The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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"I've got to stay calm, stay positive, get the team back together. On dead balls, huddle them up. That's how we keep our poise and stay calm out there." Duke's Mike Krzyzewski paid Michigan, and Beilein, a high com- pliment in the aftermath of the Maui Invitational semifinal. Krzyzewski observed that whatever special strat- egies opponents employ against his team — such as face-guarding Tim Hardaway Jr., leading to a scoreless first half by the sophomore — Beilein has a counter move. In that game, the counter moves helped pave the way for Hardaway to pour in 19 second-half points. For the whiteboard wizardry to work, though, everyone has to be on board and able to take instruction on the fly. Beilein noted that as many as three options are presented every time Burke possesses the ball. In the early days of his Michigan career, Burke has gone from recognizing one of them, to identifying two. The next step, the head coach noted, involves Burke identifying and acting upon the third when the first two are taken away. "It's a coaches' cliché about the Burke played all but one minute of U-M's loss to Duke, scoring 17 points on 8-of-17 shooting, dishing out nine assists while turning the ball over just three times, grabbing three rebounds and making a steal. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL on the court sometimes," Beilein said. "If Darius [Morris] was still here, Trey would be getting five to 10 minutes a game, finding his spots to play. But now all of a sudden it's 25 or 35 a game. "We've just got to continue to get him ready for that, but I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't feel he had both the attitude and the aptitude to do it." Pace at both ends of the floor mat- ters, and for the most part, Michigan's coaches liked what Burke showed in Maui. At times, he pushed when he should have pulled back, but those were the exceptions and the teaching moments. "He controlled the pace of the game, which is important at the point guard position," Jordan said. "We're all about maximizing each posses- sion that we get. He did a good job of knowing when to push and when to slow it up and run offense, so we 52 THE WOLVERINE DECEMBER 2011 could get a good shot. "He's still understanding when those moments and times are. In the Memphis game, there were a couple of times when he should have slowed down and he sped up. Coach Beilein talked to him about it, and I talked to him about it." Burke also critiques himself. He un- derstands there are still parts of the offense he needs to perform better, options to be explored and exploited. He doesn't worry about his ability to get the job done and keep applying the instruction he's soaking up. The confidence and poise were already packed into his bag when he arrived in Ann Arbor. "It's kind of natural to me," he said. "I'm a quarterback on the floor. The team is going to feed off of how I look. If I'm out there shaky and out of control, that's how the team is go- ing to be. game slowing down," Beilein said. "The rest of our guys have done what we do for one, two or three years. This is all being thrown at him, and we can't hold things back. Hopefully, we're going to really see even better play out of him. He will see things so much differently." Jordan watches that growth every day. Working closely with Michigan's guards, he stressed the rookie has the right mindset to absorb instruction and improve. Head coach John Beilein "The biggest question was, Trey Burke — how is he go- ing to do now that he's out there? I think he performed fairly well." "He's a coachable kid, he's great, he's fun to coach," Jordan said. "He's like the rest of our guys. They're a joy to coach and a fun group to be a part of. He'll continue to learn that. "On the defensive side is always where the greatest adjustments are, especially for young fellas. You have to do so much. That's a big part of