The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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MICHIGAN BASKETBALL added, especially on offense. Beilein's system is about reading teammates and reacting to what they're doing, and it takes time to jell. At the same time, they put up 86 points in an exhibition against Wayne State on the strength of a transition game and some individual play, and the veterans led the way against Hill- sdale. Sophomore point guard Der- rick Walton Jr. finished with 22 points, sophomore wing Zak Irvin 21, and junior guard Caris LeVert 20 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. The Wolverines shot 11 of 19 (57.9 percent) from three-point range in the win and turned it over only six times. The freshmen, meanwhile, continue to learn on the fly. "I can speak for all of us [freshmen] when I say that's going to put a fire in us to keep the tradition going," Chat- man said after watching the banner go up. Consistency is what every coach is trying to establish with his program, Beilein said — "that you're continu- ally at the top of your league." "We're getting better, but it is slower than everybody hopes, so we just keep working at it and working at it," Beilein said. "In time, we'll get there, but it's not going to be snap, snap, snap, like that." They were 20 to 30 percent further along last year in picking up the of- fense, Beilein said. The preseason summer teachings and an Italy trip (four games in Rome) served to edu- cate on the culture, and there's still plenty of time spent on fundamentals. "We spend a lot of time on the most basic fundamentals of balance and shooting and things like that," Beilein said. "You chop away at a checklist that's enormous. "There's a process we go through. It's a tremendous journey. It's the one that I love the most, but the early parts of the journey aren't fun be- cause there's the adversity and the mistakes that you go through and you learn from. The mistakes aren't fun, but they're the only way to get better, really." How quickly they do will deter- mine how soon another banner gets raised to the rafters. CARIS LEVERT, SPIKE ALBRECHT ARE 2014-15 CAPTAINS Junior guards Spike Albrecht and Caris LeVert presented head coach John Beilein with his Big Ten cham- Head coach John Beilein said of Albrecht (above) and LeVert, "They 're loyal and they 're in it for all the right reasons. We have no doubt that they're going to make the right decisions." PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN