The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/813087
42 THE WOLVERINE MAY 2017 BY CHRIS BALAS I n a perfect, maize-and-blue world, Derrick Walton Jr.'s last-second shot versus Oregon in the Sweet 16 would have dropped. It was a shot he'd made dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times before in his 15-plus years playing basketball, from the playgrounds of Detroit, through Harper Woods Chan- dler Park Academy, to Crisler Arena, to the 2017 Big Ten Tournament in the Verizon Center at Washington, D.C., and beyond. Literally an inch or two more on his jumper would have given the Wolver- ines a win over Oregon and a spot in the Elite Eight, and then who knows? The Ducks, after all, beat Kansas for a berth in the Final Four, and nearly beat North Carolina in the national semifinals … But it doesn't work that way, of course. A bounce here, a bounce t h e re , a l u c k y break or two is what often sepa- r a t e s w i n n e r s from losers when the NCAA Tourna- ment is down to 16 teams. On March 23 in Kansas City, Oregon got a few down the stretch and one of its biggest when Walton's long jumper off the dribble came up just short. The Ducks still had a foul to give, and the plan was to use it, head coach Dana Altman admitted in the postgame. Instead, Walton froze a defender with a wicked crossover, stepped back and let fly with a shot that looked good all the way. "I wasn't thinking about the foul," a somber Walton said in the postgame locker room. "I just knew time was winding down and I wanted to get the best shot possible with time wind- ing down. I had a good look at the basket, and it just didn't drop for me. "I absolutely thought it was going in. Personally, I thought it was the best shot I got all night. I had great lift on it, shot it better than every other shot [in the game]. I thought it would be a great moment for that shot to go in …" He paused. "It just fell short." A RUN TO REMEMBER For an eight-week stretch, including a postseason that saw Walton emerge as one of the nation's top guards, just about everything else had gone his and his team's way. The Wolverines hit their low during a 70-66 home loss to Ohio State Feb. 4, then the latest head scratcher in an up-and-down campaign to that point. Walton had played well, but head coach John Beilein thought he had more to give. When Walton scored 24 at Michigan State in a 70-62 loss Jan. 29, Beilein insisted his senior captain could have been better on the defen- sive end of the floor. Walton responded with 25 points and 10 rebounds against the Buck- eyes, but his teammates didn't match his effort. "Derrick was great," junior Muham- mad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman said. "It just seemed like he wanted it more than us. We didn't match his intensity." They took that to heart and followed his lead a few days later in an 86-57 home blowout of Michigan State, one in which Walton notched 20 points, eight assists and five rebounds. Just as a win over the Spartans was the catalyst in a tremendous turnaround in 2011, when U-M started 1-6 in Big Ten play before winning at MSU and rallying to make the NCAA Tourna- ment, this Spartan beat-down led to big things. U-M followed with a 75-63 win at Indiana Feb. 12 to sweep the series with the Hoosiers. The Wolverines next beat a ranked Wisconsin team 68-64 Feb. 16, knocked off eventual Big Ten champion Purdue 82-70 Feb. 25 and improved to 9-8 after starting conference play 4-6. The Wolverines still needed one more win — at Nebraska March 5 — to secure an NCAA Tournament berth, most experts agreed. Walton had bigger goals than just ending the season with a victory over the Corn- huskers, however, and he let Beilein know about it on the trip to the air- port before the game. Beilein always chooses one player to ride with him before a flight. This time he chose Walton. "We don't talk basketball usually — maybe a little bit, but it's more about life, how they're doing with their classes, I ask about their fam- ily," Beilein said. "You don't get a lot of chances for one-on-one time with them during the course of the season, so that's my 25 minutes of one-on-one with a player on all 11 trips. "We were just talking, and I men- tioned it was an important game [in regard to the] bubble. And then he said something along the lines of, 'We don't have to worry about the bubble — we're going to win the Big Ten Tourna- ment and have the automatic bid.'" Walton didn't hesitate when a surprised Beilein responded, 'You want that, huh?' "He said, 'Coach, I want that so bad,'" Beilein recalled. "'I want to win that championship so bad.'" Then, as if to prove he was seri- ous, he put 18 points and a Michigan- record 16 assists on the Cornhuskers in a 93-57 win, Nebraska's worst loss ever at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Days later, Michigan would avoid disaster when its plane had to abort takeoff, crashing through a fence and delaying travel to Washington, D.C., the site of the Big Ten Tournament. Walton suffered a four-inch cut on his leg and was stitched up — more than anything, though, many wondered how the emotional trauma would af- fect him and the rest of the Wolverines. Walton scored 19 points while he and his teammates dispatched Illi- nois 75-55 in their practice uniforms after the game jerseys got stuck under A FITTING FINISH Michigan Senior Captain And Guard Derrick Walton Jr. Saved His Best For Last In seven postseason games, Walton averaged 37.9 minutes, 19.7 points, 7.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds per contest. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS