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Monday, February 24, 2020

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Michigan beats Purdue, 71-63, for fivegame win streak.

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Panel analyzes impact of gun violence in PoC communities

Panelists share personal stories, advocate for legislative change NAVYA GUPTA

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Students discuss several recent ‘U’ sexual misconduct allegations Community disappointed, but not surprised at news of Philbert, Mars, Anderson CALDER LEWIS & JASMIN LEE Daily Staff Reporters

Following announcements of multiple University of Michiganaffiliated faculty and staff facing misconduct claims since the Winter 2020 semester began, a number of students told The Daily they have lost trust in the University’s ability to protect them. Several University faculty

members faced sexual misconduct accusations made public within the past month. Martin Philbert, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, was placed on leave effective Jan. 20 for sexual misconduct and harassment allegations. Engineering professor Jason Mars stepped down from his position as CEO of Clinc, an AI company he founded, after The Verge published allegations of sexual misconduct and abusive behavior against him on Feb. 13.

Daily Staff Reporter

The School of Information and the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan co-sponsored a discussion on how to maintain safety in extended reality technological worlds. UMSI assistant professor Florian Schuab hosted the discussion and featured the expertise of Kavya Pearlman, founder and CEO of XR Safety Initiatives. Pearlman was a cybersecurity strategist at Wallarm, a former information security director at Linden Lab and a former Facebook third-party security risk advisor. She said her professional experience corroborates with her personal interests in emerging technologies, gaming and virtual worlds. Pearlman said because it is abnormal for her to go more than a few days without using virtual reality, it is important to have a governing set of rules for those who go into virtual worlds. She discussed how being a woman as well as a person who wears a hijab has put her at risk of harassment multiple times, including a specific instance of sexual harassment.

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See MISCONDUCT, Page 2A

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Alum sues University over injuries Dr. Hausker from North Campus falling tree speaks on

Expert talks safer use of extended VR experiences

JENNA SITEMAN

School of Public Health since 1995. The Detroit Free Press reported the University has known about other sexual misconduct allegations against Philbert since 2003. In response to a request for comment, the University’s Office of Public Affairs directed The Daily to Schlissel’s statement on the several recent allegations during the Feb. 20 Board of Regents meeting.

Students Demand Action, a division of Everytown for Gun Safety, and the American Civil Liberties Union hosted a discussion on the impact of gun violence on communities of color. About 30 students and professors attended the event on Friday evening at Annenberg Auditorium. Nursing junior Grace Bontrager, co-leader of the Students Demand Action at the University of Michigan, said she formed the group after the Parkland school shooting in 2018. Bontrager said their group was the first SDA to start on a university campus. “I wanted a concrete way to get involved in gun violence prevention in my community,” Bontrager said. “It’s a lofty goal but essentially (SDA) wants to end gun violence in America by working with everyone in the country and the 300+ SDA groups across the nation. Our three

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Past Facebook advisor highlights dilemmas plaguing new digital worlds, technologies

On Wednesday, multiple sexual assault allegations brought against the late Robert E. Anderson, former director and sports physician of University Health Services, were made public. University President Mark Schlissel sent an email to University students and faculty on Jan. 22 informing them of Philbert’s leave from office. Philbert was appointed as provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2017 and previously served in various roles in the

Daily Staff Reporter

main pillars of what we do here are education by talking about the issue, policy, legislative work and community work.” The conversation began with the three panel members introducing themselves and sharing the impact gun violence has had on their lives. University alum Benjamin Hester, a representative of Solomon Rajput’s campaign for Congress, spoke about the recent loss of his teenage cousin. Hester said his cousin wasn’t a part of any gangs and did not possess firearms but was leaving school when an altercation occurred. “It’s something that I’ve been thinking about and working through, and it just never really makes sense to me to be angry at some 20-year-old running around trying to play gangster because he didn’t feel like there was anything else or that there was another life that he would have wanted to live,” Hester said.

Michael Heinrich was left paralyzed and accuses school of negligence JENNA SITEMAN Daily Staff Reporter

In April 2017, thenEngineering senior Michael Heinrich was just shy of graduating when a rotted tree fell on him while riding his motorcycle to class. The accident left Heinrich quadriplegic after he was paralyzed at his C-6 vertebrae in the neck region of the spine. Heinrich, who was studying to be a geotechnical engineer, said he was riding his motorcycle on a pathway below Northwood housing on North Campus when he heard a loud crack behind him. By the time he realized what was happening, he said he was pinned to the ground, paralyzed. From the moment he hit the ground, he said he knew he was going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life. “After my accident, I was conscious,” Heinrich said. “I might have blacked out for 10 seconds or so, but I knew what was going on, and I was laying there. I was like, ‘I need to get up.’ And I realized I couldn’t get up. At that moment, I knew I was paralyzed.” After spending the summer in intensive care and then rehab at Michigan Medicine in 2017 — accumulating more than $2 million in medical bills — he and his family turned to the University to ask for help paying the bills. Heinrich’s family then pursued legal action, seeking some compensation for the care that Heinrich received

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and would need in the future. The lawsuit — a copy of which was obtained by The Daily — was filed in October 2018 under claims of gross negligence. The Daily also obtained the transcript of a hearing on June 26, 2019 at the Washtenaw County Circuit Court. Currently, lawyer Dean Googasian of The Googasian Firm, PC, a firm handling catastrophic injury cases, is representing Heinrich. His case is still in litigation. University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen said in an email to The Daily that the University regrets the incident but cannot comment on ongoing litigation. “The University is sorry this accident occurred,” Broekhuizen wrote. “However, the tree had been appropriately inspected prior to the accident and appeared to be healthy. As a result, the circuit court dismissed the case and the plaintiff has appealed.” Heinrich said the case was filed under claims of gross negligence and alleges the University knew the tree was rotted and yet did not follow proper procedure to ensure the safety of those passing by the tree. According to the transcript The Daily obtained, University lawyer Keefe Brooks said gross negligence is “conduct that essentially exhibits an I-don’tcare-type attitude.” In this case, the University arborist, Marvin Pettway, had inspected the tree for rotting and had allegedly noticed the fungus

but determined it was not convincing of full-rot. According to Googasian, Pettway said during his deposition, that if it fell, it could “crack the concrete built for trucks to drive on.” But Brooks said that Pettway didn’t determine it a risk with the information he collected. Under this provision, the University asserted they do not owe Heinrich compensation. Heinrich pointed to an aspect of the lawsuit that mentions patches of fungi that were apparent on the base of the tree, showing it was rotting. “The reason why there was even a possible case is that at the time, we looked from the Google Street maps view and you could see fungus at the base of the tree,” Heinrich said. As time passed, Heinrich said he and his family felt the University became increasingly callous about the situation. While he was in the intensive care unit only a few days after the accident, Heinrich was intubated and had a tracheotomy to help him breathe. His neck was snapped and his spine was broken, along with many other bones. While in this state, he said a University liaison from the Engineering department visited him in the hospital demanding graded assignments for a course for which he served as an assistant instructor. Heinrich said he was in disbelief he was being asked this in the hospital. “The liaison was obviously fully aware of my situation,” Heinrich said. “She was like, ‘We need these papers that

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he graded.’ And here I am in the hospital trying to explain where these papers are and I was like, ‘What? You need these papers, and yet I’m literally here possibly dying.’ The University didn’t care if I was alive. They didn’t care about anything.” Heinrich also said he was extremely upset when this liaison told him, during this exchange, that the University didn’t have the funds to help mitigate any costs for him. “I might have broken my neck, I might have snapped everything in my body, and if there were five stages of grief for your body, I was essentially grieving,” Heinrich said. “I was going out of those pretty quickly and still, I wasn’t broken until the University told me, ‘We’re not going to help you out.’” Heinrich also described his struggle with everyday care. Before the accident, he said his parents lived in Ludington, Mich., but they have since moved to Ann Arbor to care for him full-time. Heinrich said care is a large financial burden, and he is now receiving federal food stamps. He also said he receives coverage through Medicaid and Medicare and uses disability rights and social security to pay for health care. He said he now requires special medical appliances to urinate, which would cost $36,000 per year without his insurance. Heinrich said he has been forced to pay this because

moving to renewables

Previous Bill Clinton EPA official examines various clean energy transition, alternatives LAURA MILLAR For The Daily

Dr. Karl Hausker, the Senior Fellow of the World Resources Institute’s Energy and Climate Program, delivered a lecture to around 60 students and Ann Arbor residents at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy early Friday afternoon. In his lecture, Hausker examined how humans can and will solve the climate crisis through the use of renewables, nuclear plants and carbon capture. He also discussed the role of states, cities and companies in the clean energy transition. In addition to his role at the WRI, Hausker previously served President Bill Clinton as deputy assistant administrator for Policy, Planning and Evaluation with the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. During the lecture, Hausker discussed getting to net-zero by producing enough renewable energy to meet annual energy use requirements in buildings and cities throughout the nation.

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News

2A — Monday, February 24, 2020

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

MISCONDUCT From Page 1A “As a physician, scientist, father and university president, I condemn all sexual misconduct, especially instances that occur under the purview of our public mission,” Schlissel said. “This type of conduct is reprehensible — and whether it takes place now or took place in the past, it is unacceptable.” The Daily interviewed multiple students across campus for the perspectives of the student body about these allegations. LSA sophomore Emma Sandberg, a founder of the student group Roe v. Rape, said she was angry and confused, but not necessarily surprised, when she received Schlissel’s email about Philbert. “The fact that the University was aware of at least three complaints against him and still promoted him to the Provost highlights how the administration does not in any sense take sexual misconduct seriously, and that there is a structural problem at U of M,” Sandberg said. “This is a man who sounds to be outwardly inappropriate in a sexual manner to those working with him, and so I’m not exactly sure why some administrators, like the president, are claiming that they had no idea of any sexual misconduct.” Ariel Friedlander, LSA and Art & Design senior, said it is concerning that someone who holds a powerful position at the University, such as Philbert, was accused of sexual misconduct. According to Friedlander, this gives power to perpetrators and makes them believe they should aspire to powerful roles in society. “People see this predator revealed at the University, it’s terrible and people want to speak out and that’s great,” Friedlander said. “People should be speaking out and they should be questioning who’s in power and who’s in charge of overseeing sexual violence prevention, who’s in charge of taking care of survivors, women and minorities on this campus. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, and below the sea, there’s a history of violent oppression and sexual misconduct. This is so much bigger than this one man, and the fact that he has so much power at this institution means he’s upheld by this history.” Anderson worked at the University for 35 years and served as a top physician for football teams coached by Bo Schembechler and Lloyd Carr. University alum Robert Julian Stone filed a complaint against the University in 2018, nearly 50 years after the alleged incident. The oldest complaint dates back to 1995, when a female student filed a lawsuit against Anderson for an incident during a mandatory medical examination for employment. Anderson retired from the University in 2003 and

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passed away in 2008. Medical student Mark-Anthony Lingaya said he was disappointed to read that Anderson allegedly abused patients when serving as UHS Director. “As a medical student, you go through classes where you learn the art of doctoring, how to gain your patient’s trust, how to keep your patient’s trust and the privilege you have with regards to patients,” Lingaya said. “It’s really shocking that someone was taking advantage of that and traumatizing patients and completely breaching that relationship and its foundation.” Medical student Andrew Shute said he was concerned with the University’s handling of allegations against Anderson, particularly Anderson’s transfer from the head of UHS to team physician around the time of the alleged incidents in the 1970s. “It sounded like they were trying to sweep it under the rug by moving him from one place to the other,” Shute said. “If they’ve taken advantage of patients in general or committed sexual assault, they shouldn’t be allowed to continue being in a position where they take advantage of patients.” Lingaya said the alleged abuses should not be taken lightly just because it took decades for victims to come forward. “My perspective is that these patients were terrified and confused,” Lingaya said. “Their trust was betrayed and they felt like they weren’t going to be believed … As a future physician and as Michigan students who are going to go on to positions of power and influence, we need to influence the spaces we’re in and make it so survivors of assault can comfortably and bravely come out and tell their stories without feeling like they’re not going to be believed.” According to The Detroit News, 66 students and faculty from the College of Engineering and School of Information signed a letter to Schlissel on Feb. 6 outlining allegations about an unnamed faculty member and calling on Schlissel to make changes to improve the campus climate. Mars has said he is not this unnamed individual. Last week, Computer Science and Engineering faculty released a statement calling for Mars to take a leave of absence. Though the Information School has announced it would be suspending its recruiting relationship with Mars, the University has not placed Mars on administrative leave. Brian Noble, chair of Computer Science and Engineering, sent an email to undergraduate students in the College of Engineering Saturday afternoon addressing the climate within the department. “I am writing today for three reasons,” Noble wrote. “First, to say that I am heartbroken

for our community. There are profound problems with CSE’s climate. I know that there is a lot of frustration, pain and anger, and I share it. Second, I am sharing immediate steps that I have taken to address the recent climate concerns. Finally, I want to update you on some in-progress activity directed specifically at the Undergraduate programs in CSE.” Engineering sophomore Tara Sabbineni said she was confused about the context of the email because Mars was not directly mentioned. “We got an email that said something really vague about ‘We know there’s a lot of issues in CSE, here are some of the things we’re trying to do to solve it,’ but I wasn’t aware of what they were talking about until my friend showed me The Verge article,” Sabbineni said. “They haven’t fired him or done anything about it yet. I understand why they sent such a vaguely worded email, but it was definitely a little weird.” Mars was a speaker at the TedxUofM event on Feb. 14, which occurred after he resigned as CEO from his company Clinc. Though Mars was slated to speak at the event for months in advance, LSA freshman Ceciel Zhong said it was concerning that he was allowed to speak after the allegations were made public. “I heard that he spoke at the recent TED Talk, which is very unacceptable,” Zhong said. “There’s more than plenty of evidence that he had done such things, but it’s very disappointing that he’s still not on leave.” Students who spoke with The Daily noted a specific cultural climate surrounding sexual misconduct nationally and on campus. Friedlander said conversations she has heard around the Philbert and Mars accusations have often missed what she sees as structural issues on campuses. “A lot of people see situations like these occur and they appear to be some type of isolated incident of some serious predator who has gotten away with so much, but it’s just one in a million people who commit acts of sexual violence and sexual misconduct against women,” Friedlander said. “These incidents were not a surprise to me. I don’t think the culture on campus is made to uplift women or survivors of sexual violence, or that (the University) breeds this type of culture.” Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Helen LaGrand reflected on instances of sexual misconduct within her school that The Daily reported on last year. She specifically noted Stephen Shipps, a former professor at the School of Music, Theater & Dance, who was accused of sexual misconduct and ultimately resigned. To LaGrand, these allegations were not surprising, as she said the culture

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of attending a large academic institution can make situations regarding sexual misconduct inevitable. “It’s what I would expect from an institution as huge as and as established this,” LaGrand said. “I know there are other schools around the country — particularly music schools because I can speak more to that — that have the same situations going on and a lot of those cases haven’t come to light. My opinion of the University hasn’t really changed. I think this is just inevitable that this would happen and I think it still has happened in a lot of other schools.” LSA sophomore Ethan Hauser referenced the #MeToo movement when discussing the sexual misconduct allegations against faculty. Hauser said he thinks the University is only bringing up these allegations now because society has made these issues more acceptable to bring to light. “It doesn’t look good if you’re covering stuff up,” Hauser said. “Given how our society has changed the last few years with the #MeToo movement, it makes more sense that they’re coming out now compared to the past.” Students told The Daily they believe the University does not have a strong history of being transparent with students and faculty about sexual misconduct allegations. Though students see the emails about Philbert and Mars as progress, many agreed more work needs to be done. Schlissel addressed concerns about transparency around the Philbert investigation at the Feb. 20 Board of Regents meeting. “Because this investigation is so critical, and because we must ensure that the outside, independent firm is able to conduct their investigation in a thorough, reliable and fair way, I will not be able to share any details while the investigation is underway, even though I know that there is wide interest in this case,” Schlissel said. Even though students are asking for more clarity about the situations regarding sexual misconduct allegations, LaGrand said she believes the legal aspect of the allegations makes it hard for the University to be totally transparent about the situation. However, she said students and faculty who were directly involved with the accused should have a warning before the situation goes public. “It’s a very sensitive matter because the law is involved and there are victims involved who might not want to be spoken about. Transparency is tough,” LaGrand said. “Maybe it should be brought to students’ attention before they actually go on leave. Maybe if the professor is being looked into, more faculty should know about it or more students who are in contact with them should know about it before the decision is made to put them on leave. They shouldn’t wait to hear about it until then.” Though Sandberg said she thinks Schlissel’s email to the student body is an improvement, she said the University could still provide more clarity. “I wasn’t very surprised by it based off of what I know about the University’s history with the issue,” Sandberg said. “I was more surprised by the fact that they emailed all of the students because that is pretty rare. Normally they sweep this under the rug.

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When I See You NOOR MOUGHNI MiC Columnist

After watching the Netflix miniseries, When They See Us, I was brought to tears by the manipulation of innocence and infuriated with the acceptance of injustice. The episodes invited me to understand the story of the Exonerated Five beyond a news headline and reshaped my view of the carceral state. When I heard that one of the members of the Exonerated Five, Yusef Salaam, was coming to the University of Michigan to give a lecture, I cleared my schedule and anticipated the moment I would finally meet the person whose story I was so familiar with. I was eager to absorb all the knowledge Salaam acquired through his extraordinary experiences, and I awaited a stimulating discussion about

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incarceration and wrongful convictions. My expectations were limited to what I saw in the Netflix series and I did not anticipate that I would resonate with Salaam’s lecture to the extent that I did. Salaam began his lecture narrating his perspective of the story depicted in When They See Us, and sharing other aspects of his experience that weren’t televised. He then went on to discuss his life through another lens. Salaam is a practicing Muslim and he made sure to establish that aspect of his identity during the lecture. Salaam emphasized his use of religion as a means to remain hopeful throughout his incarceration and as a reason to be grateful for his wrongful conviction. He told the audience how his name predicted his future, sharing the story in the Quran about Prophet Yusef, a

man who was imprisoned for a rape he didn’t commit, and was later exonerated. I felt chills throughout my body the moment Salaam recited the shahada (Muslim profession of faith), “la ilaha illa llah.” Salaam was not ashamed of his faith and he did not try to silence his spirituality. As a Muslim woman of color, I rarely hear my identity spoken about in that way. Hearing Salaam celebrate my religion to a crowd that wasn’t predominantly Muslim was so encouraging. The confidence he exuded for his Islamic faith was especially inspiring to me as I have always tried to limit outward expression of my faith. Though this event made me proud of my religion, it also led me to realize a key element missing from my life. This one and a half-hour lecture was one of the most positive representations that I have had for my religious identity in my life. It was also one of the only times I have seen another Muslim profess

their faith to a crowd this large, aside from a Mosque or Islamic event. Salaam’s confidence has encouraged me to express my love for my religion freely, but more importantly, to address the lack of accurate representation that Muslims face. Growing up, I witnessed the media alienate Muslim Americans and portray them as separate from American society. After listening to Salaam speak about Islam, I felt American. Despite every lie told about my religion, the lecture made me feel as if I belonged. This was an unusual feeling; yet, it allowed me to understand how important representation is for Muslim Americans. In order for Muslims to feel that they belong in America, they must see a diversified, human representation of themselves in media, politics, and everyday life. I came to Yusef Salaam’s lecture to learn more about one of the men featured in When They See Us. I was not prepared to learn so much about my own identity.

“Sanctum”

I waded in the ocean as a prayer to wash my soul clean. I honored the idea that salt might stick to my wounds, might mend the flesh, let me be holy. Time sometimes feels as though it slows in South America, like it is consumed by the ebb and flow of my life. Like I control it, like maybe I could consume it - let it drip into me. I saw the sun rise and set over the Atlantic Ocean. This university. The Brooklyn Bridge. I saw it from behind hospital walls. Maybe that was home. I spent four seasons here with the sun. I felt life itself discard me, venture beyond me dragging me through, and, also, I felt it coming to a complete halt. I swam in the Atlantic under the moon. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t recognize myself. I looked in the mirror and I fell in love with myself. I learned to seek a home in what I value. I learned gratitude. That feeling of empty helplessness that sometimes weighs heavy on my stomach, and the euphoria of losing myself to the sun and to my soul share the same weight. They create me. Every second on this earth: lungs inhaling, palms stretched toward the sun, it all matters immensely. I create my own hope. I create my own strength. I am the master of my reality.

“A Quite Place” PATRICIA CHANG MiC Contributor

Here I a m, cooking in my apa rtment ’s kitchen. My hea rt beats joy f ully with the rhy thm of stirring. My boy friend slurps the rib soup to check if it ’s ready. Wait, why did you sta rt eating? It ’s New Yea r ’s Eve. Here we a re, sit ting at a round table. The stea m of stick y rice ribs billows from the dish. I hea r someone’s stomach rumbling. Oops, it ’s mine. We have no idea what is behind the facade of peace. Ja n. 23, Wuha n closed the whole cit y due to a coronavirus outbrea k. I was shocked. Never had I imag ined that China would face such a serious condition af ter SA RS. Why? Because we were told we were safe. A few weeks ago, 8 people were a rrested in Wuha n because they were spreading “rumors” about the disease. What ’s next? 14 doctors were infected by their patients because they knew nothing about the virus. Here we a re, enjoying the big dinner while checking the news updates. A title catches my eye: “A n employee in China Customs retained the donated masks for Wuha n.” A few moments later, the news disappea rs. Quiet. The sa me thing happens ever yday. Again. A ND AGA IN. The death toll increases ever yday, a nd it hurts. What hurts even more is our government keeps hiding the real number from us. What if people f ind out the truth of the death from someone they love? In the so-called suspected cases, how ma ny of them a re already in the past tense? A citizen in Wuha n visited ever y major hospital in the cit y a nd posted what he saw online. He wa nted us to know the truth. So I saw. Body Bags Cr ying Faces Masks A nd More Body Bags That g reat citizen was a rrested t wo weeks later, a nd the police said he was under

qua ra ntine. So we shut up. Quiet. Billions of supplies were sent to Wuha n, from all over the world. The poorest people donated their life savings, because they believe it ca n help their siblings a lit tle bit. What they don’t know is the supplies never get to people in need. Wuha n Red Cross kept the supplies intact in their wa rehouse. Simulta neously, countless online shops shipped from Wuha n popped up from nowhere, selling face masks, liquid disinfecta nt a nd so forth. Here is the best joke of the cent ur y: I bought the supplies I donated. I saw the health workers in the front lines ma king face masks a nd coveralls using plastic bags with their ever-whiter ha nds, bleached by all the disinfecta nt. They pleaded for supplies with no reply. A nother day, a government ca r drove right into the Red Cross wa rehouse, took out boxes of high-qualit y face masks; a day later, no trace of this event could be found. Quiet. Please, say something, before I lose the courage to believe. My hea rt is bleeding. If the cost of being quiet is the life of our brothers a nd sisters, why shouldn’t we stop it? Is this really happening, in the 21st cent ur y, in China? I love my countr y, as much as I hate what I see these days. The last thing I wa nt is to see my beloved countr y building up on lies. We could have known the seriousness of the virus ea rlier; we could have saved more of our people; we could have stood united. The virus outbrea k, surprisingly, unveiled the true color of this g reat nation — a ricket y interior under the impressive facade. How much time will it ta ke for them to realize the so-called “stabilit y maintena nce” is only a placebo, not the real medicine? Until then, how much more do we still have to lose? I don’t wa nt to be Quiet.

“I Hope” XINYUAN LUO MiC Contributor

When I called my mom last week, she said: “You should not come back at this moment. Stay safe and stay warm.” I knew how much they miss me as I haven’t been home for a year. A home I can’t come back and a family can’t reunion. That’s how coronavirus separated thousands of families in China. 68,500 is the number who got infected by coronavirus, and 1,665 is the number of deaths caused by coronavirus, with the oldest aged 89 and the youngest aged 1 months. What people read from the news are just emotionless numbers, but beneath those numbers are those patients’ stories and sufferings. If people don’t know their helplessness, sadness and fear, they are just numbers. Numbers can be emotionless, objective and calm. But humans can’t be. The 7-month-old baby girl is just ready to see the beautiful view in the world while coronavirus attacked her. All her family members got infected. She, on her own, stays in the ICU. Every breath she takes is a fight to her fate. The beautiful and sweet angel is taking the biggest challenge in her life. Will she grow up safe and sound? I hope. A 90-year-old woman kneels to beg the doctors to save her 65-year-old son who is dying because of coronavirus. “Please stay alive, my boy.” Her sight can’t leave her son until they shut the door of the ward. The long goodbye. Will the son see his mother again? I hope. An eight-year-old boy was left home alone because his parents are doctors who were sent to help in Wuhan. While others are busy blaming his irresponsible parents, what they don’t know is how desperate and difficult the situation is, causing his parents to make this choice. But there are thousands of children at their son’s age, screaming and begging, waiting for doctors to save their lives. At that moment, their identities were not just parents, but also doctors. Do they worry about their own son?

Of course, they do. Do they ever have a choice? No, they don’t. “I never consider myself as noble. It just I have never become a deserter in my life and neither did this time,” his father said. Will his parents come back soon? I hope. While on the other side of the world, another fear attacked the Chinese, or more broadly, Asians. As long as people who have yellow skin, black eyes and black hair, and as long as they wear face masks to protect themselves, they are considered to be people who carry coronavirus and they get attacked because of how they look. “We don’t accept Chinese customers for Coronavirus.” An announcement of a nail salon in the United States. “Chinese kids should stay home and isolated.” An Australia back-to-school plea. “Coronavirus is made in China.” A headline of a German newspaper. A German-Asian man got attacked by strangers just because he was Asian, but he hasn’t been back to China for almost thirty years. A 13-year-old Chinese football player was cursed by his contestants, “I wish you got sick,” in a spring football match in Milan. He cried and left but was ignored by the judge. What is wrong with this world? Everyone can get sick, and people should never feel ashamed because they are sick. On one side of the world, people were attacked by this virus; on other sides of the world, people were attacked by people. When it comes to disaster, the real fear is not the disaster itself but always to be humane. Virus kills life but racism kills mind. The next time when I call my mom; I hope her answer is “It’s time for you to come home.” The 7-month-old baby could open her eyes to see the world. The 65-year-old man could embrace his mother. The eightyear-old boy could stay with his parents. And, every Asian living abroad could have a normal and peaceful life. And I hope all this will happen in the near future.

Monday, February 24, 2020 — 3A

Illustration from Gabrielle Union’s Instagram. Portrait of the Wade Family, originally posted on Gabrielle Union’s Instagram.

Unconditional Black Love CAMILLE MOORE MiC “Off the Record” Blogger

“What’s the point of being on this earth if you’re going to try to be someone you’re not?” - Zaya Wade I felt a true form of Black joy this past week when I watched Zaya Wade speak her truth. She’s the daughter of the legendary actress, Gabrielle Union, and former NBA player, Dwayne Wade. On February 11th, during an interview on the Ellen Degeneres Show, Dwayne shared with the world that his daughter’s name is now Zaya and her pronouns are she/her. Later that same day, Zaya’s mom posted a video of her where she shared some powerful words with her dad. I admire Zaya’s power of knowing who she is and being able to express that to the world in the face of racism, homophobia, and now the transphobia that this 12-year-old has faced by thousands of people online. This is a courageous act of bravery. Of love. What really stood out to me about this situation is how supportive and understanding her parents and siblings are. Coming out — or deciding not to — is a difficult thing for the vast majority of queer and trans people, because the announcement is not always met with acceptance. LGBTQ+ youth, especially young transgender folks of color, are disproportionately abused, kicked out and left houseless because their families disown them. So when Dwayne Wade said, “Me and my wife… we are proud parents of a child in the LGBTQ+ community. And we’re proud allies as well. And we take our roles and our responsibilities as parents very seriously,” during his Ellen interview, it felt radical to me. When queer and trans people are able to stand up and defend themselves, it’s powerful but it also sets a great example for people outside of the community to proudly provide support as well. In addition to that, Zaya’s brother, Zaire, posted a heartwarming Instagram post dedicated to his little sister. He states, “I’ve told you that I would lay my life down to make sure you are ten toes down and happy on this earth. I don’t care what

they think Z, you are my best friend and I love you kid, and if it means anything, just know there’s no love lost on this side.” Bring out the tissues right now; I’m completely in my feelings! In all seriousness, public examples of unfiltered acceptance and love for Black folks are what we need to see on a regular basis and practice in all of our lives. I want to clarify that I do not identify as transgender or non-binary and do not claim these identities in any form. However, I do know that Black trans women are disproportionately victims of intra-communal violence and hate. I do hear how some Black people, from elders to kids, degrade LGBTQ+ folks — especially trans folks. The transphobic aggressions that Black trans women face, both systemically and personally, are not few or far-between. This is definitely not a problem that is unique to just the Black community but happens to people within all racial groups. This opens up the larger issue of highlighting the intersections of problems within communities. We desperately need the privileged (yes, cisgender heterosexual men and women of color, you do have privilege) to lift up those who are more marginalized and silenced. We need to pay attention to all issues pertaining to gaining power by centering those within the community who have the least power. That is why seeing an example of Black heterosexual, cisgender folks fully accepting and loving their Black trans family member is so beautiful to me. They are setting an example for families to listen to one another. To take the time to educate themselves. To have an open mind. They are proudly sharing their journey of growing as a family and loving each other unconditionally through this process. As a community as a whole, I believe Black folks need to look at the ways in which we can do better at supporting the marginalized people within our already marginalized community. We have to love one another in celebration of our differences. Black life can’t matter until ALL Black lives matter, including Black trans girls. You are not free until we’re ALL free.

FRED C.ADAMS

Ta-You Wu Collegiate Professor of Physics and Professor of Astronomy

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Opinion

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SUNGMIN CHO | COLUMN

Stamps should stop babysitting college students

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FROM THE DAILY

Vote Sanders on March 10

he 2020 presidential election is a momentous event that will shape the political landscape of the United States for the coming years. This election has major implications for nearly every aspect of American politics and will drastically affect the U.S.’s approach to countless issues, ranging from climate policy to immigration. In the wake of the 2016 election, many view 2020 as a referendum on President Donald Trump and his vision of the U.S. The aily says: a ig Mich n D

V OT E B E R NI E h 10

on Marc

As both an editorial board and as Americans, we understand the importance of repudiating Trump’s dangerous and divisive rhetoric and promoting our true American strengths, tolerance and diversity. The endorsement process was not easy, as many strong candidates would make excellent presidents and would bring different approaches to the position. However, through a process of extensive deliberation and consideration, the Editorial Board has come to a consensus. The Michigan Daily Editorial Board is proud to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for the strength of his policies on universal health care, climate change and education, specifically free college and the national forgiveness of student debt. As an editorial board composed of entirely college students, we understand our ability and responsibility to provide the college perspective on issues of consequence to our country, making our endorsement of Sanders for the 2020 Democratic nomination relevant and crucial. Additionally, this perspective enhances the impact of Sanders’s policies on education, which are best known for proposing a guaranteed federal provision of tuition, as well as debt-free public colleges, universities, HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), minority-serving institutions and trade schools. As students, we find ourselves faceto-face with the extremely high costs of attending university, and we applaud Sanders’s commitment to making higher education in all its forms more accessible for all Americans, while also assisting those who are out of school and suffering from thousands of dollars in student debt. The main argument against these policies is the financial burden placed on taxpayers to enact the plans, and while Sanders has been transparent about the raise in taxes associated with his policies, the slight increase will make American education more

accessible and practical, supporting and enhancing future generations of professionals. We would be remiss to endorse Sanders without voicing support for his signature policy issue: universal single-payer health care. Ever since he first began campaigning for the presidency in 2016, Sanders has focused on the injustices of the U.S.’s highly inequitable health care system. As a solution, Sanders has proposed a single-payer national insurance program which includes zero networks, premiums, deductibles or copays. This health care plan, which would eliminate predatory, profit-driven health insurance companies, is at the core of Sanders’s philosophy of working for the common people and fighting to protect them from wealthy interest groups. However, health care isn’t important to just Sanders: The public consistently rates health care costs as one of their biggest concerns and his proposal has resonated with many Americans, something that has contributed to Sanders’s success in the 2020 primaries. In 2016, the U.S. spent $9,892 per capita on health care, by far the largest amount of any country in the world and double the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average. Meanwhile, a survey conducted in January of this year revealed that two-thirds of Americans believe lowering health care costs should be a top priority for the government; the only more pressing concern being protecting the country from terrorism. Furthermore, lowering healthcare costs is of particular concern to Democrats, with 80 percent believing it should be one of the government’s top priorities. Additionally, Sanders’s push for universal health care is symbolic of his ideological consistency and his impact on the politics of the Democratic Party, both of which are significant. First, Sanders has consistently advocated for universal health care; he introduced a bill supporting it as far back as 2011. Demonstrated by his continual support of Medicare for All, a key part of Sanders’s political brand is the strength and consistency of his convictions. Throughout his political career, Sanders has continually advocated for progressive policies that help the working class and has never compromised these positions for the sake of electability or popularity, something which is key to his authenticity. On top of that, Sanders’s push for universal health care has transformed the Democratic Party and stands as a tribute to his political clout. Beginning with his 2016 campaign, Sanders has moved the Democratic Party to the left on health care, dramatically reshaping the

conversation. Sanders’s 2016 primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, ran on the platform of maintaining the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with slight enhancement; back then, Sanders’s plan for universal health care was seen as wildly radical. Today, even Sanders’s most moderate primary opponents, such as former Vice Presidnet Joe Biden and Mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg, have proposed health care plans that would vastly expand upon the ACA as much or more than Clinton’s plan in 2016. This is a tribute to Sanders’s influence over health care policy, and more broadly, the political trajectory of the Democratic Party. Sanders’s plan for universal health care is an example of the ambitious, progressive policies the U.S. should look to implement going forward as the nation grapples with inflated health care costs and rising inequality. While other candidates have also put forward good policies, none are as thorough or forwardthinking as Sanders’s, and his ideological consistency provides reassurance that his support for the program is sincere. Finally, something that truly sets Sanders apart from the rest of the Democratic field is his devotion to tackling climate change on a large scale. More so than other candidates, Sanders appears to understand both the catastrophic implications of climate change and the resources that fighting it will require. Sanders’s climate plan, the Green New Deal, is by far the most ambitious of any of the Democratic candidates — it calls for investing $16.3 trillion into sustainability, and was rated the best in the field by both Greenpeace and Data for Progress, two prominent progressive activist groups. Sanders’s plan calls for the creation of 20 million jobs to help solve the climate crisis and offers substantive, practical answers to our crisis while using climate justice as a key point. As college students, Sanders’s devotion to fighting climate change is particularly important to us. Young people are the ones who will be most impacted by climate change, and as a result, it is imperative we begin taking drastic steps to protect our futures. While we acknowledge that Sanders’s Green New Deal is not going to be implemented in its current form, we believe his ambitions meet the severity of the climate crisis and have the potential to reshape our political climate. The 2020 presidential election is bound to be the most consequential in recent memory. Whoever is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021, will need to take deliberate and decisive action to address the challenges that face this nation, both foreign and domestic. The Michigan Daily Editorial Board finds hope in the candidacy of Sanders; his commitments to universal health care, accessible higher education for all and climate justice set him apart from the rest of the Democratic field. While we urge the University of Michigan community to vote for Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary, we recognize that democracy is strongest when everyone’s voices are heard. We encourage all readers to vote on March 10.

he instant I became eligible my first year, right after the Winter 2019 semester, I transferred from the Stamps School of Art & Design to the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. If someone asks why I decided to quit art, I would say it was because of the way the Art & Design School treats its students. Some students refer to the Art & Design School as a high school, mainly due to the excessive requirements and the absence of student input, neither of which belong in college education. Compared to other colleges at the University of Michigan, the Art & Design School sets an exorbitant amount of requirements. At orientation, new first-year students are given lists of courses with designated sections highlighted. They are taken to a computing site the same day and required to register for class sections exactly as shown on the highlighted lists. Those are “foundation courses” required of every firstyear student and comprise 10 and 13 credit hours for the first two semesters, respectively. The foundation courses are different from regular requirements as in other colleges; withdrawing from courses like the assigned foundations on a set time frame could result in academic probation, which might prevent students from transferring to other colleges in the university. The biggest problem here is that students have no say in selecting times and instructors in their first semester. The schedules, which the school claim to be random, are distributed unfairly. Some end up with 8:30 a.m. classes Monday through Thursday, while others have no morning class at all, but rather night classes that end around 8 p.m. However, class scheduling is just a nuisance compared to more serious issues. When it comes to instructors, grades become an issue. For any one course, grade distribution can differ starkly by section and instructor. Unlike most LSA lectures, where multiple

IRISA LICO | OP-ED

graduate student instructors gather with professors and set standardized grading scales, most Art & Design School courses are run completely by section instructors with unchecked discretion in grading. Every instructor has a different level of expectations and a different grading policy, like attendance policies that drop 1/3 of a letter grade for every absence, with no exception for excused absences or doctor’s notes. This was the case in my Fall 2018 section of Studio: 2D. Students rarely get to change their schedules once the lists are assigned, which leads to the next problem.

Many of the Art & Design students feel they are treated as subjects. I remember my first year of college as an endless stream of “no.”Every time I visited my advisor or one of the deans, I was never allowed to swap sections, drop foundation courses or even take more electives. Though all of these requests are usually not a problem in other University colleges, the Art & Design School is unnecessarily strict and rigid. While personally fighting the school to make these decisions possible, I found the school’s structure represented by the assistant dean for undergraduate programs to be somewhat authoritative. On Nov. 7, 2018, as I presented my concern of students not being able to choose their sections, resulting in unfair grading, she responded verbatim, “That’s the way it works.” She then insisted that one who disagrees with the school’s policy would better “withdraw out of U of M.” This is related to why many of the Art & Design students feel they are treated as subjects who do as told with little to no input.

What differentiates a college from a high school is student agency. College students are adults with the full capacity to design their own paths academically and personally. Setting almost everything in a student’s schedule is far from what a university would normally do to students. This is especially upsetting given the Art & Design School is an art school, aiming to educate not only scholars but artists. It is rather ridiculous to expect anyone to be creative or artistic under such a rigid and authoritative system. The most common answer given in return to the above complaints is that foundations are just for the first year, and students can be patient until they get to upperdivision. Unfortunately, however, not all students are “patient” enough to endure all of the above. In fact, the Art & Design School loses a significant number of students, and artists, just a year after welcoming them. According to the Office of the Registrar, 21 out of 154 Class of 2022 students left the Art & Design School after the first year, and the number is 27 out of 158 for the Class of 2021. This data gauges postfirst-year drop-outs only in order to exclude other drop-out factors such as the sophomore review. It is striking that 14 and 17 percent, approximately a sixth of students each year, left the Art & Design School after finishing their first year. They generally choose to transfer to other colleges in the university or other institutions, or simply “withdraw out of U of M,” adhering to the assistant dean’s suggestion. Due to University policy, right after the first year is the earliest time students looking to leave the Art & Design School but remain at U-M can transfer cross-campus. Therefore, not all students are willing to wait. In order to stop losing passionate young artists, it’s time to stop babysitting college students. Sungmin Cho can be reached at csungmin@umich.edu.

The case for prison reform

he United States is a world leader — in its incarceration rates. The U.S. represents 4 percent of the world population but holds 22 percent of the world’s prisoners, a clear indicator of how problematic the U.S.’s mass incarceration crisis is. This statistic raises all kinds of questions. Are Americans inherently more aggressive than other nationalities? If not, why has the U.S. had one of the world’s highest incarceration rates for decades? In general, the American system is set up to create career criminals. The economic disparity in the U.S. is far greater than in most Western countries. David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, explains in his book “No Equal Justice” how the U.S. in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous system filled with constitutional protections for defendants; however, this system is largely reserved for the wealthy alone. The experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from the idealized model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such groups in the system. Additionally, when and if someone is released from prison, it is extremely hard for them to get a job. This can result in the individual committing more crimes and getting a harsher sentence the second time around. This eventually leads to a lot less social and economic mobility, so the poor continue to stay poor. Broadly speaking, the rich are not affected by the prison system to the same extent that minorities and the poor are, and they even have the opportunity to invest in prisons and make a profit.

This reality goes handin-hand with the protest school of thought that argues human rights law is hijacked by the elite and there will always be further injustice. Unfortunately, it is the rich and powerful who dictate the direction of laws, including those for prison reform. This is a problem because if something doesn’t affect a specific group much, it does not give it much thought.

The American system is set up to create career criminals. While the prison system is unjust, it also entraps a disproportionately high rate of Black men. African Americans make up 33 percent of the correctional population, yet 12 percent of the general population. There is clearly a system of legal discrimination and segregation in this country that has occurred due to the war on drugs and mass incarceration. White people are not better behaviorally than Black people. For example, African Americans and white people use drugs at similar rates. In the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 17 million whites and four million African Americans reported having used an illicit drug within the last month. However, the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost six times that of whites. One of every three African American men could expect to go to prison in his lifetime, compared to one of every seventeen white men.

According to The Sentencing Project, white Americans overestimate the proportion of crime committed by African Americans, while failing to realize “that their communities are disproportionately victims of crime and discount the prevalence of bias in the criminal justice system.” This relates back to the protest school of thought because it argues that once someone has a certain human right, they enjoy it for themselves, but no longer care whether or not others have that same right. White individuals should fight for African American human rights until the Black community can enjoy the same rights as the white community. There are, as The Sentencing Project notes, “disproportionate levels of police contact with African Americans” compared to other races. Police resources are purposely put toward lowincome areas with high minority numbers where they assume crime will be committed. This increases police brutality among the African American population and creates a culture that leads African Americans to be seen as criminals. For this country to truly make meaningful reforms to this atrocious system, there has to be an acknowledgment of the racial and ethnic disparities that are occurring in the prison system and the public must focus its attention on how to reduce these disparities. It is the U.S.’s responsibility to develop training to alleviate the influence of implicit racial bias at every level of the criminal justice system: among police officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, jury members and parole boards. Irisa Lico is a sophomore International Studies major in the College of Literature, Science & the Arts and can be reached at ilico@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Monday, February 24, 2020 — 5A

ANN ARBOR MARATHON PREVIEW SERIES

BOOK REVIEW

From Ancient Greece to ‘Lady Bird,’ running is art EMMA CHANG Daily Arts Writer

When someone talks about “the arts,” the first thing that comes to mind is usually some form of self-expression, like painting or photography. Very rarely do we talk about art in the same breath as running, but why not? We’re exploring this question with “Daily Arts Runs a Marathon” and opening with an exploration of what “running” is. Fortunately, The Ann Arbor Marathon happens at the end of March and offers a relay that four writers will be running, in the hopes of figuring out their (maybe artistic) relationship with running. In the meantime, we’re training, we’re writing and we’re eating our bananas. What exactly is running anyway? We all have our own preconceived notions — some people dread it, others embrace it and some only tolerate it. As one of the more accessible sports out there, it seems absurd that more people aren’t always just on a run. More often than not, though, discussing my running habits with others often results in dejected “I could never do that” statements or a vehement “God, I hate running.” And maybe these people have a point — running can be pretty awful, especially if someone does it solely as a means to work out. But, subconsciously, I think we all love running. Maybe not the actual physical act of it, but the general theme is popular throughout art. Take “Lady Bird,” for example. The 2017 film follows Christine, or Lady Bird

(Saoirse Ronan, “Brooklyn”), as she desperately tries to understand her role in her family and in the world as a whole. Though she never actually takes up track, Christine is running throughout the film — from her family, from her real friends and, eventually, from Sacramento. It’s an age-old story that proves just how much people, particularly teenagers, actually do like to run. And while running away is an enticing thought, running to something, or someone, is just as popular of a theme. Romantic comedies and the Valentine’s Day movie industry wouldn’t be the same without it. The endings of these films always feature some sort of sprint through a train station to a character’s true love and, honestly, some would have way happier endings if they just went on a run. Not only would that sprint through the airport be just that much easier, but running is a really nice time to reflect and, most likely, that sprint wouldn’t happen in the first place because the protagonists would have had time to grapple with their emotions. But where’s the drama in that? Running has relationships with art beyond film, though. What a person chooses to listen to while on a run can tell you a lot about them. Curating a good playlist is an art in and of itself, but add in the extra layer of needing to maintain motivation throughout a run and you have a dynamic connection that is just as flexible as your relationship with running. So, what makes a good running playlist? Spotify offers flexible playlists that match the song speed to the pace of your run, an interesting feature and a good place to start if a blank

playlist is intimidating. I enjoy starting with a little Beyoncé, something I can sing along to that’s just distracting enough that I’m able to enjoy the burning in my lungs but ignore the ache in my knees. Greek sculpture is another format in which we see an obsession with running. Though the closest these sculptures ever get to actually depicting someone running is a man throwing a disc (“Discobulus”), it’s more a fixation on the human form that connects these two mediums. Greek sculpture is notorious for its detailed depictions of the human body — from the soft curves of Nike’s thighs to David’s hardened jawline, the ancient Greeks did not shy away from trying to understand the human form. Similarly, running forces us to become more familiar with our bodies than we already are; we come to understand how a fast mile might affect our knees and what a strong stride looks like once we’re in a groove. Running isn’t about your pace, much like Greek sculpture isn’t about the marble. It’s about how we take these starting materials and turn them into something beautiful. So, is it even possible to really, truly, unironically like to run? Obviously yes, otherwise there wouldn’t be such a huge market for the sport. But when you get down to it, running is a tool we can use to connect with ourselves and the world around us. And if that’s too much of a clichéd explanation of what running can mean for people, then consider this: Running is an art. Whether we’re looking at the sport itself or its presence in film and music, it’s impossible to avoid it. And, honestly, why would you want to?

ALBUM REVIEW

UMG, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING

Curry and Beats unlock full potential on new EP DYLAN YONO Daily Arts Writer

Sometimes, when you pair up a producer and a rapper who each have their own signature sound, you can immediately imagine what their collaboration might sound like. If I said Metro Boomin and Lil Wayne were dropping a single, anybody familiar with both artists could already hear the hazy, southern rap banger forming in their head. But an EP with two of the most versatile artists in the rap game — Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats? That’s a different beast. That’s unpredictable. That could mean anything. On UNLOCKED, it meant an offthe-wall, Madvillain-meets-WuTang-type, vintage-veneered rap album that paves the path for hip hop of the new decade. For Kenny Beats, the producer whose motto is “Don’t overthink shit,” UNLOCKED feels meticulously pored over, highly polished, pruned, tweaked and trimmed. If you take Kenny’s philosophy to mean trusting in simplicity, then UNLOCKED would be Kenny throwing that philosophy in the

trash. There’s a clear complexity to the numerous interweaved sounds and samples, so smoothly integrated that I kept catching more I didn’t hear on the fourth, fifth and sixth listen. But if you look at Kenny’s motto differently, I can see it: Other producers might feel nervous about overproducing the project. Kenny Beats does not overthink it. He puts his

UNLOCKED Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats PH Recordings & Loma Vista Recordings

footprint in between every line from Denzel Curry. Despite that density, every beat on the eighttrack EP is clean. The comparison to MF DOOM and Madlib’s masterpiece Madvillainy is an easy one to make when you hear all the vintage samples layered throughout the EP, but the inspiration is truly evident in

Denzel Curry’s contributions. Curry plays with listener expectations in his rhyme schemes all over the EP. It’s a move straight out of MF DOOM’s playbook. On “So.Incredible. pkg,” Curry raps, “Like, who brings the composition to the competition? / There’s gonna be some consequences when I — (Look out).” The way he drops the line before finishing the rhyme recalls DOOM’s ingenious line on “Great Day” from Madvillainy: “Spit so many verses sometimes my jaw twitches / One thing this party could use is more … ahem / Booze.” In that sense, Curry’s bars take inspiration from his forefathers, including the clever intricacy of MF DOOM and the razor-sharp edge of Wu-Tang. Even the scream-along chorus on “DIET_” feels characteristic of DMX. Still, the brand of aggression he brings to each bar makes his raps his own. “You act so hard, you should thank the Academy” is so straightforward and gutting that if I didn’t know better, I would guess it came from a Method Man track.

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39 Unit of force 41 “Picnic” dramatist 42 Prepare (for) 43 __ extra cost 48 Tense NBA periods 50 Taylor of “Mystic Pizza” 51 Largest living antelopes 52 Muslim religion 53 Hardly worldly

54 They’re forbidden 55 Unexpected win 56 “Today” weather anchor 60 Crock-Pot dinner 61 Hogwarts librarian __ Pince 62 Screwball 64 Prefix with card or count 66 Land in l’eau 67 Future therapist’s maj.

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February 24, 2020 | michigandaily.com

DANIEL DASH Daily Sports Writer WEST LAFAYETTE — The Michigan men’s basketball team has a roster that knows how to win. That is, anywhere but West Lafayette. Even under the guidance of senior captains Zavier Simpson and Jon Teske — who have claimed a pair of Big Ten Tournament titles and made a trip to the Final Four — the Wolverines entered this season without a road win against Purdue since 2014. But on Saturday, Michigan changed that. Spurred by junior forward Isaiah Livers’ return from an ankle injury, the Wolverines topped the Boilermakers (14-14, 7-10), 71-63, securing their fifthstraight win. For Michigan (18-9 overall, 9-7 Big Ten), it’s more evidence of a team peaking at the right time. The trend has become synonymous with the program. Over the last four years, the

Wolverines’ combined February record is 22-6. Saturday’s win came inside a packed house at Mackey Arena, where the Boilermakers had previously run Virginia, Michigan State and Iowa off the court. Michigan’s current five-game winning streak is its longest since opening the season with seven consecutive victories — a stretch highlighted by a Battle 4 Atlantis championship victory over now-No. 2 Gonzaga. “In the Bahamas, we looked like an offensive team,” associate head coach Phil Martelli said. “Now, I think we look like a winning team.” If anything, Saturday serves as a measuring stick. Against a team trying to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes off life support, Michigan dominated much of the first half. Less than two months after surrendering 36 points to Purdue center Trevion Williams, the Wolverines forced him into an inefficient 8-of-21 shooting performance.

On the other end, it didn’t take long for Michigan to overcome its 3-of-14 start from beyond the arc. A trio of three consecutive 3-pointers — one from Teske and two from freshman wing Franz Wagner — helped inflate the Wolverines’ lead from six to 13 in a three-minute span. Purdue coach Matt Painter called a timeout to curb the 3-point barrage, but once the Boilermakers began running shooters off the arc, Michigan made a dent in the paint. Wagner beat his defender backdoor for an easy dunk and, less than a minute later, Teske put an exclamation point on the first half with a two-handed flush of his own, giving the Wolverines a 15-point lead at the break. The second half followed a similar script, with Michigan shutting the door on any comeback bid before it could become a legitimate threat. Wagner led the way with a 5-for-6 second-half shooting performance en route to a career-high 22 points — halting a cold

spell that saw him shoot just 35 percent over the last six games. “My shot was falling, finally,” Wagner said. “I’m working hard in practice. I’m taking shots I’m comfortable taking (and) taking them with confidence. That’s what the coaching staff wants from us. I think it’s important to keep doing that even when the percentages aren’t where you want them to be.” Added Martelli: “Other than strength, I don’t know what isn’t a perfect basketball player about him. … If he was a kid that played (high school basketball) in Michigan last year, he would’ve been a McDonald’s All-American. … He’s one of the best freshmen in America.” Only one month ago, Michigan was 0-5 in true road environments, wondering if a trip to Lincoln might doom its season in January. It has since won all four of its games away from Ann Arbor, finding different ways to get it

done almost every time. On Wednesday, the Wolverines handed Rutgers its first home loss of the season. First-year coach Juwan Howard attributed it to his team’s “grit,” adding that it “comes from within your heart and within your mindset.” Four days later, his group convincingly beat a Purdue team that was previously 10-3 on its own floor. And now, with the calendar less than a week away from flipping to March, Michigan is in full stride. “The first statement to them in July was that under this system, they were going to learn to share the game,” Martelli said. “And that’s what we do — we share the game. … This team now has complete trust in the way they’re being taught, the way they’re being asked to play and they trust each other.”

INSIDE:

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN: HERE COMES FRANZ - MAX MARCOVITCH WOMEN’S HOOPS SLAYS SPARTANS - BRENDAN ROOSE AND KENT SCHWARTZ HOCKEY FALLS TO NOTRE DAME - ROHAN KUMAR AND TIEN LE

EMMA MATI / DAILY | DESIGN BY JACK SILBERMAN

SportsMonday

2B — February 24, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Here comes Franz Wagner

n Feb. 3rd, Franz Wagner came out for his media availability and settled near the back right corner of the Crisler Center media room. Michigan was coming off a win at Madison Square GarMAX den. Wagner MARCOVITCH had just been named Big Ten Freshman of the Week. You never know how those scrums will go; which ones will descend to meaningless platitudes and which ones will lend some insight into a person. That day you could tell Wagner was just starting to figure it all out. How to play college basketball. How to be a college student. How to interact with the media. He opened up about some of the subtle differences between the Euro game and Big Ten basketball, how he’s evolved as a player and some of the challenges he’d faced. “I think I’m starting — not starting,” Wagner said then, interrupting his sentence. “You can see I’m more comfortable as the season continues to go on.” A year ago, Wagner was a 17-year-old playing professional basketball in a country over 4,000 miles away. Then, right before making a life-altering decision, the coach he’d communicated with for years picked up and left town. Within two months, the new coach secured his commitment anyway, undoubtedly with some help from big brother. Then, right before a freshman season that could’ve vaulted him to the NBA, Wagner, bearing a reputation as a deadeye shooter, broke his shooting wrist. His return came against Iowa State in the Bahamas. Then came North Carolina. Then Gonzaga. Then at Louisville. Then two Big Ten games. Then Oregon. He shot

EMMA MATI/Daily

Freshman wing Franz Wagner has averaged 13.8 points over his last four games, helping lead Michigan to a five-game win streak after its NCAA Tournament hopes were briefly in jeopardy last month.

just 41 percent from the field — for a team that, fairly or otherwise, needed him to be more than he was. Since, Wagner has become an irreplaceable piece for this team, while the absent — though obvious — upside bubbles just below the surface. Michigan has played well, then not-so-well and now is rounding into form once again. All the while, the best version of this Michigan team — one with the talent to be the best in the conference — always required the best version of Wagner. His impending ascension always offered the Wolverines a level they could not otherwise unlock. Well, we might be getting set to find out what that looks like.

Saturday against Purdue, Wagner scored a career-high 22 points in a 71-63 win over the Boilermakers. He’s shot 52 percent from the field and 39 percent from 3-point range on 10.5 field goal attempts per game over the last four games, averaging 13.8 points. His length and defensive acuity have already proven irreplaceable for a team with scant wing depth. If his shooting is here to stay, we’re talking about one of the two most valuable guys on the team. A true two-way, all-Big Ten-level wing. “Heard it earlier, for a freshman, he’s basically considered a five-star,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said after Saturday’s win over Purdue. “But he’s from Europe. From a guy who com-

petes, played in big games, played professionally over in Europe. Not afraid of the moment, but also skilled.” One of the adjustments Wagner said he needed to make in the transition from Germany to the Big Ten was mental. He’d come in often deferential to his teammates, used to the team-style European game. He took fewer than 10 shots in eight of his first 10 games. Slowly, he started to look for his; that process becoming less mental and more instinctual. “Being aggressive doesn’t mean you take the next shot, but maybe looking to score, looking for your teammates on the next play, trying to do something with the ball,” he said. “That’s something that,

in Europe, you play more with a team.” In a week it will be March. In two weeks, Michigan’s regular season will be over. In three weeks, it will know its NCAA Tournament destination. Wagner is the biggest variable dictating two divergent paths for this team: one that plateaus and ultimately lacks the offensive potency to be a real contender or one that threatens for the conference tournament title, nabs a high seed and becomes a red-hot, trendy Final Four pick. If the latter comes to fruition, Wagner will become a national name. The charismatic, energetic German freshman — who, it should be noted, will start appealing to NBA teams sooner than

later. The first recruit who put faith in the Juwan Howard era. The stories practically write themselves. And, oh yeah, did you know he has a brother? As the conversation then wound down, I asked Franz, given the fact Moe loved the pomp and circumstance of March more than anyone I’d covered, whether he had that trait, too. “Obviously there’s something different to March Madness and college basketball in March,” he said. “… As the season starts to come to an end, that’s when most players have their fun.” Marcovitch can be reached via email at maxmarco@umich.edu or on Twitter @Max_Marcovitch.

Against Purdue, ‘M’ shows its depth Teske helps lift Wolverines in win CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Writer

WEST LAFAYETTE — Over the course of their latest fivegame winning streak, the Wolverines have showcased their depth. The usual suspects of Zavier Simpson, Isaiah Livers and Eli Brooks have all had their moments — Simpson’s four 3-pointers against Michigan State, Livers’ 17-point outing against Northwestern and Brooks’ three double-digit scoring efforts. When they haven’t though, Michigan’s been able to fall back on the rest of its roster. Whether it was sophomores David DeJulius and Colin Castleton chipping in for a absent Livers last Wednesday against Rutgers, sophomore forward Brandon Johns Jr.’s scoring 14 points in the team’s win against Indiana or senior center Austin Davis registering valuable minutes in relief of starter Jon Teske, the Wolverines’ most recent wins have been a collective effort. Saturday afternoon was no different. Off the back of team-high 22 points from freshman forward Franz Wagner, Michigan pushed its current win streak to five — and seven of the last eight — with a comfortable, 71-63 win over Purdue. “The shot was falling finally,” Wagner said. “I’m working hard in practice. I’m taking shots I’m comfortable taking and I’m taking them with confidence. That’s what the staff wants me to do. I think it’s important to keep doing that no matter of the percentage.” Livers added: “I’m super proud of him. To come in as a freshman and play 30-plus (minutes) — not a lot of experienced guys played that much last year. You don’t even think he’s an underclassman when he plays out there because he plays with so much emotion.” Wagner’s 9-for-13, five-rebound, two-steal performance came with Simpson going scoreless from

the field, Brooks registering just four points in 21 minutes and relatively quiet afternoons from Johns Jr. and Davis. Instead, it was Wagner and Livers who shouldered the scoring burden, with the junior returning to action with 19 points. On any given night is a phrase thrown around too frequently, but it’s certainly applied to the Wolverines recently — any player, on any given night can be the difference offensively. “We have five guys averaging double figures,” Michigan associate head coach Phil Martelli said. “It’s tremendous balance.” According to Martelli, that balanced offensive production took root over the summer as Michigan coach Juwan Howard implemented his scheme. After a difficult January, the Wolverines are finally clicking with the same effectiveness they showed to start the season. “The first statement to them in July was that under this system they were going to learn to share the game,” Martelli said. “That’s what we do. We share the game. When we got in trouble, going back to the slump, the ball was being

dribbled too much and there wasn’t enough trust. This team now has complete trust. “These guys in practice are held accountable. I think that carries over. We can walk out of here tonight and say ‘Hey, that wasn’t Austin.’ Think about that, we have expectations for Austin Davis that yeah, he met it physically but not with buckets and things like that.” Winning by committee is perfectly fine in Howard’s estimation. While he would prefer to see his players produce as consistently as possible, if Simpson leads the way one night and Wagner does another, Howard is indifferent. The win column is the only statistic that matters. “Yes, our guys have the mindset that numbers don’t matter,” Howard said. “The only number that matters is winning. If we score one point more than our opponent, personal stats and all that stuff — that’s for social media likes and stuff like that.” On Saturday, just like the past two weeks, Michigan’s depth was put on full display and it once again yielded that sought-after win.

ABBY SNYDER

Daily Sports Writer

Center Jon Teske’s teammates nicknamed him Big Sleep. It’s a reflection of the seven-foot senior’s quiet demeanor off the court. But recently, he’s been relatively quiet on the court as well. Going into the Michigan men’s basketball team’s game at Purdue on Saturday, Teske averaged just over five points a game over the previous five games, shooting just 28 percent from the field. It’s a significant drop-off for someone who averaged 14 points a game over the first nine games of the season. “I just have to stay confident in my shot,” Teske said last Tuesday when asked about his struggles on offense. “When I get the ball down low, just go up strong. A lot of teams, they game-plan around me. So my job is just to either get a shot up or kick it back out for an open look. But my teammates trust me to make the right decision. I just have to stay confident in my shot. … I’m just playing through it.” But against the Boilermakers, bolstered by the confidence of having scored 18 points in the

EMMA MATI/Daily

Senior center Jon Teske held Purdue’s Trevion Edwards to 18 points Saturday afternoon in Michigan’s 71-63 win.

two teams’ January meeting, Teske finally seemed to find his spark again. He put up 11 points — the most he’s scored in almost a month. He avoided foul trouble (which has been an issue in games at times this season) and notched five rebounds and four assists on the day. And on defense, Teske was part of an effort that held sophomore forward Trevion Williams to 39.7 percent from the field, a far cry from the 36 points he scored previously. “This came from the defensive side of the ball,” associate head coach Phil Martelli said after Saturday’s game. “The tribute goes to (Michigan coach Juwan Howard), and to (assistant coach Saddi Washington), as the defensive coordinator, insisting on shrinking the floor. Insisting. … “I said, when we were in a slump, that if we can start guarding the ball, it’ll go alright. That wasn’t a thing of beauty offensively, obviously, in the second half. We’re maybe not built that way. But the defensive side of the ball? “We could’ve stayed out there another 20 minutes. They just were not going to score enough. And that’s what’s happening to these teams. They’re just not scoring enough.” Teske has been a key to Michigan’s defensive efforts all season. He’s made the most of his size, and has played a big role as a shot-blocker inside. When the Wolverines’ defense is performing well, Teske is usually at the heart of that. His performance is often at the center of the offense, too, whether it be in setting screens for Michigan’s guards or posting up. Teske’s early-season scoring run coincided with the stretch over which Michigan went on an 8-1 tear and skyrocketed to No. 4 in the Associated Press poll. His quieter streak on offense fell mainly over the period that saw Michigan bleeding conference games left and right. Lately, the Wolverines have gotten hot again – something Teske largely has not been a part of, as his slump on offense has continued.

But that may be changing. Saturday’s performance was much closer to the Teske of the early season. With upcoming games against Wisconsin, Ohio State and Maryland — all of whom have strong interiors anchored by even stronger big men — Michigan needs that Teske back, on both sides of the ball. “We have to protect the paint,” Howard said Saturday. “We can’t allow a drive to a dump-off and that ends up being a score in the paint. It’s something we have stressed, that we have to do a better job of protecting the paint. … So it’s important for me to get our guys more organized.” Under Howard’s direction, rim protection has been a major focus for this team throughout the course of the season, and Teske has been a major part of that. Early on, Howard often left Teske alone in the post and relied almost entirely on him to shut down scoring inside. Lately, Teske’s been getting some help in the post from guards, and it’s proven successful. Michigan’s post defense has been much improved lately, no longer a doormat for the various Big Ten big men it faces. But interior offense has been a major factor in Michigan’s success for a lot of the year as well. Much of that, too, is due to Teske. It’s part of what has made the highs so high and the lows so low. March, and the organized chaos that it brings to college basketball, is just six days away. If the Wolverines want to really make a run at it, they’re going to need to be able to win in multiple ways. Perimeter scoring seems just fine. Points in the paint, though, are still something of a question. And as much as senior center Austin Davis and sophomore forward Colin Castleton have been helping, Teske, the senior captain, still plays the most minutes of any of Michigan’s big men. When he’s at his best, he is the team’s anchor. The Wolverines are about to have to navigate their way through the craziness of March. It’s clear that the path of least resistance is the one in which Teske adds another dimension. They just have to hope he shows up.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SportsMonday

February 24, 2020 — 3B

Sweeping State Michigan beats Michigan State, 65-57, in East Lansing to secure season sweep of Spartans BRENDAN ROOSE Daily Sports Writer

EAST LANSING — Three minutes and 32 seconds remained when junior forward Hailey Brown had just committed an offensive foul — her fifth, ending her night. A minute passed, and senior guard Akienreh Johnson committed her fifth. She shook her head as she walked off, knowing she’d have to watch her teammates try to hold onto a five-point lead that had once been as high as 18. The Breslin Center pulsed. On the ensuing inbound, Michigan State guard Tory Ozment lost the ball. On the other end, her fellow guard Taryn McCutcheon fouled Michigan guard Amy Dilk. Dilk made both free throws. In the few minutes of basketball that remained, she made six more, helping the Wolverines escape East Lansing with a 65-57 victory over the Spartans. “(My) mentality going in there is once I made both two, I got the feel for it, I got the confidence, and I wanted them to foul me,” Dilk said. “I wanted to step up and I wanted to make those shots.” Early on, both teams came out sluggish offensively, combining for five missed field goals and three turnovers in a scoreless first three minutes. Naturally, it was sophomore guard Naz Hillmon who ended the drought for Michigan, drawing a foul in the post and sinking one of two free throws. From there, the floodgates opened for Hillmon. Michigan State’s defense had no answer for her, as she continued to dominate in the paint en route to a 17-point first half on 7-for-9 shooting. “There’s not really kids in the country that can play with that kind of motor and that kind

of enthusiasm and that kind of toughness,” Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant said. “I just have always been respectful of what she has been able to do. For us to give her 17 points in the first half, that was just absolutely ridiculous. Unacceptable on our part, on all of our part. We just did a bad job.” Strong play from the Wolverines’ bigs allowed them to extend the lead in the second quarter. After Brown committed her second foul and checked out with seven minutes remaining, freshman center Izabel Varejão picked up two offensive rebounds and five points, helping to extend Michigan’s lead to 15 at halftime. But in the third quarter, the Wolverines’ offense stagnated. While bad passes, travels and offensive fouls led to only one Michigan field goal the entire third quarter, Michigan State found its own rhythm on the other end, largely due to the Wolverines’ 10 third-quarter fouls. Though the Spartans shot just 5-for-9 from the free throw line in the third quarter, Brown, Varejão and Johnson all had to sit with foul trouble for an extended period. This opened up the floor for Michigan State’s scorers and extended Michigan’s offensive woes into the fourth, where the Wolverines missed every field goal attempt in the first three minutes. The Spartans took full advantage, gaining the lead on a layup from guard Nia Clouden. But after that make, Michigan finally woke up. About a minute later, Hillmon converted a three-point play — the Wolverines’ first real offense in the second half. From there, they locked down on the defensive end, allowing just two field goals the rest of the game and providing the much-needed spark to sustain their lead. “That run there was something that we weren’t

looking forward to,” Hillmon said. “But I think it was our defense that really fueled us and we wanted to say just, ‘Stop after stop. Let’s get a stop and then we can figure out our offense.’ ” For a team still fighting for an NCAA Tournament bid, any win — especially on the road in the Big Ten — is worth celebrating. But that narrative took a backseat on Sunday, where Michigan completed its first season sweep of Michigan State since 2015. “Obviously, being from the East coast and the Big Eas,t I always followed Michigan State because they had such rich tradition and had been such a great program,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “I knew that that was going to be a measuring stick when I first got to Michigan and that’s kind of been my goal, our team’s goal, since I’ve been here. “... This is tremendous for our university, and it’s tremendous for our players.”

KENT SCHWARTZ Daily Sports Writer

EAST LANSING — Amy Dilk, while sinking another free throw, looked over to the bench and smirked. It was her game, her court, her win. The sophomore guard scored nine of the last 10 points for the Michigan women’s basketball team, all from the charity stripe, on her way to lead the Wolverines to a 65-57 victory over Michigan State. “I’ve been struggling from the line this year in the Big Ten conference,” Dilk said. “They probably wanted to foul me, and at that point, I wanted them to foul me. So seeing the ball go in twice about two or three times in a row as a player just feels good, knowing that you’ve kind of gotten over that slump.” The beginning of the game told a much different story, though. Just two minutes in,

Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico stood, speechless — her mouth agape, arms to the side. She had just spoken with Dilk to try and jumpstart her after a dismal first three minutes that saw two turnovers and no points. And there, directly in front of Barnes Arico, Dilk turned the ball over in the backcourt, giving the Spartans two easy points. Barnes Arico, normally animated on the sideline, barely moved as she watched the guard move up the court a second time. The rest of the quarter crept by, with neither team finding its footing offensively, and every time a Michigan player went to the foul line, Barnes Arico waved Dilk and freshman guard Maddie Nolan over. “I think it’s just a little bit of jitters, and once we got that first bucket in, it was fine,” Dilk said. “(Barnes Arico) was just talking to me about what

MILES MACKLIN/Daily

Sophomore guard Amy Dilk had 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists in Michigan’s win Sunday evening.

she sees out there to relate to my team, whether that’s (sophomore forward Naz Hillmon) slipping. The biggest thing was the two-man game. They couldn’t guard it in the first half, and that’s what we kept going back to.” In the second quarter, Dilk finally dissected the defense, and along with Hillmon, spurred on the Wolverine offense to an explosive second quarter. Finishing the first half, Dilk was halfway to a triple-double — tallying five points, five rebounds and five assists. But when the second half started, the offensive troubles returned and none of the Michigan players managed to find success, with Dilk turning the ball over four times and getting into foul trouble. Even when she got to the line, she would always go 1-for-2, a perpetual 50-percent shooter. So as the time wound down, the Spartans focused their efforts on fouling Dilk. “That’s a lot of growth, in a period of three quarters to the fourth quarter,” Hillmon said. “I think she knew what she needed to do. She really locked in on that. Her being our primary ballhandler, she knew that she had to get us into something. … She knew it was crunch time, and she flipped the switch.” Outside of Dilk’s fourthquarter numbers, Michigan shot an abysmal 55 percent from the free throw line. Dilk — all the momentum on Michigan State’s side, the crowd smelling a collapse, the Wolverines fearing one — shot 9-for-10. Despite earlier struggles, despite a stop-and-go game with 54 fouls, despite teammates fouling out, it was Amy Dilk’s game. In the last five minutes, Dilk had ice in her veins.

‘M’ suffers first losses of season Wolverines drop series to UConn, 2-1 ABBIE TELGENHOF Daily Sports Writer

Michigan softball’s perfect record is gone. Offensive inconsistency plagued the Wolverines all weekend at the Gamecock Invitational resulting in Michigan dropping three of four games. In the first game of the series, against Liberty, the Wolverines’ snuck by with a 1-0 win. Sophomore right-hander Alex Storako and junior left-hander Meghan Beaubien tag-teamed it for the win. Storako had 13 strikeouts against the Flames — her third game of the season with double-digit strikeouts. Beaubien came in to close in the top of the sixth inning, and finished the game with the final four outs. On Saturday, Michigan’s perfect record came to a screeching halt against Iowa State, losing 5-1. On both sides of the plate, the Wolverines couldn’t execute. With just seven team hits equating to only one run, Michigan left eight runners on base. “We’re trying to find something to spark our offense,” Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said. Pitching-wise, the Wolverines also struggled, having to throw all three of their pitchers against the Cyclones. In her first relief opportunity, freshman right-

hander Chandler Dennis finished out the game with one strikeout. Beaubien was credited with the loss. The Wolverines were again unable to capitalize on their offense against South Carolina. Michigan lost, 3-0 — the first time they haven’t scored in a game all season. Multiple lineup shifts occurred throughout the game. Senior infielder Madison Uden and freshman utility player Lauren Esman were given pinch-hitting opportunities, but ultimately, the Wolverines couldn’t overcome their offensive struggles. There were just two hits, but with five runners left on base, Michigan relinquished many opportunities to score. “When the offense isn’t clicking, it’s pretty difficult to know who to put where,” Hutchins said. “And eventually, and we saw this last year, we will settle in and I look forward to that.” Rounding out the weekend, on Sunday, the Wolverines faced Liberty again. After their 1-0 win, Michigan came out hot against the Flames. Scoring twice in the first inning, the Wolverines started almost the same way as Friday’s game against Liberty. The Wolverines looked like they came ready to play. In the second inning, sophomore catcher Hannah

Carson homered to right-center. With a 5-1 score, it seemed like Michigan would end the weekend with a win. But, that reality slipped away. In a relief effort, Storako entered the game in the middle of the bottom of the sixth. Facing her first batter, Liberty infielder Autumn Bishop hit a home run, and with two runners on base, the Wolverines’ four-run lead was cut to 5-4. The wheels finally came off in the last inning when a single to right tied the game for the Flames. The final nail in the coffin came in the bottom of the seventh, when Bishop hit a walk-off homer to end the game, 6-5. Going into the weekend Michigan was 9-0, and No. 8 in the country. Coming out of the weekend the Wolverines are 10-3, with their future ranking up in the air after losses to unranked Liberty and Iowa State, and then-No. 22 South Carolina. Still, Michigan is unconcerned. “We have a lot of trust in each other,” Jimenez said. “We have full faith that we can bounce back from this and it’s only a matter of one-pitch softball. So just taking the game one pitch at a time and we come back as a team together and we focus on what we have to get done and I feel that we’re gonna get that done.”

ALEC COHEN/Daily

The Michigan softball team lost three of four games over the weekend to drop its record to 10-3 on the season.

AIDAN WOUTAS Daily Sports Writer

It was a weekend of a few highs and many lows for the Michigan baseball team. There was disappointment on Friday in Port St. Lucie, Fla., as the Wolverines’ (4-3) early 6-0 lead over UConn (3-3) crumbled away over the last four innings into an 8-7 loss. There was jubilation on Saturday, when freshman third baseman Ted Burton hit his first career home run to drive in three. The shot brought Michigan’s lead to 13-2 and helped facilitate an explosive 14-2 win. On Sunday, frustration returned, as the Wolverines fell behind early and never recovered, falling, 9-2, to the Huskies. Michigan’s mindset going into its weekend series was already affected by its 7-1 loss to UConn last week during the MLB4 Collegiate Tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz. After this weekend, it’s clear the Huskies have been effective in tempering the Wolverines’ momentum after three high-caliber wins against Vanderbilt, Cal Poly and Arizona State. Michigan came fast out of the gate in Friday’s game with five runs in the first inning, sending UConn’s starter Will Lucas out of the game early. Strangely enough, the five runs came off only one hit due to a string of walks, a sac fly and a UConn error. After junior Jordan Nwogu’s first home run of the season brought Michigan’s lead to 6-2 in the second inning, it seemed like the Wolverines would find redemption after last Sunday’s loss. But the Huskies’ four runs in the top of the sixth –– two off junior right-hander Jeff Criswell and two off freshman right-hander Cameron Weston –– began to turn the tide. “Normally when you knock a starter out after two-thirds of an inning and put a five-spot up in the first inning, that’s a pretty good recipe for winning the game,” Michigan coach Erik Bakich said. “The big four-spot

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach Erik Bakich was disappointed in his team’s 9-2 loss Sunday.

in the sixth inning was when they got all the momentum back … so, they kind of blew it in the first inning, and we blew it in the sixth.” Friday’s result was still of relatively little concern for Bakich. “I think that was a game that would’ve continued to have multiple lead changes the way it was going,” he added. “They just happened to be the ones with the one-run lead after the ninth.” Saturday was a different story. A similar 6-2 lead by the end of the second inning held this time around and was compounded by seven-run fourth inning, which included Burton’s inaugural home run, bringing the score to 13-2. Redshirt freshman Steven Hajjar started and secured the win in his five innings of pitching. Freshman left-hander Jacob Denner, meanwhile, attained his first career save after four scoreless innings, maintaining the Wolverines’ 14-2 lead. “I’m glad we showed what we could do on Day 2,” Denner said. “I was glad because it’s definitely different transitioning from high school. … I’ve been hanging around (redshirt senior) Ben Keizer, Jeff Criswell and (redshirt sophomore) Isaiah Page a lot, and they’ve done a great job in getting me ready for these moments.” Sunday’s rubber match looked more like Michigan’s 7-1 loss back in Scottsdale, though. After a slow start of three scoreless innings for both teams, UConn rallied at two outs in the fifth

inning to extend its 2-0 lead into an insurmountable 8-0 edge. Save for one run in the bottom of the sixth, the Wolverines stalled until the ninth inning which started off with a promising four at-bats. Sophomore infielder Cam Hart managed to reach home off a single from Nwogu. With the bases loaded and still no outs, there was a glimmer of hope that the Huskies’ lead could shrink. But three strikeouts in a row quickly extinguished that chance to end the game and the Wolverines’ roller coaster weekend. “The way we competed in those first four at-bats in the ninth –– if we had done it every at-bat of the weekend, we’d have had a different result,” Bakich said. Despite their offensive dominance on Saturday, the team’s woes ultimately seemed to lie with an inability to respond with runs. In both the first and third games, one or two breakout innings from UConn thwarted Michigan’s offensive momentum. “I’m disappointed that our at-bats weren’t as competitive as they could’ve been in the first and third game,” Bakich said. “We need to do a better job hitting good pitches with less than two strikes and battling with two strikes to string quality at-bats together. … The lack of success this weekend is us pointing the thumb at some of our lack of execution, and that’s really it. “We’ve got a clear plan for the week ahead of what we need to get better at.”

SportsMonday

4B — February 24, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

OUT OF LUCK

NOTRE DAME SNAPS MICHIGAN’S WIN STREAK, SWEEPING WOLVERINES AT YOST IN CRUSHING BLOW TO AT-LARGE NCAA TOURNAMENT HOPES

ALEC COHEN / Daily

Michigan falls, 3-0, on Senior Day The assumption of a defensive game ROHAN KUMAR Daily Sports Writer

Two-and-a-half periods of grinding hockey were over, and yet the game remained scoreless. But then Notre Dame defenseman Spencer Stastney skated across the slot and fired a shot from the left side at sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann. The puck ricocheted off a post and play continued. Sophomore forward Nolan Moyle immediately got a breakaway the other way, but couldn’t convert. Play stopped to review the events that had unfolded. The key question — what post did Stastney’s shot hit? Video replay soon made it clear that the puck had hit the post all the way at the back of the net. And just like that, the Michigan hockey team (15-14-3 overall, 10-10-2-1 Big Ten) trailed by one against Notre Dame (14-12-6, 9-8-5-3) on Saturday’s Senior Day at Yost Ice Arena. To Michigan coach Mel Pearson and the rest of the guys on the bench, it was clear the shot went in when they saw it live. For sophomore forward Garrett Van Wyhe, who was on the ice at the time, it was less certain. “To be honest, I didn’t think (the puck went in),” Van Wyhe said of his initial thoughts. “But I was right there and I had to turn around a little bit, so I wasn’t sure. I just played to the whistle.” That goal seemed to take some energy out of the Wolverines. A couple minutes later, forward Cam Morrison attacked Mann from the left side and snuck the puck by him to put the game away for good. Michigan tried to fight back by pulling Mann in the final minutes, but the efforts fell short. The Fighting Irish notched an emptynet goal, and thus the Wolverines fell, 3-0. The loss marked the second in a row and a change in momentum after what has been a

surging second-half performance. “When you don’t score, you’re not gonna win, and we just couldn’t make enough plays. Give them credit,” Pearson said. “They came and played like a desperate team, like their season was on the line, and that’s how they played.” Within the first 30 seconds of the game, Michigan’s penalty kill unit went into action, as senior defenseman Luke Martin got called for slashing. The Wolverines did a good job clearing the puck and successfully killed the penalty. The unit had a strong night, killing all four penalties. The Fighting Irish had their best chance of the period within the first few minutes. Forward Jake Pivonka corralled a stray puck in the neutral zone and immediately went one-on-one against Mann. The ensuing shot sailed wide left, though. That was one of the few scoring chances for either side in the opening frame. Halfway through the period, Michigan still had yet to register a shot on goal, while Notre Dame had done so just twice. The Wolverines’ first shot on net came from sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg from the high slot, but goaltender Cale Morris handled it with ease. The two sides went back and forth with penalties in the latter part of the opening frame. Defenseman Matt Hellickson cross-checked senior forward Will Lockwood with nine minutes to go. Right after the Fighting Irish killed their penalty, sophomore forward Jimmy Lambert headed to the box for tripping. That penalty, too, was scoreless. And then in the final minutes of the first frame, Michigan went on the power play again. But it was the same story. Right after the first intermission, senior forward Jacob Hayhurst nearly got the Wolverines on the board first. He attacked the crease from the left side and started to pull the

puck across his body. But Morris somehow used his blocker to strip the puck from Hayhurst’s stick and keep the game scoreless. Midway through the second period, Lambert skated off the ice and never returned. It was unclear what happened, but his future this season looks bleak. “He’s probably out for the year,” Pearson said. “We’ll look at — I think he got X-rays. I think it’s broken, so I don’t expect him back the rest of the year. I was just talking a couple weeks ago about how we’re healthy and feeling good, then he goes down. (Freshman forward Eric) Ciccolini had shoulder surgery and it’s hard. It’s tough. But we have to carry on. Nobody’s gonna feel sorry for us.” And then with around eight minutes to go, Lockwood fell to the ground after blocking a shot with his left leg. He was slow to get up and over to the bench. He returned soon after, but couldn’t play as much in crunch time. “It’s tough, my knee I think is just bruised,” Lockwood said. “I kept going out there, trying to put weight on it, but I couldn’t go out there and it’s tough watching from the bench, I’ve been in that position before, and it’s hard, especially when your team’s losing like that, so it’s not too easy.” A scrum broke out near the Wolverines’ net in the second frame. Van Wyhe and forward Mike O’Leary both got tossed in the box for coincidental roughing penalties. That confrontation was emblematic of the game — it was a battle, with both sides searching desperately for a leg up. Eventually, though, Notre Dame found it — stealing Michigan’s spotlight on Senior Day. “We’ll learn from it,” Pearson said. “We’ll go forward. Now we just have to take it game-to-game. Literally. Because we’re getting to that point now where that’s how it’s gonna be.”

TIEN LE

Daily Sports Writer

None of the Michigan hockey players said it. Mel Pearson didn’t either. But they didn’t have to. Even if no one said it aloud, it was easy to see why, in a hardnosed, gritty defensive battle, that the one to come out would be the one to strike first. For all of Saturday’s game, Michigan and Notre Dame had struggled to score. Both teams went two full periods unable to produce a single goal. The scarcity of goals wasn’t the fault of poor offense, but rather exceptional defense. Both sides have stout goaltending. They play the passing lanes. They pack the crease. And they recognized that the highly-coveted first goal would be the deciding factor. “You just don’t want to play from behind,” sophomore forward Garrett Van Wyhe said. “Get that first one and then we can kind of dictate how the rest of the game goes. “If we get that first one, that means that we’re hard on the forecheck and we are playing our systems. If you get that first one, then they’re kind of scrambling and maybe we can get the second one quick. But the first goal is huge.” And the Wolverines failed to obtain it — leading to a 3-0 loss. Going into Saturday, Michigan knew what mindset it needed to have. Just the day before, the Irish had given them another two scoreless periods to start the game. Just the day before, the Irish had broken the ice late to snowball goals in rapid succession, dominating the low-scoring affair. The point was hammered home; the first team to score was the one to win. “When you give up a goal

— whichever team is gonna score, they’re gonna get the momentum,” Michigan coach Mel Pearson said. “That just shifted like that. We just didn’t have enough pushback in the third period. We were tired. We were exhausted both mentally and physically, at that point.” That’s the nature of a scrappy game. Goals give energy; they spark positivity. They give affirmation that all the banging and physical play was worth it. And when the stalemate lasts all game, the suspense of the first goal builds. If it hasn’t come after two hard period’s worth of work, what says it comes at all? But it did come — for Notre Dame. The Irish struck in the middle of the third period after Spencer Stastney held the puck and waited for his shot, curling through the slot. He slung it on net and it rang on the back pipe, quickly bouncing in and out. If you blinked, you would have missed it. In fact, Van Wyhe didn’t even think it went in. But when the play was under review, it became clear to everyone upon the first replay. It was a goal. And the dejection came shortly after. “You just see it. You sag, and then you start thinking about last night’s game,” Pearson said. “We were exhausted. We pushed hard. You need that fire, that spark, and when you go pretty much six periods without scoring — last night was an extra attacker goal. It starts to wear on you both mentally and physically. More mentally.”

The mental wear led to the collapse. After the first goal was scored, Notre Dame’s second followed less than two minutes after. Michigan began to panic, forcing offense and jeopardizing defense in a desperate attempt to tie the game. “(The Irish) just play a certain way,” Pearson said. “They wait for their opportunities and they take advantage of their opportunities.” And at the start of the game, the Wolverines did, too. But after the late goal was scored, their patience was running thin. They jumped on high pucks; they tried to pushed behind the net. They were playing out of their normal defensive system and chasing offense where there was none. “They’re trying to do too much instead of just, ‘Hold on, keep back, wait until we get some better opportunities,” Pearson said. “We just tried to push forward too hard” It was the mental strain of being unable to produce. “I think we just get in our head a little bit,” Van Wyhe said. Added Lockwood: “When we swept them, I think we scored both goals first. If we would have gotten that first one, it could have been a different story both nights.” At that point, it was wishful thinking. If they had gotten that first goal, things could have been different. If they had gotten that first goal, they could have controlled the game. If they had gotten that first goal, they could have won. And those were words they didn’t have to say aloud.

Get that first one and then we can kind of dictate.