The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1005764
26 THE WOLVERINE AUGUST 2018 Her final scoring tally ranks 27th in NCAA Division I history, while her 410 made three-pointers are second among women in college basketball annals. "It's still hard to wrap my head around that I've done all of that," Fla- herty said. "I definitely couldn't have done it without my coaches and my teammates, who brought so much to the relationship aspect of it." Her dad might have pondered how her size and mobility would play out on a stage as large as Michigan and the Big Ten. The one factor he never discounted involved effort, and that has taken his daughter to new heights. "I used to ask him about it, because I didn't really know what he said to people," Flaherty noted. "He said, 'Yeah, I just didn't really know if you were good enough or big enough or athletic enough.' Now, when we talk about it, he just kind of laughs. "He says, 'I still don't know how you did it.' I am a lot smaller than a lot of those people out there. You think something and then you can go do it, as long as you work hard. That's what he's always preached." An only child, Flaherty wasn't con- vinced herself that leaving home and coming west to college held the key to her next four years. But Barnes Arico issued her a challenge. Come help take Michigan women's bas- ketball to new heights. Come help it stare down national top-20 programs and not blink. The possibility of climbing that hill, by itself, might not have convinced her. Then she got to know her poten- tial destination, and the combination proved compelling. "Everybody knows Michigan," she said. "It's an outstanding school, and it sets you up for life. The people that are there — leaders and best, like everyone says." Flaherty knew she faced plenty of work coming in, all size and athleti- cism concerns aside. An injury in her senior year of high school left her un- derprepared for her freshman year at Michigan. She knew Barnes Arico and the Wol- verines wouldn't be seeing her at her best. Then again, what she had wasn't bad. Flaherty nailed a Michigan fresh- man-record 78 three-pointers that win- ter, leading the Wolverines in scoring with 14.3 points per game. She fired in 27 points in a Big Ten contest against Minnesota, serving notice she'd make it quite nicely in her new surround- ings. "When I was doing pretty well, I knew I could be pretty good in college, especially when I had the next sum- mer to go home and work on things," she said. "After a few games in col- lege, I thought I'd do as well as I could that year, then have the offseason to do what I had to do to be great at this level." Michigan beat powerful Ohio State at home her rookie season. The Wol- verines would go on to a host of big wins over the next four years — best- ing the Buckeyes in Columbus, knock- ing off Maryland, taking down Michi- gan State. This year, she knocked down a school-record 118 three-pointers at a 42.3-percent clip while leading the Wolverines in scoring (22.9) and as- sists (4.2). Her scoring clip ranked fifth During her senior campaign, Flaherty shot 42.3 percent from three-point range, poured in a team-high 22.9 points per contest and dished out a squad-best 4.2 assists per game. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN