The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/641955
MICHIGAN BASKETBALL We're going to keep trying to find a way to do that." For Michigan, action is critical to success on offense. But the Wolver- ines have also benefited from taking charges on the other end, as well, and last year's rules all but eliminated the charge from the officials' arsenal. It's been called much better this year than last, Beilein said. "I think that has been a good rule, actually," he said. "It's certainly cleaner than it was two years ago. That was awful. There was no way of stopping a driving guy because you virtually had to be there the day before in order to get a charge. "That's been pretty clean, and the charge arc's been pretty good, too." The other rule change — shorten- ing the 35-second shot clock to 30 — has been tougher to adjust to. U-M has often found itself in clock shot situations on offense this year and is still adapting to the change. "I just talked about that with my assistants," Beilein said. "We always have the off guard take the ball out of bounds. If they're pressing you or something you've got to have a guard in the backcourt. We've got to find a way, like some other teams do, when the four or five [man] throws it out, we're up the floor. Now, that wears your team out … but I have to adapt, have to find four to five sec- onds somewhere where we're getting our guys into action quickly. We've been emphasizing that, but I think we've got to do it even more." The rule might be okay for the Wol- verines in future years, Beilein said, but it's been a tough adjustment this year because of Michigan's lack of depth and injuries to senior guards Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht. "I haven't been as comfortable with it, but I don't have any other choice," he said. "I've got to be bet- ter at it, get my team to be better at it. Scoring is up … is field goal percent- age up? I don't know. Are people going to the foul line more? Maybe, which doesn't make it more exciting. "If the people in charge believe it's better for the game, I've got to agree with them because they study it more than I do." MICHIGAN CHASES BIG TEN TITLE AND NCAA BERTH Michigan stood 19-7 overall and 9-4 in Big Ten play — which was good for fourth place — with five regular-season games remaining, but there was still plenty to be deter- mined as of Feb. 15. U-M was only two games out of first and had the conference leader, Iowa, on the home docket for the last game of the year, but few gave them a shot at the title. Most experts believed two wins in the last five games would all but assure U-M an NCAA Tournament berth, however. ESPN's Joe Lunardi had the Wolverines a No. 8 seed, while CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm noted U-M's 61-56 win over Purdue helped the cause immensely. "Michigan picked up a much- needed win at home over Purdue, and the Wolverines own the strang- est looking profile in the bracket," he wrote. "They have wins over Mary-