The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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14 THE WOLVERINE MARCH 2021 INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS FIVE YEARS AGO, 2016: Zak Irvin and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman scored 16 points apiece to lift Michigan to a 67-62 win over Tulsa in an NCAA Tournament First Four contest. The Wolverines fought back on March 16, 2016, at the University of Dayton Arena, after falling behind early, 16-9. They finished the first half on a 19-4 tear to put them up eight at the intermission. The second half proved a back-and- forth battle all the way. Tulsa clung to a one-point advantage with four min- utes remaining. Then Abdur-Rahkman sunk a late-clock fall-away to wrest back the lead. Big man Moritz Wagner grabbed an offensive rebound and scored a put-back to extend Michigan's lead to three, but Tulsa cashed in twice to again take the advantage. Irvin canned a three-pointer with only 53 seconds remaining, and the Wolverines held the Golden Hurricane at bay from the free throw line the rest of the way. Duncan Robinson enjoyed his first- ever career double-double in the con- test. He managed 13 points and 11 rebounds, while Derrick Walton scored 12. Pulling out close games in the Big Ten Tournament helped the Wolver- ines in this one, head coach John Beilein offered. "The fact that we won those games in the Big Ten Tournament — we hadn't had any of those games," Beilein said. "That was really a thing we needed to learn." 10 YEARS AGO, 2011: Michigan ran Tennessee right out of Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C., blast- ing the Volunteers 75-45 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The March 18, 2011, contest featured a 19-2 Michigan run to open the sec- ond half, shackling the Volunteers to a hopeless 15 minutes of playing out the string. Zack Novak connected on three three-pointers in that stretch, boosting his team-high point total to 14, along with 10 rebounds. Stu Douglass, Matt Vogrich and Tim Hardaway Jr. each tallied 11, while Jor- dan Morgan had 10 points in the run- away. The Wolverines took advantage of 18 Tennessee turnovers, scoring 20 points off those miscues. The game actually remained close through 20 minutes, U-M leading at the half, 33-29. But the Wolverines shot 64.3 percent in the final 20 min- utes, more than overwhelming Tobias Harris' game-high 19 points for the Volunteers. "We just didn't play with heart out there," the freshman Harris said after- ward. "I mean, Michigan came out, made shots and we just did a terrible job of trying to cover them, and on the offensive end we rushed too many shots and basically just quit." 25 YEARS AGO, 1996: Brendan Morrison drove home a rebound at- tempt by teammate Bill Muckalt in overtime, delivering the game-win- ning and national title-clinching goal in 1996. The scene of Red Berenson's first na- tional championship as Michigan coach played out on March 30, against Colo- rado College in Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum. The Wolverines fell behind, 2-1, after scoring the opening goal. Mike Legg — who earlier in the NCAA Tournament had scored his fa- mous "lacrosse-style goal" — cashed in on the power play to knot the contest and send it to overtime. Extra periods hadn't been kind to U-M, which had been ousted in overtime in each of the last three NCAA Tournaments. They weren't going to be denied this time around. Greg Crozier's shot from the high slot got turned away, as well as Muckalt's attempt to jam it in. That had Colorado College's defend- ers scrambling, leaving a half-empty net for Morrison to scoop up the puck, slash in from the right circle and bury it for the title. "When you win a championship, you remember that for the rest of your life, what you accomplished together," Muckalt told MGoBlue.com years later. "Nobody remembers how many goals you scored that year or what your save percentage was. What they remember is that every time you walk into the rink there's a banner hanging there, and a lot of work went into getting that with the coaching staff." — John Borton THIS MONTH IN MICHIGAN ATHLETICS HISTORY Michigan won its first hockey national championship under head coach Red Berenson in 1996, after the Wolverines topped Colorado College in overtime on March 30. It marked the program's eighth of nine NCAA titles. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS