The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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20 THE WOLVERINE APRIL 2017 tainly didn't seem like a team of des- tiny. Nor was it catching any breaks be- fore the Big Ten Tournament, despite its strong finish to the regular season. Beilein, on Ann Arbor's WTKA ra- dio after arriving back from Wash- ington, D.C., revealed the Wolver- ines' issues before the incident at Willow Run even occurred. "We couldn't practice that day at Michigan," Beilein noted. "People don't know. We had no power, so we had a walk-through in the dark. We were walking through near a win- dow in the PDC [Player Develop- ment Center]. "That's what we had to do to beat Illinois — before we even knew the plane would never make it off the runway." After conquering the darkness and the aborted takeoff at the airport, Beilein harbored another concern for his crew — fatigue. Michigan actu- ally played in the very last Big Ten contest prior to the Big Ten Tourna- ment. The Wolverines traveled to Ne- braska for the March 5 matchup, set- ting in motion one of the toughest stretches his teams will ever face. "We played Sunday night at 8 o'clock and got home at 1:30 in the morning," Beilein said. "[The Big Ten title game] was the fifth game in eight days. I didn't even want them to think about it." Instead, he wanted them to dream big, once they planted two feet squarely back on terra firma. He told them, following the jet mishap, that nobody would think worse of them if they decided not to show up the day after the wreck for a 6:30 a.m. bus ride to the airport. Michigan had secured the Detroit Pistons' jet for the trip to Washington, and the Wolver- ines made certain to be aboard. "They got on that bus, and they never looked back," Beilein said. He also brought into focus what could be, rather than what almost was. "We just painted this picture for them, of what it would be like, what their legacy would be like to push through … who was going to have the greatest will, and who wanted this the most, the absolute most?" he recalled. Walton certainly wasn't crazy about getting back on an airplane of any sort. But he set aside any fears gripping him, then charged through the most incredible four days of his four-year Michigan career. He averaged 20.5 points, 6.3 assists and 4.8 rebounds over the course of the Big Ten Tournament, continuing a remarkable second half of his se- nior season. "He really played well and just car- ried this team when we needed it badly," Beilein said. "We watched it happen right in front of our eyes in this last month." He didn't do it alone. The Wolver- ines featured a host of big contribu- tors in the end, including fellow se- nior Irvin, the fourth-year wing who looked lost at times while Walton was rising. "He was so conscious of the poor percentage he was shooting the ball, he came off ball screens as a passer only," Beilein recalled. "Nothing was working. He was just looking to pass, and they knew he was looking to pass. They'd guard the pick-and-roll, and we got noth- ing. "Once he started believing back in himself and making a few shots, they had to guard the shot." They didn't guard it well enough, Irvin sending the Purdue game in the Big Ten Tournament to overtime with a tying bucket and scoring the only two Michigan field goals in overtime. In the end, they all reveled in the confetti — alive, well and Big Ten champions. ❏ Senior point guard Derrick Walton Jr. and the rest of the Wolverines had to take the court in their Big Ten first-round game in practice uniforms because their game jer- seys were still under the plane that had an accident the day before. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS Michigan's senior class led the Wolverines to a Big Ten tournament title — the school's first since the 1997-98 season. From left to right: Derrick Walton Jr., Sean Lonergan, Zak Irvin, Andrew Dakich and Mark Donnal. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS