The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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Bigger Stage Glenn Robinson III Steps To The Fore T By John Borton he sound of 75,000 fans shrieking over basketball in a football venue can drop jaws aplenty. For a pair of wide-eyed freshmen reaching college basketball's summit, the scene became surreal. Atlanta's Georgia Dome shook with deafening energy while Louisville and Wichita State battled it out in a heated semifinal, nearing the apex of the 2013 NCAA Tournament. Awaiting their own semifinal with Syracuse, freshmen Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III tried to relax, as if it were possible in such a setting. Calm just wasn't to be, and at one point, they embraced the lunacy. "I was standing right next to Mitch," Robinson recalled. "We had our headphones on, and Wichita State did something to make the crowd just go crazy. We had our headphones all the way up, and we could hear the crowd through them. We both took off our headphones and looked at each other like, this is crazy." Crazy indeed. Some considered it a little bit nuts when big recruits like Robinson and McGary took a chance on Michigan, some two decades removed from its last Final Four appearance. Certainly anyone projecting they'd be in the Georgia Dome, at the end of their first season in a Michigan uniform, could have been scrutinized for mental imbalance. Crazy — but there they were anyway. "I never envisioned myself playing in front of that many people," Robinson insisted. "I could never even have dreamed about that stage." He lived it, and vows to do everything he can to live it again. The sophomore forward out of St. John, Ind., will enjoy an even greater hand in the Wolverines' eventual fortunes this season. Robinson assumed a captain's mantle at the start of the year, along with fifth- and fourth-year performers Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford. It says something that a sophomore could walk in those shoes, but head coach John Beilein insists his star second-year performer has already taken giant strides. "There are so many of them," Beilein said. "The obvious one is his