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ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Wolverines were widely regarded as a two-man team at the start of this season, and adding Laval Lucas-Perry over the holidays turned that into a trio. Coach Jim Beilein, though, knows that he couldn’t have gone from 10-22 to 11-3 without more than Manny Harris, DeShawn Sims and Lucas-Perry. There are seven other players that play at least 14 minutes a game for the Wolverines, including Beilein’s pair of Zacks. Beilein moved true freshman guard Zack Novak into the starting lineup for the Big Ten opener against Wisconsin, and he responded with 20 points and eight rebounds, then added 11 points in Michigan’s win over Illinois. Beilein knows that having a fourth scoring option on the floor will make things much easier for his big three. “This is a kid who was double-teamed all through high school, but no one is going to double him when we’ve got Manny, DeShawn and Laval out there,” he said. “But teams are going to have to spend some time guarding Zack, and that’s going to open a lot of things up for those three.” At the same time, junior forward Zack Gibson bounced back from a poor game against the Badgers to score 10 points against the Illini. “It was frustrating, because for a while I was practicing well, but not able to play to the same level,” he said. “Now I’ve got some confidence, and I have to keep that, because once you start playing well in games, it carries over.” Gibson doesn’t expect to score 20 points a game, but he knows that, like Novak, anything he adds takes some pressure off his teammates. “It’s big, because when we’ve got other guys scoring, they have to focus on us,” he said. “That means the big guys are going to get more chances to get their shots.” Gibson had been a starter earlier in the season, and his new role was a direct attempt by Beilein to get his only shot-blocker to pick up his game. “I’m trying to relax him, but also put a bit of a chip on his shoulder by changing the scenery a bit,” Beilein said. “We are experimenting a bit to find which guys can give us some energy off the bench. Kelvin (Grady) is doing that, and we’re hoping Zack will as well.” Wednesday, Michigan will play just its second true road game of the season when they travel to Indiana. The trip will be special for Novak, an Indiana native who grew up making the three-hour drive to Assembly Hall. "This is going to be fun,” he said. “I’ve watched a lot of games there and I grew up cheering for Indiana, because of Coach Knight. I even went to his camps when I was in the third grade. My town is pretty much split, because we’re closer to Purdue, but I always liked Indiana.” The current Hoosiers aren’t the powerhouse they were under Knight, but Beilein isn’t expecting any easy victories away from home in the Big Ten. “It is always going to be tough when you go on the road in this conference, and that isn’t anything new,” he said. “I’m sure that when Sparta went to Athens, they lost, and when Athens went to Sparta, they lost. This kind of thing has been going on for a long time.”
Posted 1/7/2009
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