school players
interested in bringing Michigan
back to Omaha.
“Kids look at that success and
want to be a part of it,” assistant
coach Nick Schnabel said. “It’s
probably made the pool a little bit
bigger for us, no question.”
After coming within a game of
a national championship, Bakich
and his coaching staff are fiending
to return to that level on a regular
basis. The first step toward that
goal is recruiting consistently strong
classes.
The Wolverines lost a significant
portion of their contributors to
the pros after the 2020 season, so
they began an exhaustive search
for replacements in the transfer
portal. Schnabel took the lead at the
beginning of the recruiting process,
watching most of the film, making
most of the calls and performing
background checks. By the time
Bakich became involved, Schnabel
had whittled about 100 names into a
shortlist of contenders.
These efforts, reminiscent of
Corbin and Bakich’s thoroughness
at Vanderbilt, have paid dividends, as
Michigan’s transfers have impressed
on and off the field so far this year.
Mazur was elected a team captain
and hits for better power and average
than former catcher Joe Donovan.
Fifth-year shortstop Benjamin Sems
has a better fielding percentage than
former shortstop Jack Blomgren.
Sophomore outfielder Jake Marti
hits beyond description.
With the success of his many
transfers, Bakich is currently seeing
what he hopes will be another in a
long line of strong recruiting classes
— one that he hopes can play deep
into the summer.
JACK WHITTEN
Daily Sports Writer
SportsMonday Column: Michigan says it’s adjusted without Isaiah
Livers. Whether they’re right will determine when the season ends.
MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily
Michigan convenes on the court during the Big Ten Tournament, sans Isaiah Livers.
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Erik Bakich has built a successful program at Michigan through ability to recruit
talent.
Online Event: Wednesday, March 31st, 2021 | 4:00 p.m.
An online lecture. For more information, visit
events.umich.edu/event/81873 or call 734.615.6667
IF THEY
ONL
Y KNEW
VINCENT
HUTCHINGS
Hanes Walton Jr. Collegiate Professor of
Political Science and Afroamerican and
African Studies
Informing Blacks and
Whites about the
Racial Wealth Gap
ETHAN
SEARS