The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/653976
MICHIGAN BASKETBALL lins] really has a good mind, recruits good players and runs sets that are just you do one thing, they counter it so well. "[But] we haven't had a lot of these games. We've either won by 10 or a dozen or lost [badly]." They hadn't had a buzzer beater, though, until Chatman elevated from the corner and nailed a triple with 0.2 seconds remaining on the clock in the victory over the Hoosiers. He almost didn't get it off. Chat- man looked like he wanted to give it back after junior Derrick Wal- ton Jr. found him in the corner, but with time running out and his bench imploring it to let it fly, he let go with what might have been his purest stroke of the year to beat the No. 1-seeded Hoosiers. His teammates mobbed him in a celebration for the ages — at one point, he said, he thought they might choke him to death. Labeled a "disappointment" by some, a near-five star prep talent (Ri- vals.com's No. 25 senior nationally out of high school) who hadn't lived up to the hype, a kid assistant coach LaVall Jordan called one of the most likeable kids on the team secured his place in Michigan lore with his clutch shot. "I'm so proud of Kam Chatman here, who spent the first two years a lot of times sitting down on the bench with us," Beilein said. "But he's, 'Yes sir, no sir,' working hard every single day, trying to grow his game. And for him to be rewarded with that big shot, with that moment that he will always be remembered for, is worth it for me knowing he has done such a great job of handling all of his adversity of not playing." His teammates mobbed him again when he came into the locker room from doing postgame interviews, dousing him with water. They took turns hugging him again at the Player Development Center when the Wolverines were announced as one of the 68 NCAA Tournament teams. Chatman appeared not to realize he'd hit the game-winner after his shot hit the bottom of the net. It was only when coaches peeled his team- mates off him that he was able to take a deep breath and enjoy it. "It was a lot of emotion, for all the hard work me and my teammates put in, and how hard we fought that whole game," Chatman said. "We were deserving of that shot that went in." And so was he, Beilein said. No- body works harder, his teammates said, and nobody on the team is more selfless. "When I pack it in someday and I just look back at all of those shots, that one I will remember a lot be- cause of the type of young men that we have on this team," Beilein said. "There are two seniors, Caris [Le- Vert] and Spike [Albrecht]. That's all they do [is sit]. They haven't been able to do anything the whole year, or the whole Big Ten season for Caris. "They got knocked down and kept getting back up. That's why it is so