The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/213966
ability to get in the lane and his unselfish ability to find people. He's done a terrific job with that. "He's improving daily, and it's not like he was bad, but shooting on the move is a thing that a lot of guys do not come in with, being able to shoot while they're moving. That has improved tremendously. "Now he's becoming that thirdlevel defender. He saw two or three actions that [UMass] Lowell was running the other day, and he told Caris [LeVert] what to do before Caris knew what to do. He's seeing the floor, his own man, the action and helping others." It speaks to leadership, a role into which Robinson has quickly grown. The sophomore insists he learned a lot from the leaders of Michigan's magical move toward Atlanta, and he's putting those lessons to good use. "One of the major things, apart from his game, is his leadership," LeVert pointed out. "Last year, we really had a lot of leaders, with the seniors and with Trey [Burke] and Tim [Hardaway Jr.]. But he's stepped into a big leadership role this year. "He was named as one of our captains, so that's a big accomplishment for him. As far as basketball, he's really expanded his game. He's still athletic. He's still Glenn. But he's really taken his game to another level." Robinson says he knew last year's group could take it to a high level, although he couldn't have imagined a scene like the one he and McGary marveled over. Pickup games prior to the start of training camp provided his first eye-opener. Those open-gym sessions marked the first times he'd been on the court with Burke and Hardaway, who were prepping for their last hurrah in town before heading to the NBA. Robinson saw their incredible talent, but he witnessed something more. "It was just seeing how hard those guys went and how good of a freshman class we had, and how if we all blended in, we could really make things work," he said. They made it work, in a fashion that took the college basketball world by storm during the Big Dance. A team that slipped up against Penn State with the regular season winding down suddenly began going toe-to-toe with the likes of Florida, Kansas and Syracuse, and rumbling on. Robinson well remembers how the fun appeared to be done against the Jayhawks, when Michigan fell behind 68-54 with less than seven minutes to play in the South regional semifinal in Arlington, Texas. He'll also never forget Burke's unwavering forcefulness in the subsequent team huddle. "When we were down in the Kansas game, he got in the huddle and said, 'It's not over,'" Robinson recalled. "A couple of people were looking down, and nobody knew if PODCAST: The Wolverine staffers John Borton and Chris Balas discuss sophomore Glenn Robinson III's role on John Beilein's squad and Robinson's play thus far.