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Monday, October 28, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Michigan makes statement in 45-14 beatdown of No. 8 Notre Dame, stomping the Fighting Irish in rain-soaked night.

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Nurses protest lack of parking at new building groundbreaking

Bernie in Detroit Candidate endorsed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

Hospital employees call for adequate vehicle facilities amidst construction EMMA STEIN

Daily Staff Reporter ASHA LEWIS/Daily Senator Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., shares his campaign goals during a rally at Cass Technical High School in Detroit Sunday night.

BEN ROSENFELD Daily Staff Reporter

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont talked about jobs, wages and economic inequality at a rally in Detroit on Sunday. More than 2,500 supporters gathered in the gymnasium of Detroit’s Cass Technical High School for the rally. Sanders was introduced by U.S. House Representative Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, who later endorsed the candidate’s campaign for president. Tlaib joined fellow freshman Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar in endorsing Sanders, as the two endorsed Sanders’ campaign earlier this month.

“We deserve someone who writes the damn bills,” Tlaib said. “We deserve Bernie Sanders.” Sanders entered the gym to chants of his name, hundreds of supporters lining the balcony overlooking the room. In the stands, a row of placards reading “Detroit Loves Bernie” was complemented by a sea of blue “Bernie 2020” signs. Sanders began his address by reflecting on former Rep. John Conyers, the late U.S. Congressman representing much of Western Detroit who passed away Sunday afternoon. Conyers served Michigan’s 1st, 13th and 14th congressional districts from 1965 to 2017, co-founding the Congressional Black Caucus and continually

CAMPUS LIFE

Society for Professional Journalists hosts panel Event discusses nuances of sports reporting, careers through speaker experiences SUNSKRITI PARANJPE For The Daily

The Ann Arbor chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists organized a panel discussion titled “Scoring in Sports Journalism” on Friday, to discuss the nuances of sports reporting. The event began with a keynote speech by Ketra L. Armstrong, an award winning freelance sports-journalist and professor of sport management at the School of Kinesiology. Armstrong emphasized the need for entities like the SPJ, and listed the power of media in framing a narrative, the need for diverse perspectives and the importance of creativity as three things she has learned during her career. “The world needs sports,” she said. “But sports need journalists who have the ability and the willingness to do this job with civility, with dignity and with social responsibility. The sports industry needs journalists who will embrace their social responsibility to make a difference.” Jason Beck, Tigers beat reporter for MLB.com, reflected on the way the nature of his job as a beat reporter has changed.

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advocating for the nation’s transition to a single-payer health care system. He resigned during his 26th term in 2017 following sexual harassment allegations. Sanders said Conyers, the longest serving Black congressman in American history, was an unrelenting fighter for social justice and economic opportunity, someone who inspired Sanders’ own legislative agenda. “Tonight we’re not here just to mourn John, but to celebrate a life of enormous achievement,” Sanders said. “As all of you know, John was a champion for civil rights, he was the man most responsible for having a national holiday for the great Martin Luther King Jr., and

long before it was popular, John Conyers understood that healthcare is a human right.” Sanders spent most of his speech explaining the main goals of his campaign: to combat the political establishment and expand economic opportunity to all of the American people. Sanders said he visited several neighborhoods in Tlaib’s district, in which voters expressed concern over tightening economic conditions for the working class. “Rashida took me around her district here in Detroit, and I met with beautiful young people who are going to schools in which they don’t have adequate textbooks,” Sanders said. See SANDERS, Page 2A

The University of Michigan held a groundbreaking for its new $920-million-dollar hospital on Friday, featuring remarks from University President Mark Schlissel and U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor. Outside the private event, dozens of Michigan nurses stood holding signs and chanting protests such as “U of M you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side,” and “U of M, you’re no good, treat your workers like you should.” The nurses were protesting a lack of sufficient parking options at Michigan Medicine for hospital employees. Earlier this year, over 250 employee parking spaces were converted to patientonly parking spots. This made it increasingly difficult for nurses and other hospital staff to find adequate parking and get to work on time, according to Michigan

Students Demand Action, SAPAC present discussion on domestic violence Congresswoman, researcher and survivor share perspectives on gun use ABBY TAKAS

Daily Staff Reporter

In light of domestic violence awareness month, Students Demand Action and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center hosted an event Friday evening to discuss the intersection of gun violence and domestic violence. LSA senior Taylor King, group co-lead of Students Demand Action, and Public Policy junior Matt Weiner, student volunteer and outreach chair at SAPAC, introduced the issue in regard to Michigan specifically. “Over one third of women in Michigan report experiencing some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime; in 2017 alone, there were over 88,000 domestic violence incidents, including over 12,000 aggravated domestic assaults in Michigan,” King said. In Michigan, people convicted of domestic violence are allowed to purchase firearms, as long as their victim was not a livein spouse. This “boyfriend loophole” would be closed with the passing of House Bill No. 4497. “HB 4497 is sitting in the Michigan State Judiciary Committee, where it has been since April without receiving a single hearing,” Weiner said. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, began the panel by discussing her personal experience growing up in a home with domestic violence and detailing how this violence affected her and her sister. She recalled feelings of shame when

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the police dismissed their calls and would not show up when her and her sister were worried about their safety and hiding in a closet. The first time Dingell told her story was on the House floor. “I got up and gave a speech from my heart, that was one of the hardest things I ever did, but this is so important to me that women need to be safe and that people who shouldn’t have guns need to be kept from buying them,” Dingell said. Quyen Ngo, research assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, discussed her research, which focuses on understanding the motivations behind perpetrators of domestic violence. She said children exposed to violence

are more likely to become aggressors of domestic violence in adulthood, and she studies these intergenerational issues to address the cycle of domestic violence from both sides. “I believe we cannot fix this problem unless we deal with the social and contextual factors that lead people to perpetrate and become aggressors,” Ngo said. Jackie Jones, a survivor of gun violence and a member of Moms Demand Action, became an advocate for preventing gun violence when her son and nephew were murdered in Saginaw by men that grew up with domestic violence in the home. As a Black woman, she highlighted the misconception

that every person killed by gun violence in a Black community is deserving in some way; she said her son and nephew were simply sitting in a car when they were shot. “I got to say something; I can no longer just not do anything … even though I was afraid, I had to,” Jones said. The moderators and panelists advocated for the Violence Against Women Act, which was passed in the House seven months ago and is awaiting Senate action. Ngo said this dialogue can be bipartisan, and proponents of gun policy reform are advocating for safety.

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GOVERNMENT

New pop-up bakery holds launch with broad menu Milk+Honey grand opening features baked goods, drinks and fall vegetables SONIA LEE

Daily Staff Reporter

Local bakery Milk + Honey held an opening for its pop-up at Bløm Meadworks, an Ann Arbor cidery and meadery on S. Fourth Ave., after a monthlong soft opening. The event, held Saturday, featured an extensive menu of sweet and savory baked goods along with drink pairings from Bløm, f lowers from Bhakti Flowers and pumpkins and fall vegetables from Slow Farm. Milk + Honey is open on Fridays and Saturdays at Bløm with a new weekly menu. In addition to the baked goods, Milk + Honey serves loose leaf tea from TeaHaus and drip coffee from Anthology, a coffee shop in Detroit. The bakery was started two years ago by Rachel Liu Martindale to help fund a homeless ministry she and her husband were helping in downtown Ann Arbor. “Every week we were feeding the homeless, and it was coming out of our own pocket so we were just like, ‘Oh, we should probably have a different way of helping out with that,’” Liu Martindale said.

RYAN LITTLE/Daily

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Jackie Jones and Quyen Ngo discuss the effects gun violence can have on society and how to treat victims of gun violence with respect Friday evening.

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INDEX

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Read more at MichiganDaily.com MIC.....................3 ARTS...................5 SPORTS.................1B

News

2A — Monday, October 28, 2019

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY: By Design

WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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Editorial Staff SOPHIA AFENDOULIS/Daily Rachel Liu Martindale, owner of Milk and Honey, serves patrons during the grand opening of Milk and Honey Saturday.

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SANDERS From Page 1A “They are going to schools where their teachers are forced to work two or three jobs just to make a living. I don’t think it is too much to ask that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world we pay our teachers a living salary.” In her introduction of Sanders, Tlaib also touched on the struggles of metro Detroit-area voters, particularly relating to racial or wealth discrimination by insurance companies against socioeconomically disadvantaged voters. “People in our communities have overcome redlining, systemic racism only to see their water shut off,” Tlaib said. “Their homes taken away, simply because they’re too poor to afford shelter, or fell on hard times. We live in the Motor City, the Sudoku Syndication region that gave the world the automobile, and yet many of us

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Alghanem said. “Candidates Mexico,” Delgado said. “So always like to make promises I kind of view Bernie as this but they never follow through independent candidate that’s on them. Based on his record only beholden to the working JOEL DANILEWITZ and MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA we can tell that he’s going to class. One of the issues that Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com follow through on them, and I really love is tuition free Senior Opinion Editors: Emily Considine, Krystal Hur, Ethan Kessler, Miles I just know that he will fight college, because when I Stephenson, Erin White for us. I come from a low- was growing up, my mother MAX MARCOVITCH and ETHAN SEARS income family, so health care raised my sister and I singleManaging Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com has always been an issue, and handedly. She works a job, Senior Sports Editors: Anna Marcus, Aria Gerson, Ben Katz, Mark Calcagno, Theo Mackie, Tien Le low wages have always been makes less than $20,000 a year, Assistant Sports Editors: Bailey Johnson, Bennett Bramson, Connor Brennan, an issue. So I just know that and she had to worry, (with Jacob Kopnick, Jorge Cazares, Rian Ratnavale when he gets there he’s going us) growing up, you know, ARYA NAIDU and VERITY STURM how am I gonna pay tuition to fight for us.” Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com While she has been working for my kids. Both of them. Senior Arts Editors: Clara Scott, Emma Chang, Cassandra Mansuetti, Sam for Sanders’ campaign since With tuition-free college she Della Fera, Trina Pal Arts Beat Editors: John Decker, Sayan Ghosh, Mike Watkins, Ally Owens, the summer, Alghanem said doesn’t ever have to worry Stephen Satarino, Izzy Hasslund, Margaret Sheridan her interest in politics began about that. She doesn’t have to with working for Tlaib’s have that anxiety.” ROSEANNE CHAO and JACK SILBERMAN Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com Delgado also recognized campaign in 2018, along with Senior Design Editor: Sherry Chen others from her high school in Sanders’ ability to mobilize young people, explaining his Dearborn. ALEXIS RANKIN and ALEC COHEN “Me and my advisor and two campaign’s message resonates Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com other students went and door with Americans who may not Senior Photo Editors: Alexandria Pompei, Natalie Stephens, Alice Liu, Allison Engkvist, Danyel Tharakan knocked — 4,000 doors — to have voted before, but who Assistant Photo Editors: Miles Macklin, Keemya Esmael, Madeline Hinkley, get out the American vote,” she find common ground with Ryan McLoughlin said. “So I think that’s doable Sanders’ social and economic agenda. again for Bernie’s campaign.” ANDREA PÉREZ BALDERRAMA Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com “I feel like he’s really Another young volunteer, Michigan State University targeting people who have Deputy Editors: Matthew Harmon, Shannon Ors not been part of the political freshman Kristin Perkins, http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ SILAS LEE and EMILY STILLMAN worked as an usher at the process before, especially Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com event, helping people find people of color,” Delgado Senior Copy Editors: Dominick Sokotoff, Olivia Sedlacek, Reece Meyhoefer their seats before Bernie said. “I identify as Mexican CASEY TIN and HASSAAN ALI WATTOO and he just took the stage. Perkins said American Managing Online Editors webteam@michigandaily.com her student activism was motivates me to go harder Senior Web Developers: Jonathon Liu, Abha Panda, Ryan Siu, David Talbot, Samantha Cohen what brought her and her for him, to phone bank more, classmates down to Detroit to canvas more, to volunteer ELI SIDER EASY more. Because I truly feel like for the rally. Managing Video Editor video@michigandaily.com Senior Video Editors: Ryan O’Connor, Joseph Sim “I’m actually part of his policies will benefit people a student group called like me, people of color.” NA’KIA CHANNEY and CARLY RYAN Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com The message of Sanders’ Spartans for Sanders down Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Lorna Brown, Samuel So, Ana Maria at Michigan State, and we rally remained focused on Sanchez-Castillo, Efe Osagie, Danyel Tharakan all came up here, we saw economic opportunity and Assistant Michigan in Color Editors: Harnoor Singh, Nada Eldawy, Maya the opportunity, and we job creation. Ultimately, he Mokh decided to take it,” Perkins left the Detroit crowd with a CATHERINE NOUHAN said. “We’re really passionate message of positivity. Managing Podcast Editor “As a Senator, I have seen the about Bernie Sanders, and MADALASA CHAUDHARI and HANNAH MESKIN Managing Social Media Editors his mission for the United incredible wealth and power Senior Social Media Editor: Allie Phillips of the one percent,” Sanders States.” Among these students were said. “Be clear — they have several Sanders supporters unlimited amounts of money. from the University of Health care industry will MOLLY WU Creative Director Michigan. LSA sophomore spend hundreds of millions of ZELJKO KOSPIC RYAN KELLY Esau Delgado is the treasurer dollars trying to stop Medicare Special Projects Manager Sales Manager of Students for Bernie at for all. The fossil fuel industry ANITA MICHAUD ROBERT WAGMAN U-M. Much like Alghanem, will spend as much as it Brand Manager Marketing Consulting Manager Delgado says Sanders’ takes trying to preserve their economic agenda appeals to profits. The prison industrial the economic needs of his complex, military industrial The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during complex, incredible wealth own family. the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is and incredible power. But at “Originally I’m from © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the puzzle by sudokusyndication.com the South Side of Chicago, the end of the day, the one Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription and both of my parents percent is one percent.” rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. immigrated here from

— many of us — cannot afford to insure the cars we drive because insurance companies are allowed to discriminate against us.” Tlaib and Sanders were both met with resounding cheers and applause from an audience diverse in race, age and ethnicity, though largely made up of students and younger voters. Likewise, the majority of the Bernie 2020 campaign volunteers — who checked voters in as the rally hall began to fill up — were young, many only college or high school students. One of these volunteers, high school junior Zeinab Alghanem from Dearborn, first joined Sanders’ campaign via Students for Bernie over this past summer. Now Alghanem spends her free time canvassing and making cold calls to voters. Alghanem said she is confident Sanders will do right by working class families like her own. “Other candidates don’t have the same record,”

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10 things I love about Halloween as a Black Woman in America AYOMIDE OKUNADE MiC Columnist

Six. One. When Katy Perry slicked It is every day. down her “baby hairs.” Two. Seven. When Kim Kardashian Kylie Jenner’s lip fillers. donned cornrows. Eight. Three. Rachel Dolezal’s existence. Blackface. Nine. Four. Knowing that my body is a When Marc Jacob’s Runway models donned costume. Ten. dreadlocks. Knowing I can’t take it off Five. tomorrow. Miley Cyrus twerking.

Multiverses of liminality MONICA KIM MiC Columnist

The first time I encountered the idea of a “multiverse” — multiple dimensions of reality, of potential — was when I watched Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse (arguably the best Spiderman movie, don’t @ me). In it, Miles Morales is just one of many very different Spidermans who are part of different universes: There’s bitter, middle-aged Spiderman; there’s young Gwen, Spiderwoman; there’s a black-and-white Spiderman; an anime Spidergirl; and even Spiderpig. If you’re wondering why this article that is not about Spiderman is spending its first paragraph on a Spiderman movie, don’t worry, I’m getting there One night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I had an idea for a writing project (my writing ideas always seem to come at the most inconvenient of times, most frequently while I’m showering or about to fall asleep). I kept wondering about my multiverse — is there a universe in which I didn’t quit Korean school after less than a year, and the Monica of that universe is fluent in Korean? Does that Monica also speak only in Korean to her parents, rather than Konglish? Is she able to hold more than a fiveminute conversation on the phone with her grandfather, who lives in South Korea? I wanted to explore this idea of the multiverse, especially concerning liminality — of in-between-ness — which is what I’m currently doing with a series of bad, first draft poems. There’s little things, like how I hold my chopsticks. There’s a universe in which I was taught the “correct” way to hold them, a universe where I wasn’t taught the correct way but learned how to hold them correctly, a universe where I was taught correctly but got into the bad habit of holding them incorrectly, a universe where I’m not taught the correct way and can’t hold them correctly (which is the current universe we live in). In all of these universes, does my cousin still question my ability to hold chopsticks the right way? Does my uncle still make fun of the way I hold them? Do I still feel bad about not being Korean enough

because of something so small as the way I hold chopsticks? The question of being Korean enough is something I started struggling with at the end of high school and was the subject of my Common App essay, which feels very cliche; but maybe there’s a universe in which my Common App essay is not about this topic. Even though it feels cliche, it’s something that immigrants and children of immigrants grapple with a lot. I am othered in America; I am othered in Korea. Not American enough, not Korean enough. There was a time when someone calling me whitewashed wouldn’t bother me, when I felt something akin to pride when I was called a banana — yellow on the outside, white on the inside — because it meant that I was one step closer to whiteness in the predominantly white middle school and high school I went to. It meant that, maybe, I had a better chance of fitting in, of not being subject to racist microaggressions. It led to a lot of self-loathing about how I looked and the culture I came from, to the point where I stopped speaking in Korean to my parents, stopped wanting to partake in cultural events like chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. Now I feel like I’m making up for lost time. Maybe there’s a universe where I took Korean classes instead of French to fulfill my LSA language requirement (instead of trying to improve my Korean by using Duolingo). Maybe there’s a universe where I asked my parents more about Korean current events and history (instead of relying on Western media). But even in these universes, would someone still tell me I was whitewashed? Would someone still tell me to de-emphasize the Korean part of my identity? (Both of which have happened within the past two months). Would these questions and conversations still happen in a loop, regardless of whether I went to Korean school for more than one year or whether I kept my Korean name as my legal name or whether I could hold chopsticks the correct way? It’s what I’m trying to explore in my writing. There are spaces of liminality, of in-betweenness, of what could have been and what has been and what has not yet been.

Michigan in Color

Monday, October 28, 2019 — 3A

Knowing in Arabic: Reflections on language and identity BASIL ALSUBEE MiC Contributor

As my 3-hour seminar on Modern Middle East history came to an end, a classmate approached me about some comments I made in class. Of course, nothing about that was inherently unusual. What made the encounter memorable was that she chose to address me in my native tongue, Arabic. After fumbling with my words in conversation, I explained to her that I’m not used to speaking my language here. Maybe back in Jeddah, the city I grew up in, but not here in a classroom at an American university. Since I moved here four years ago, Arabic has been a language that belongs strictly within the confines of my household. In my history courses, colonialism wasn’t isti’mar, it was colonialism. Economics wasn’t iqtisad, it was economics. Belonging wasn’t intima’, it was belonging. University simply turned the Arabic vocabulary of my household into a jumble of indistinguishable sounds, replacing them instead with their English counterparts. I left class that day thinking: what else have I buried away at home? What secret knowledge

have I kept away from my dayto-day life at the University of Michigan? And why have I unconsciously decided that some knowledge belongs at home, while other knowledge belongs in the classroom? I answered all of these daunting questions when I took a second look at what brought me to that seminar on Modern Middle East history to begin with. I decided to study history at the University of Michigan from a desire to learn about myself and how I relate to the world around me. Three years ago, I did not feel confident talking about my own peoples’ history. I did not understand why the biggest socio-political occurrence of my childhood — the Arab Spring of 2011 — had occurred, much less why it had descended into violence in my homeland in Syria. I came to this institution in search of these answers — and now, I’ve realized that I was, only partly, looking in all the wrong places. Students of color and otherwise, largely understand “academic” knowledge to be the knowledge in books -- the knowledge passed down to us by our faculty in the form of academic articles or textbooks. The gatekeepers of this knowledge are the academics

with “mastery” over a given field: they’ve read every last piece of literature on the subject. Subconsciously, I aspired to be one of those masters of knowledge. I wanted to know everything there is to know about my people and I thought the way to go about doing so was consuming all this literature, doing my homework, writing my

What secret knowledge have I kept away from my day-to-day life at the University of Michigan? essays and getting my grades. I’ve learned quite a great deal through doing so — and yet, I can’t seem to speak about all that I’ve learned in my native tongue, the language I dream in, the language I yell at reckless drivers in, the language I use to play with my 5-year-old brother. I realized that I had internalized a hierarchy of knowledge: the serious “academic” knowledge of my

classes, juxtaposed against my family traditions, the stories my grandparents tell me and the jokes my middle school friends and I shared in Jeddah. To my mind, learning about who I am meant unlearning the latter, and honing in on the former. It took a conversation in Arabic about class material for me to even recognize what I had done. To be clear, I don’t believe we ought to uncritically accept our own lived experiences wholesale as “universal.” Rather, I want to invite fellow students of color, particularly immigrant students, to join me in taking our own lived experiences, communal traditions and unconscious knowledge just as seriously as we take what we read in the classroom — which, for the record, is not “universal” either, as much as it often pretends to be. My biggest moments of personal growth at the university have been moments in which I put my personal experiences in conversation with what I learn about systems of power, other identities and narratives that differ from my own.The mental exhaustion of struggling to speak my native tongue at the University is well worth the reward –– I am finally one step closer to learning who I am.

Period.

Now I feel like I’m making up for lost time.

Ann Arbor residents participate in the first annual Period Day Protest on the Diag on October 19

MICHAELA MINNIS MiC Columnist

When I began to menstruate it was awkward to have to talk to my parents about finding a surprise that morning; I hid it from them as long as I could. I experienced excruciating aches and pains that at times forced me to stay home from school or ride them out because my parents had to go to work and couldn’t stay with me. I developed Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) about a year ago. PCOS is a condition that causes hormonal deficiencies leading to prolonged or infrequent menstrual cycles or excess male hormone levels. PCOS is common among young menstruators, and it can be difficult to diagnose due to access to health services. Additionally, patients face challenges due to not being taken seriously at the doctor’s office and difficulty handling high treatment expenses. A common form of treating PCOS is to use an oral contraceptive, but birth control is not accessible to everyone due to treatment prices, lack of health insurance and inability to seek out a specialist such an OBGYN (obstetrician gynecologist). Much more needs to be done to ensure equitable access to menstrual products and to health-care services for menstruation-related conditions like PCOS. This is just what the PERIOD organization is striving to do. On October 19, 2019, the first National Period Day

was celebrated. The PERIOD organization held sixty rallies in all U.S. states and in four countries calling for an end to the tampon tax, to celebrate menstruation, reduce stigma, and to advocate for menstrual equity by making menstrual products more affordable. The DotOrg, an organization on our U-M campus, hosted an event on the Diag Saturday as well. In thirty-five states, menstrual products are not labeled as essential products thus adding a sales tax on them (called a pink tax). Concerningly, women who face certain socioeconomic obstacles must choose between their next meal or buying period products in some instances. In a womens’ studies class I took, many students in the class expressed that they had to plan out when to buy

period products because they are so expensive and that they had to mediate menstrual product prices with the need to buy groceries. The PERIOD organization also publicized that some have to use cardboard when menstruating because they cannot afford to purchase necessary products. The Menstrual Equity for All Act, proposed by Congresswoman Grace Meng in March, would require Medicaid to cover all costs for menstrual products while also mandating employers with 100 or more employees and all federal buildings to supply menstrual products. There is also an additional push to have these products free in schools, shelters and prisons. “If faces were bleeding, someone would do something” the PERIOD organization tweeted to promte

JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily

National Period Day. While all menstruators are affected by this stigma, holding different identities cause menstruators to experience this stigma differently. Ending the stigma of menstruation must include all voices, especially those from Black, Brown, nonbinary, transgender and other marginalized voices. The language around menstruation has to change to be more inclusive of all genders and identities because not every person who menstruates is a woman. Donate to menstrual product drives. Laugh it off if a pad falls out of your backpack. Include others in this conversation about menstruation that are usually forgotten about. Uplift others, and make them feel good about menstruating (even though it can suck).

Opinion

4A — Monday, October 28, 2019

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CHERYN HONG | COLUMN

Why Asians shouldn’t blame affirmative action

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SOLOMON MENDITZ | COLUMN

Schlissel, support the arrestees and activism

n March 15, 2019, attendees and organizers of the Washtenaw County Climate Strike occupied the University of Michigan’s Fleming Administration Building. Though there was initially a long list of demands, by 5:00 p.m. (when the building officially closed), there was only one: A one hour, student-moderated public meeting with University President Mark Schlissel to discuss a just transition to true carbon neutrality. The administration refused to accept the simple request. Instead they arrested 10 people — six U-M students, one recent graduate, two high school students and a community member. The University chose to arrest its own students over having a one-hour public meeting with them to discuss the climate crisis. The case continues to hang over the arrestees’ heads. Most are still going in and out of court, they are technically not allowed to leave the state and all the students are banned from the Fleming Building for a year (the non-students were banned from all of campus). It is a stain on the University. Schlissel and the Board of Regents should recognize their failure and call on the prosecution to drop the charges against the climate strike protesters. What is particularly appalling about the University’s behavior is that the climate protesters on March 15 did not show up out of nowhere. These students and their allies had tried everything in their power through the formal channels to get the University to take action on the climate crisis. They passed student government resolutions, applied for commission positions, wrote letters, demonstrated and spoke at board meetings. But still, there had been minimal progress beyond the creation of the flawed President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality — the body charged with coming up with recommendations for when and how the University will get to carbon neutrality. Worse still, they ended up capitulating. Even though the administration refused to accept the climate strikers’ demands and instead chose to arrest the protesters, they scheduled a special town hall in response to the strike right after (though not under the terms requested). They arrested students for demanding what they ended up giving. While much of the harm caused by the climate strike arrests has already been done,

there are still opportunities for mitigation. The University could admit that it was wrong to arrest the climate strikers and call for the charges to be dropped. Or they could decide that University employees, who were the only witnesses to the sit-in, have better things to do than testify against the students and not show up for court. Instead of mitigating harm, they have exacerbated it. In response to a motion the arrestees and their lawyer filed requesting more evidence from the University, the University asked most of the arrestees to pay for these legal fees. The University arrested its students, and asked them to pay their own legal fees. It’s almost comical until you realize it’s real.

Schlissel and the Board of Regents should recognize their failure

One of the purposes of the sit-in was to test what lengths the University would go to avoid talking with students about climate action. The conclusion? The University preferred to arrest 10 individuals rather than have a one-hour conversation. But the climate strike arrests and subsequent charges also clarified the way the administration views activism. The administration arrested protesters and is following through on the case to deter activism on campus. The University’s behavior towards the climate protesters reflects its dismissal of activism and fear of politics. Right now, the University hides behind a policy of not negotiating with protesters for any reason. That is an easy position to take — but one with profound costs. It undermines the long history of organizing and activism on this campus since its underlying assumption is that there will never be a situation where the University needs pressure to change. The University need only look to the STI policy reversal last month as an example of when it messed up and students told them so. Another fear the University seems to have is that if they drop the charges for climate protesters, then a precedent will be set for protesters of other

issues. In other words, U-M will not call for the charges to be dropped because then they would be forced to call for charges to be dropped if, for example, there are white supremacists arrested on campus. Again, this is a false double standard. The University should not be afraid to say that some causes are more valid than others. Protesters trying to get the University to treat the climate crisis with urgency should be treated differently than hypothetical white supremacist protesters: It is sad to equate all forms of “activism,” regardless of the issue. This fear seems to come from the University’s sense that as a public institution, it should not be taking political stances. While it is obvious that the University only sees itself as a public institution when it is convenient to do so (see only 54 percent in-state students), it should realize that it is already a political institution. The University is making political statements when it chooses the year by which it wants to fully decarbonize, when it decides to give Flint and Dearborn students only 25 percent of the per-student funding Ann Arbor gets or when it decides to let Fraternity and Sorority Life use the old William Trotter Multicultural Center. But even if the University does not think those decisions are political, its Board of Regents are elected in partisan elections! The University of Michigan is a political institution and it should own it instead of backing away. By recognizing that it is a political institution, the University should realize that it was wrong to intimidate, arrest and let the prosecutor continue to charge students. That’s where we come in. The University does not realize that, but we can make it clear. Students need to be more vocal in our opposition to the arrests than we have been so far. We should support the arrestees because they are working to push the University to take the climate crisis seriously, a noble task that should not be punished. But more broadly, if the University gets away with convicting the March 15 arrestees, it will have successfully sent a message that activism is not tolerated on campus, and we will all have been complicit in letting that message through. Support the climate strike arrestees and activism on campus by telling the University to call for the charges to be dropped. Solomon Menditz can be reached at smenditz@umich.edu.

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n early October, the longobserved lawsuit against Harvard University was put to rest, in which Harvard was accused of discriminating against Asian-American undergraduate applicants. Judge Allison D. Burroughs rejected all claims in a 130-page document, admitting that the admissions process is “not perfect,” but claiming there is no need to “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.” I grew up in the Ann Arbor Public School system for the first five years of my life. I then moved to Seoul, South Korea at the age of 10, and I was shocked by the contrasting attitudes teachers, families and students had towards education. Throughout middle school, I attended more than five hagwons, which roughly translates into “cram schools” — for-profit private institutions students attend after school for more rigorous coursework. Like most of my peers, I only got an average of 6 hours of sleep every night due to homework and standardized test training. Students were so desperate for high scores that some would cheat on major standardized tests by calling students in other countries for answers. Many also resorted to suicide — the number one cause of death for South Korean youths is academic pressure. When I was applying to college, I moved back to the United States through a boarding school program. At this point, I was no stranger to the pressures of school. Thus, I wasn’t surprised by the nation’s skewed college process of bribing universities with donations or posing as a specific applicant, as seen in the case of “Varsity Blues.” However, given my poisonous relationship with school and the cases behind affirmative action, I began to think about what it meant to the Asian and Asian American communities. It raised questions between myself and my peers about whether our efforts were futile. Were our culture and common ambition for an elite education perpetuating stereotypes that would inevitably lead to our downfall? Was our race a more significant factor in our applications than our merit?

A good place to understand an Asian/Asian-American viewpoint on affirmative action starts with the stigma around education. As a Korean American, I understand the pressure put on Asian students — especially by their peers and family — to succeed and perform well academically. Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science at the University of CaliforniaRiverside, states that the reason why Asian Americans seemingly have this overt level of interest with elite colleges is because they believe prestigious institutions will shield them from discrimination in the work place. The Harvard lawsuit represents more than the inability of admission to a university. It shows that there remains a stereotype of Asians being diligent, quiet and technically competent. While I strongly identify and understand the affect affirmative action has had to the Asian/AsianAmerican community, I agree with Burroughs’s decision to not change Harvard’s admission system. Affirmative action was created in an attempt to reverse the institutional racism against those historically disadvantaged, which has existed in prestigious education for years. Researchers Jennifer Giancola and Richard Kahlenberg from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation found that “high-achieving students from the wealthiest families were three times as likely to enroll in a highly selective college as those (peers) from poorest families (24 versus 8 percent).” The New York Times also examined the racial and ethnic makeup of 100 highly selective schools. They found that Black students, who make up 15 percent of college-age Americans, only make up 6 percent of college freshmen, while Hispanic students, who make up 22 percent of college-age Americans, only make up 13 percent of college freshmen. Because of affirmative action, schools are able to create a diverse community of different genders, sexualities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities and races. With factors such as standardized testing, AP exams, essay tutoring, college application fees, tuition fees and college visits, applying to college is typically more straightforward if one is provided with the proper secondary education as

well as socioeconomic background. Education is one of the biggest drivers of racial inequality and, while affirmative action acts as a Band-Aid solution, it allows the opportunity for overall progress. Affirmative action remains deeply flawed and needs major reform in order to fix issues, such as “mismatching.” The “mismatch” hypothesis claims that affirmative action in fact harms minority students by admitting students who are relatively unprepared to their classmates when they would’ve found more academic success at different schools. While “mismatching” is a recent phenomenon, studies have shown the severe effects this has had on minority students. Black college freshmen are more likely to declare STEM majors than white freshmen, but are twice as likely to abandon these fields. Black students who begin college in pursuit of a doctorate are also twice as likely to be deterred if attending a school in which they are mismatched. Even though affirmative action has deep fallacies that continue a cycle of educational inequality, the system is still imperative to hiring systems and college admissions in order to create a level playing field for all people. Instead of placing the blame on affirmative action for discriminatory actions against Asians and Asian Americans, the true root of the issue lies in applicant racial balancing. In The New Yorker, Jeannie Suk Gersen elucidates how the raceconscious holistic review of college applications is not what perpetuates Asian discrimination and explains the true cause is the “sub-rosa deployment of racial balancing” that allows Asians to seem academically lower relative to white students. Rather than pursuing the eradication of affirmative action, a more effective solution would be to transform the stigma around an Asian applicant, and how specifically they stray from the model minority stereotype. Asian students shouldn’t have to actively avoid a personality certain of being “quiet and docile” in order to be accepted by prestigious institutions. Read more at MichiganDaily.com Cheryn Hong can be reached at cherynh@umich.edu.

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

In Iraq, the system hangs in the balance

ver the past weeks, the Middle East has undergone drastic geopolitical changes that could alter the region’s dynamics for decades to come. While most news coverage has been focused on President Trump’s rash and foolhardy decision to abandon America’s Kurdish allies in Syria, this is not the only major development in the region. In Iraq, massive protests have erupted over the past month, clamoring for systematic reforms to the countries’ weak, ineffective and corrupt government. Though these protests lack defined leadership, the sheer pent-up frustration of millions of Iraqis may be enough to force concessions from the government and ensure at least a few meaningful changes. Furthermore, these protests point to the structural problems that are present in the Iraqi Constitution which likely make the government untenable long-term. First, it is important to acknowledge that protests are generally quite common in Iraq and have essentially become a yearly tradition. Conventionally, protests have broken out during the summer months, when the government is often unable to provide citizens with enough water and electricity to bear the scalding heat. However, this year there were no summer protests Instead, unprecedented numbers of people took to the streets in October to protest against the government and political establishment as a whole. Beyond general frustration with the ruling class, demonstrators have demanded crackdowns on corruption, solutions to Iraq’s chronically high unemployment rate and improvements to the nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Crucially, the demonstrations are remarkably egalitarian, with an anti-establishment focus which is not associated with any particular religion, sect or political party. The protests were first sparked by the removal of the army’s counterterrorism second in command, General Abdul-Wahab Al-Saadi, who was widely viewed as the mastermind behind Iraq’s

defeat of ISIS and considered to be a man of the people, unlike most Iraqi politicians. However, Iraqi citizens’ current frustrations can be traced beyond Al-Saadi’s dismissal and back to 2003, when a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country, overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party and laid the framework for Iraq’s contemporary political system. This government setup, which was officially codified in the nation’s 2005 constitution, is the fundamental problem that underpins Iraqis’ omnipresent disdain for their own government. The constitution is ambiguous and poorly written, creating a weak government that has been further encumbered by political infighting over some of the document’s more confusing clauses. Both the processes for nominating a prime minister and distributing oil revenue are somewhat unclear, limiting Iraq’s political and economic development. Today, the legacy of the 2005 constitution hangs over Iraq, and many of its shortcomings are visible in the protesters’ complaints. The constitution’s vague position on oil revenue distribution has enabled widespread corruption and is the main contributor to Iraq’s economic struggles. Though Iraq’s oil exports are at an all-time high, the vast majority of profits go to a small cohort of elites and not towards addressing any of Iraq’s substantive societal issues. Additionally, the oil boom has not provided many new jobs in Iraq — the nation’s unemployment rate has hovered near 8 percent since 2003, while its youth unemployment rate has remained near 17 percent throughout the same period. In conjunction with this economic stagnation, living conditions are worsening for many citizens, and a large proportion of Iraq’s infrastructure is in desperate need of repair after the nation’s lengthy battle with ISIS. In tandem with this economic angst, there is a justifiable sentiment among Iraqis that the government is corrupt, complicit in Iraq’s current

predicament and has failed to serve its citizens. The government’s response to the protests has been inconsistent and included both repressive policing tactics and signs of genuine concern from the central government. On the streets, the protests have been met with aggression from the police force. As of today more than 100 protesters have been killed and thousands injured — something which has further galvanized the movement. However, the federal government does appear to be listening: Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and several members of parliament have reached out to protesters, and conversations have apparently taken place. In the immediate future, these protests must adopt a more centralized structure in order to maximize their effectiveness. So far, the movement has relied on sheer numbers and managed to extract a few concessions from Mahdi, namely convincing him to pass a law mandating that all new oil projects in Iraq include at least 50 percent local workers. However, a disorganized mass can only do so much. By organizing, the protest movement can make concrete demands of elected officials and gain leverage over the government. In the longer term, this protest movement is a sign that Iraq’s current governmental system is fundamentally flawed, and structural reforms are necessary in order to ensure continual stability. Iraq’s 2005 constitution has permitted the exploitation of its most valuable resource, entrenched a class of political elites and created a government that fails to respond to the needs of its citizens. As the most recent protests make clear, the Iraqi people are fed up with this unjust system and are united in their desire for meaningful governmental reform. Read more at MichiganDaily.com Zack Blumberg can be reached at zblumber@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Monday, October 28, 2019 — 5A

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

FOOD COLUMN

Ohashi lecture highlights Mythos and Coney Island: the losses in architecture I will most likely return BEN VASSAR

Daily Arts Writer

If there has been a name to know in architecture in the last decade, it’s Zaha Hadid. Though she won the Pritzker — the Pulitzer Prize for architecture — in 2004, her most significant works have only cropped up in the last few years, even since her passing away in 2016. Last Tuesday, Satoshi Ohashi, Director of Zaha Hadid China, visited Taubman College’s spacious commons to talk on the breadth of his firm’s work worldwide, particularly in China. Ohashi himself is an alumnus of Taubman, graduating in 1984. In ’87, he met Hadid in her New York City apartment and was hired to her firm soon after. At this point, the firm was more of an atelier operation than an economy-shaping force. The firm grew in the ’90s and shifted their conceptualization process from oil painting to digital. From the slides Ohashi showed of these early designs, the firm’s vocabulary of movement and fluidity has hardly changed in 30 years. Their influence has, though. The now over 400 person team of young designers, computer scientists, civil engineers, product designers and video editors serve to spectacularize the firm’s work with a kind of self-promotion that certainly didn’t exist three decades ago. Ohashi had several videos

We all play the capitalism game, no doubt, but this is excess at the expense of us all

prepared by the firm to run throughout — videos of austere atria, terrific terraces and, above all, captivating curves with thousands of people moving in time lapse over high-octane electronic music. There’s no doubt the firm is at the forefront of architectural technology, but with the advent of such tech and the overachieving millennials who made it out of the firm’s vast applicant pool, they’ve overstepped the bounds of architecture and have reached a scale of production that is nothing less than irresponsible. Without differentiation, Ohashi flipped from slides of Zaha buildings to slides of Zaha furniture, Zaha running wear, Zaha electric cars, Zaha jewelry. This blurring of the distinction in design between these fields isn’t what bothers me. Architects are designers, and if there’s a will within the firm to use their influence to pursue their curiosities, then so be it. But architects are also directly responsible for orchestrating the climate crisis we have at hand. On top of every building created are on average hundreds to thousands of sheets of paper, all kinds of plasticstyrofoam composite models, and only after design do you get to the real problem of construction (which as an industry accounts for 23 percent of global carbon emissions). A necessary evil, maybe, but not in the development of 3.5 million square foot tech complexes (the area of 60 football fields). These buildings are really quite impressive until you boil them down into a compilation of 20 others nearly the same. Visually, they looks like eggs moving through water. Functionally, they’re all integrated into transport networks, they all spur the development of previously unoccupied neighborhoods and they all host hundreds of companies that will also produce, produce, produce. We all play the capitalism game, no doubt, but this is excess at the expense of us all. Hadid’s designs are at their best the vanguard of design technology, at their worst streamlined material towers. Next time you’re in one (in about any major city), consider for yourself if its cultural capital is worth its environmental expense. Ohashi seemed at home back in Taubman, but the work on show didn’t reflect what he was saying or the attitudes of those in the crowd. Slight head-shaking could be seen from particular staff and students throughout. Though at first this may have been in awe of the work — work a student can aspire to — it soon became in disapproval.

TV REVIEW

NETFLIX

As ‘Bojack’ ends, so does Netflix’s good television SOPHIA YOON Daily Arts Writer

When most people think of adult animation, they typically think of a raunchier version of children’s cartoons — slapstick comedy with a dash of adult themes. Now when people think of adult themes, they typically imagine sex, drugs and alcohol — which isn’t far from the truth — but these three elements alone don’t encapsulate the real hardships adults go through that people never talk about. “Bojack Horseman” has been performing a balancing act of the two sides of adulthood for its past five seasons, and now that it’s coming to an end, I can’t help but wonder whether the adult animation industry will ever be able to put out a show as clever, consistent, hopeful and heartbreaking again. The final season is split up into two eight-part installations, the second part coming out on Jan. 31. The first installment picks up right where season five left off about a year ago, with Bojack (Will Arnett, “Riviera”) finally making a step toward change and admitting himself into rehab. Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris, “At Home with Amy Sedaris”) learns to balance work life and motherhood, Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins, “Tangled: The Series”) learns how to cope with being a bad dog, Todd (Aaron Paul, “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie”) gets serious about taking on his ambitions and Diane (Alison Brie, “GLOW”) embraces her new career in investigative journalism. The characters underwent the most development in season five, which is why it was surprising to see that the show was coming to an end so soon. In many ways, season five was an opportunity for the show to do new things with the new circumstances that each character had to deal with, and at times, the show’s abrupt end made some arcs in season six seem like fan service (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if

you’re a fan). After all, they had to tie up all the loose ends in 16 half-hour episodes, which isn’t much time considering all the time and effort the creators spent developing a plot as complex as this. The only reason why I may sound bitter about the decision to end this show is because Aaron Paul, who voices Todd Chavez, tweeted out something that made it seem a little like this was Netflix’s fault. But that’s besides the point. Throughout the past few seasons, “Bojack Horseman” has scattered in a few episodes here and there where they focus on one character, and in this new season they continue with this device. In a valid attempt to wrap things up without rushing important plotlines, some episodes, like the second episode of season six, focus solely on characters like Princess Carolyn, who the creators have done a thorough job of developing since the start of the show. Like always, they never fail to incorporate real issues gracefully into the plot. In this particular episode, Princess Carolyn struggles to take care of her newborn adopted baby whilst living under the pressure of being a working mom who can do it all. The episode features silhouettes of Princess Carolyn taking care of tasks in the background along with distracting noises of her completing these actions, so the viewer can feel just as hectic and frazzled as she does. They wrap up just enough loose ends and introduce just enough conflict to set up the second part of the final season, and it’s difficult to try and predict how the final eight episodes will turn out. I for one, question everyday whether it’s worth keeping Netflix around when they keep increasing prices, cancelling good shows and renewing garbage. There’s been too many “Bojack Horseman”-quality shows tossed to the wind and at this rate, I’m afraid we’ll be left with content like “The Kissing Booth.” With all the new streaming services coming out, Netflix’s reign might soon be over, and after this show ends, I might not be so sad to see it go. So watch out Netflix — I might just stop using my friend’s account.

Bojack Horseman Season Six Netflix Streaming Now

ELI RALLO

Daily Food Columnist

Hailing from the East Coast and the diner capital of the United States (New Jersey) I was a little caught off g uard when I arrived at the Universit y and all of the in-state kids kept talking about “Coney Island.” I imag ined the residential Brooklyn neighborhood, which is swarmed by tourists and dotted with crowded beaches, a ferris wheel and g reasy boardwalk concessions. It wasn’t too special. Eventually, though, I realized that the Coney Island I was familiar with wasn’t the same Coney Island new friends and classmates spoke of with such affection. Their Coney Island wasn’t an amusement park, though it is a different sort of novelt y in and of itself. The Michigan Coney Island is a restaurant. Rather, a genre of restaurant — all similar in nature and menu items with individual idiosyncrasies and quirks that make them distinct. These eccentricities are how citizens of Michigan select their “favorite” Coney Island. There are apparent loyalists to one chain, and once “you f ind your Coney place” it’s game over. There’s National Coney Island, Jackson Coney Island, Abe’s Coney Island, Virg inia Coney Island, American Coney Island, Kerby Koney Island, Leo’s Coney Island; to name a few. The f irst one opened in 1914 in Jackson, Michigan, and now these hot dog kingdoms span the entire state. From what I gathered from some research on the topic, Coney Island has ser ved a large purpose in providing affordable, easy lunch options for workers in the auto industr y in the earlymid 20th centur y. There are 500 Coney Islands in and around Detroit alone. The menu is standard from chain to chain. The pinnacle is the “coney dog ” which is a hot dog in a steamed bun, topped with chilli, diced raw onions and yellow mustard. The dog has donned the nickname of a “coney” and is essentially the state food of Michigan. More staples are the “loose hamburger,” which is essentially a sloppy joe; loaded chili fries; a variet y of different Greek dishes ( kebab, g yro, g reek salad) and t ypical American diner dishes like pancakes and omelettes. Af ter more than three years at the Universit y of Michigan, I’ve heard countless stories and love letters to these strange establishments from in-state friends who look back on their high school years with fond, half-f uzzy memories of Coney Island. I’ve heard so many ref lections of winding up in a booth at Coney Island, or hungover desires to have a 10 a.m. coney dog or the chicken f inger pita awaiting my friends come Thanksg iving. At some point, I became intrig ued. Being that many of my own teenage memories were made in the now-closed Red Bank Diner or the still-standing, luminescent and sticky Americana Diner af ter a pitchy Saturday night high-school production of The Little Mermaid, Coney Island enticed me. I didn’t feel exactly appetized by the idea of a hot dog on a chipped white plate or pancakes drenched in water y syrup, but I also felt some attraction to the idea of seeing what it’s all about. So when I f inally had the opportunit y present

itself, in the ver y early hours of a Sunday morning in September in Birmingham, Michigan, I took it. We walked in, 2 a.m., under the inf luence of many vodka laden beverages. The interior of Leo’s is sort of a panopticon, and sort of a rare form of ’70s hell. It’s as though whoever desig ned the restaurant wanted ever yone to notice how much alcohol can affect formerly well done makeup and blown out hair to a point of near decrepit. The lighting is bright f luorescent and burns your eyes and ref lects off of the shiny tables so that all you can bare to do is sit. At t wo in the morning, ever yone in the place is under 26 and nobody ages for the 30 minutes they spend touching shoulders in a sweat y booth eating chili with friends and friends of friends who all have the spins. It’s an ethereal experience. The food at Leo’s is a 0/10 in a culinar y way, but a 10/10 in ser ving its purpose: to be as g reasy and inexpensive and nonsensical as possible. As we waited for our order to be brought to the table (I did not do the ordering for sake of authenticit y), the t wo Michigan natives I was with swapped stories of times they wound up in that ver y Leo’s Coney Island. Leo’s was the place they came af ter drinking vodka from water bottles at age 18 in someone’s basement, or to reconvene and reminisce in the morning, soberly, af ter a night out at age 20. It’s the place they came with their lacrosse teams af ter a big game they lost, where they stumbled, haphazardly, arm in arm with their three best friends on Christmas break af ter freshman year of college as though nothing has changed, a place they regarded as a beacon of g reasy hope af ter ever y night out, and on ever y trip home. We had the nachos supreme which, in the moment, tasted prett y good, or I just ig nored how disg usting it is to put chili and onions on top of tortilla chips and proceed to eat them under hot, f luorescent lights. We also had coney fries, with cheese, which weren’t good but also weren’t bad, and boasted the hidden delight of more strangely thin chili. We f inished the g rand buffet of approximately 3000 calories with bacon cheddar potato skins and an additional side of fries that were absolutely pallid in color. The next morning I shivered with ever y recall of the way the chili sat atop those sogg y tortilla chips. I can not imag ine eating at Leo’s Coney Island sober, or at any time before 11 p.m. and af ter 5 a.m. But the meal was a larger realization in the experience that a restaurant can bring to diners — an experience that sometimes has nothing to do with the food. There’s an ambiance there. There are memories ing rained in the walls. There are stories of f irsts, lasts, bests and worsts. You remember who you ate with, when and what and why even if you’ve been 1000 times before because it’s distinct and it’s a reminder of home, or of being 20 years old or perhaps it just reminds you of Michigan. Leo’s Coney Island doesn’t succeed for its hot dog or chicken f inger pita, though the menu covers prett y much all the bases of quintessential drunk food and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t eat it again. It succeeds in its authenticit y and its integ rit y, in its desire to put up no facade. It does not tr y to be any thing it isn’t, even if the air smells like meat and, for that, I’d return.

There are apparent loyalists to one chain, and once “you find your Coney place,” it’s game over

You remember who you ate with, when and what and why, even if you’ve been 1000 times before because it’s distinct and it’s a reminder of home, or of being 20 years old or perhaps it just reminds you of Michigan

Arts

6A — Monday, October 28, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SINGLE REVIEW

FILM REVIEW

INTERSCOPE RECORDS

Selena’s self-acceptance KATIE BEEKMAN Daily Arts Writer

If you pay any attention to celebrity gossip, you know that Hailey and Justin Bieber have had two weddings, lots of church dates and even suffered through head lice together. You also might know that since she was hospitalized in October 2018, Selena Gomez has been quietly focusing on improving her mental health. And even if you don’t remember any of that, I’m guessing the part of your mind reserved for the Disney-adjacent drama of your youth can recall that Selena and Justin have a lot of history together. They were on and off from 2011 to March 2018 — breaking up just four months before Bieber proposed to Hailey Baldwin that July. The media left fans to speculate how Selena felt, but on Oct. 23 with the release of her single “Lose You to Love Me,” she told all. “We’d always go into it blindly / I needed to lose you to find me” Gomez realizes as piano notes fade into an echo chamber of background vocals. She mentions the engagement (“in two months you replaced us / like it was easy”), but the hurt in her voice is from years of mistreatment, not surprise. “You promised the world / and I fell for it” could very well characterize the cyclical nature of their relationship as she took him back again and again despite his cheating. While I’m not sure that any non-Gomez fans will be won over by “Lose You to Love Me,” as its sound and lyrics are relatively average, the song is remarkable in its maturity. Gomez, now an avid mental health advocate, has been vocal about seeking help in her darkest times, and now she’s shining through. In fact, “Lose You to Love Me” isn’t so much about Bieber as it is about Gomez’s struggle to accept herself. Even when she seems to call him out, for example, by singing “Set fires to my forest / and you let it burn” she understands that it’s pointless to drag him — she can’t control the poor choices he’s made. Instead, Gomez is focused on her reaction. She takes off the “rose colored glasses” she had for him and remembers that she gave it her “all.” When Gomez ultimately decides “I needed to hate you to love me,” it’s not to spite Justin, but to save herself. The music video echoes this process of acceptance. Many different Selenas fade into each other in black

and white, all seated like they’re at a confession booth. Angry, sad, disgusted, laughing, confused, Gomez finally settles into a smirk, and then she’s O.K.. While the video is a bit disorienting (it was shot entirely on an iPhone and heavily edited), it’s fitting. Their relationship was such an emotional rollercoaster it makes sense that she felt everything at once when the ride officially ended. The next single, “Look at Her Now,” was released 24 hours later. The flip side to heartbreak, this song is a celebration. The “mm-mm-mm mm-mm-mm mm-mm” hook is extraordinarily catchy, to the point that it’s either irresistible or unbearable. But even if this earworm is unwelcome, it will make you want to dance. “Of course she was sad / but now she’s glad / she dodged a bullet,” Gomez shrugs. This song more clearly chronicles their ups and downs (“fast nights that got him / that new life was his problem”), but similarly shoves it all in the past. By referring to herself in the third person in “Look at Her Now,” not only does Gomez more effectively detach herself from the pain she’s singing about moving on from, but she also emphasizes the universality of her experience: “She knows she’ll find love / only if she wants it / She knows she’ll find love / only up from the way down,” Gomez assures herself and her young, mostly female audience. Yes, getting over a long, toxic relationship is hard, she affirms, but you’re going to find love if you want to find love. You’re not alone. That’s why Gomez dances surrounded by lookalikes and flashing colors in the “Look at Her Now” music video. Not overly joyous or sharp in her movements, she looks cool, collected and comfortable. Seemingly months removed from the “Lose You to Love Me” video, Gomez isn’t trying to convince anyone of her well-being. It’s evident in the way she picks up the iPhone herself and looks directly into the camera. She’s over it. Together, these songs close a chapter. Although hearing about the progression of the Bieber-Gomez saga should be boring by now, it’s too relatable. And for that reason, it’s so important that Gomez shares her story. If anyone was exhausted by the back-andforth, it was her. Her ability to come out on the other side better than OK, having grown and learned to love herself, is incredibly hopeful for anyone who relates to her hurt. Gomez has tried to start over so many times and now, finally, she has.

Lose You to Love Me & Look at Her Now Selena Gomez Interscope Records

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Release Date: Monday, October 28, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

SERVICES

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Gives in to gravity 5 Annoying little kids 9 Hunter’s plastic duck, e.g. 14 Clear off the road, as snow 15 Actress Gilbert of “The Conners” 16 Make amends 17 What “Ten-hut!” is short for 19 Income __ 20 *Do business shrewdly 22 Tidy up 23 “__ you kidding?” 24 Off-the-wall 27 Walmart warehouse club 28 *Murmur lovingly 32 Muslim mystic 33 Lake near Carson City 34 *Basic experimentation method 39 Sea item sold by 39-Down, in a tongue-twister 40 Say no to 41 *Like a typical walking stride 44 Bygone Japanese audio brand 48 Conclusion 49 Boardroom VIP 50 The Lone __ 52 Compromising standpoint ... and what the answers to starred clues contain? 55 Deck alternative 58 Belittle 59 17-syllable Japanese poem 60 Suffix with major 61 Auth. unknown 62 Desert retreats 63 Monica’s brother on “Friends” 64 German thinker Immanuel DOWN 1 Reproduces like salmon 2 __ Gibson, first African-American to win a Grand Slam tennis title

3 Pep rally cheer 4 Candy and such 5 Turkey’s largest city 6 Principal 7 Spur to action 8 Beach footwear 9 Job of typing in facts and figures 10 List-shortening abbr. 11 Courteney who played Monica on “Friends” 12 Single 13 “By all means!” 18 Phillies’ div. 21 Significant stretch of time 24 Twice cuatro 25 Way in 26 Forest female 29 “__ tree falls in the forest ... ” 30 High-end chocolatier 31 __ es Salaam 32 Lustful 34 At that time 35 Oboe or clarinet 36 Not feeling well 37 __ volente: God willing

38 Vigorous qualities to put into one’s work 39 See 39-Across 42 Nancy Drew’s beau 43 Walk feebly 44 Arctic jacket 45 Exotic lizard kept as a pet 46 Was happening 47 Passionate

51 Buenos Aires’ country: Abbr. 52 Karaoke prop that often ends in “c” nowadays 53 Jared of “Dallas Buyers Club” 54 Tolkien creatures 55 Vietnamese soup 56 Small battery 57 “__ the season ... ”

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‘The Lighthouse’ is grime & heaven for horror fans ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer

Recently, I followed the Twitter account @MobyDickatSea. The profile’s function is simple: to tweet out passages from Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” once every two hours and indicate their location in the story. I haven’t read the novel in years, and I can’t honestly say that it stuck with me in a profoundly memorable way. But I find this account fascinating for its context in the general mess of Twitter (that is to say, its lack of context with anything else in my timeline). I found a similarly passive appreciation for Robert Eggers’s (“The Witch”) “The Lighthouse” for its zany boldness. There might be a reason that the grimy sailors-caught-out-at-sea myths appeal so strongly to me now, but I refuse to pinpoint it. Regardless, “The Lighthouse” is certainly one of the most compelling horror movies of the year, one that will be rewatched time and time again by those who dare to embrace its madness. Above all, the film hones in on what makes the 2010s a particularly special decade for the horror genre. The film does not stray far from Melvillian territory, playing out like a series of hallucinatory vignettes from two newly stationed lighthouse keepers on a remote island in the 19th century. Thomas Wake, the older, gruffer and scruffier of the two is played by Willem Dafoe (“Vox Lux”) in one of the most f leshed-out performances of his career. He is rageful and briny and barking, but he is quippy too, in a g uffawing grandfatherly way. Dafoe’s impending snub for a Best Actor nomination will be lamented by horror fans in the likes of Toni Collete in “Hereditary” and Essie Davis in “The Babadook”. His companion on the island is Robert Pattinson’s (“High Life”) Ephraim Winslow, a mustached, squeaky-voiced Canadian with an alcohol addiction and a general disdain for working life. The two actors are the only speaking characters in the entire movie, but have electric chemistry that keeps “The Lighthouse” from dragging for even a moment. As equally important to the experience as the pair’s performance is the way the film is shot. Eggers constrains his camera with a squarish 1.19:1 aspect ratio as well as a black-and-white lens. The result is obviously claustrophobic and indicative of the time period, but it also has an important effect on how the director chooses to compose each frame. Most notably, Eggers employs twoshots sparingly. whenever we see our main characters, they are typically alone. They are often facing the camera directly, resembling Jonathan Demme’s uncomfortable POV close-ups in “The Silence of the Lambs.” The deteriorating sense of personal space, exacerbated by low ceilings and ominous lighting on builds into the film’s conclusion, leaving a viewer squeamish and discomfited. Moreover, when both characters appear in the same frame, they appear pressed against each other, poised for conf lict but intimate

The Lighthouse A24 Michigan Theater

and, occasionally, romantic. Winslow and Wake are deeply repressed — they ache for any escape from the dry monotony of the island, and their drunken nightly musings dance beautifully on the line between revelation and foolspeak. In many ways, “The Lighthouse” is a testament to the foothold that horror has on the film industry in 2019. To think that a film so utterly deranged could be funded, produced and even limitedly released in another decade is unfathomable. But “The Lighthouse” understands what makes the horror of today successful: an arthouse director that infuses intellect behind every scare, a perfectly assembled cast performing at the top of its potential, commentary that transforms the very real into the very personal and a level of technical craft that requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate. Robert Eggers is likely one of the sav viest young voices in horror. It’s easy to say that he played the same cards with “The Lighthouse” as he did with his debut feature in 2015, “The Witch.” After all, they are both periodhorror with limited settings, a naturalistic tone and measured pacing. But beyond the surface, they couldn’t be more different. Where “The Witch” devotes an intense focus to its broad ideas of feminism, colonialism and Puritanism, “The Lighthouse” is not so clear about its message, preferring to pull its viewers subjectively along into the madness. If anything, this pairing illustrates Eggers’s range as a filmmaker. He isn’t bound to the coherency of his narratives; he is more attentive to the gnawing, gnarling, allconsuming experience of horror itself.

10/28/19

The film does not stray far from Melvillian territory, playing out like a series of hallucinatory vignettes from two newly stationed lighthouse keepers on a remote island in the 19th century

10/28/19

SPORTSMONDAY

The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | October 28, 2019

Alec Cohen / Daily

Design by Jack Silberman

MICHIGAN GETS SIGNATURE WIN, DESTROYS NOTRE DAME IN RAINSTORM ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Editor

Cesar Ruiz heard the question, then he cracked a smile. Do you guys feel like you wrote a memorable chapter in this rivalry tonight? The junior center responded immediately: “Um, yes.” Last week, Michigan got its second loss at Penn State, effectively ending any hopes of a Big Ten championship and the College Football Playoff. In the days leading up to the Wolverines’ matchup with Notre Dame, the biggest question was clear: What is there still to play for? Michigan players insisted there was still plenty, most of all the chance to beat their rivals, but it was still a little hard to believe. At least, until Hassan

Haskins ran 25 yards — several with a tackler on his back — on the Wolverines’ second drive of the game, one that eventually ended in a Zach Charbonnet touchdown. And as the heavens descended on Ann Arbor, Michigan seemed unfazed. An offense that had struggled for explosive plays all year ripped off four 20-plus yard runs in the first half alone. The Wolverines (6-2 overall, 3-2 Big Ten) rode that run game and their typical stingy defense to a 45-14 win over No. 8 Notre Dame (5-2) in arguably the most impressive win of the Jim Harbaugh era. “We realized after (last week), going into this week for Monday’s practice that offensively, we’ve gotta come out that way from start to finish,” said senior quarterback Shea Patterson. “You can’t come out flat and expect to make a

comeback in the end. They helped out our defense, our defense played lights out tonight. I thought we executed all night offensively and I think the results show for themselves.” Though Michigan had to settle for a field goal on its first drive, it made one thing clear: it was run-it-down-theirthroats time. Patterson didn’t complete a pass until the second quarter, after his team was already up 10-0 — and with the rainy conditions, it was probably for the better. After the field goal, the Wolverines scored touchdowns on two straight drives, both by freshman running back Zach Charbonnet. And after he pulled a defender with him on the first of those two drives, Haskins hurdled his wouldbe tackler in the second, an encore to a 20-yard rush that sent 110,000 fans in maize ponchos into a frenzy.

“We said in the locker room, we knew what kind of game it was gonna be,” Ruiz said. “We changed the openers a little bit. We knew we were gonna be ground and pounding a lot today. It’s the game we’ve been waiting for. We love running the ball. And just, we knew today was gonna be the day we were gonna be able to showcase it.” Haskins finished with 149 yards on 20 attempts, a career high, while Charbonnet added 74 yards on 15 attempts for two touchdowns and tied a program-record nine touchdowns for a freshman running back. As the rain slowed in the third quarter, so did Michigan — going threeand-out on three consecutive drives and then giving up a touchdown to cut its lead to 10. But the Wolverines stayed the course, coming back for a touchdown drive that included a Haskins 49-yard

rush to put them up, 24-7. Then, they opened up the passing game and ran up the score with three touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Through the entire game, the Wolverines found an offensive identity and stuck to it, never deviating from the run, even when those drives stalled in the third quarter. Notre Dame did the opposite, looking befuddled with every move Michigan made. Book readied to throw, even with pass-rushers in his face on nearly every play, even when the ball slipped around as rain continued to fall. With their fierce running game, the Wolverines answered the questions of offensive identity that have surrounded them all season. They also answered the question of whether a rivalry win was enough of a motivation for a team whose goals were much loftier.

SportsMonday

2B — October 28, 2019

A new but familiar identity

hen a stoic Nick Eubanks stood at the podium after a defacing 35-14 loss at Wisconsin, his assessment was frank. “It’s up to us to find an identity,” Eubanks said then. “We got a game coming up next MAX Saturday. We MARCOVITCH gotta find it quick.” Up to that point — a game in which Michigan mustered next to nothing until the depths of garbage time — the Wolverines’ self-proclaimed identity had rarely been called into question. From the outset of the season, Michigan’s offense has tried as hard as it could to be different, in any way, shape or form. “Speed in space” was a distillation of a promised reinvention. The proclamations of change were loud and direct; offensive coordinator Josh Gattis was going to modernize it all, every play would require a read, the bells and whistles would sing. Two things now appear clear. One: That didn’t work as intended. Two: That’s OK. Because when things didn’t work in the first half of the season, the players and coaches realized maybe the ways of old weren’t so bad after all. It’s worth remembering, the Wolverines finished 25th in offensive SP+, their best such ranking since 2011. “We’re bringing back some stuff that worked last year,” said senior guard Michael Onwenu, shortly after his offensive line tossed around a stout Notre Dame front Saturday night. “Watching previous games and it’s important to bring that back and do what worked instead of trying everything else.” Onwenu and his unit spearheaded a rushing attack that ran for 303 yards on 57 carries in

Wolverines fall, 1-0, against Rutgers LILY ISRAEL

Daily Sports Writer

ALEC COHEN/Daily

The Michigan offense tallied over 400 yards for the fourth game in its last five.

Michigan’s 45-14 win over the Irish. It did so in a manner eerily akin to the Wolverines’ threegame win streak over ranked opponents last year. In those games, wins over No. 15 Wisconsin, No. 24 Michigan State and No. 14 Penn State, the Wolverines averaged 278.3 rushing yards on 51 attempts. It was the defining stretch for that team, when it found out who it was and harnessed that into some of the best football of the Jim Harbaugh era. This group appears primed to hit a similar stride. In 21 drives over the last six quarters, the Wolverines’ offense has just five three-and-outs. They have over 400 yards in four of their last five games, with the lone outlier coming against Iowa that is sixth in SP+ defense, and, importantly, came in a 10-3 win. It’s a group unapologetically anchored by a running game, featuring the same core tenants of last year’s ethos: pin-and-pulls, traps and basic zone looks. It would be remiss not to mention offensive line coach Ed Warriner’s role in this recalibration. He’s the one that overhauled the run scheme a year ago, and simplified the offensive line requirements that ultimately bred vast improvement. “Every team’s different,” Warriner said last week. “There’s no carry over. You’ve got carry over players, but you have to establish who you are and what you want to do. And then you evaluate. At some point, you have to say, here’s what we’re good at.”

Still, Michigan fired Pep Hamilton and hired Gattis for a reason, and the recent simplification is not inherently an indictment of that decision. There’s a maturity in understanding what you are and what you aren’t, and not trying to shove a square peg in a round hole by hoping to solve the latter. When Eubanks offered that plea shortly after the loss to the Badgers, he did so under the same pretense of change. There was an idea of what this offense was supposed to be, and it hadn’t lived up to the billing. The identity is not “speed in space” in the way most conceived that vision, and the players don’t seem to care. “Our identity is whatever it is for that week,” said junior center Cesar Ruiz. “I don’t wanna say one thing or another cause we can attack it however we want to.” Increasingly, though, this team is learning that not all change is good. This team now knows what it is — something that could not be said when Eubanks offered his assessment. It’s a team that’s going to look to pound the ball first, then work off of it with a trove of downfield weapons. It’s a team that can lean on its defense, careful not to make the game-changing mistake offensively. It’s not a team that’s going to reinvent the wheel. It is a team that will dispose of inferior ones, and win quite a few games. It’ll beat some good teams, too. It’s a team well in-line with the precedent Harbaugh has set at Michigan through five years. That’s not such a bad thing, after all.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

team really needs to work on is execution,” said freshman forward Jayde Riviere. “We have all the tools for it and we have all the talent for it. We get crosses in and we get people in the box, it’s just the execution of it.” Throughout the season, Michigan has not been used to going into halftime with a deficit. While this was an unwelcomed change, it did not change its mindset or gameplan for the second half. “At halftime, we told them we just needed to be aggressive and look to get going forward a little more,” said Michigan coach Jennifer Klein. “You got nothing to lose and just go for it. I thought we went out with a good mentality and got great opportunities. We were just unfortunate.” Coming out of the half down by a goal, the team stuck to its gameplan, focusing on execution and converting opportunities into goals, but realized it needed to play with a greater sense of urgency. The Wolverines added seven more shots in the second half, totaling 14 for the game, and held Rutgers to just seven shots the entire 90 minutes. “Obviously being down 1-0

there was a lot more urgency to our game,” Loughman said. “I felt like we were getting forward more and being less sloppy in our passes. We were a little less complacent in the second half than we were in the first half.” Klein credited the Scarlet Knights’ commitment to their defense and strong goalkeeping. Looking ahead to the postseason, Loughman believes Rutgers is a similar caliber team that Michigan will face. “Rutgers is a really strong opponent and I think they are evidence of what we are going to find in the postseason,” Loughman said. “We have to keep looking at that going forward.” In their penultimate regularseason game, the Wolverines were trying to position themselves for seeding in the Big Ten Tournament. They are currently neck-and-neck with Wisconsin for the top spot in the Big Ten standings. “I hope (this game) gives us a good spark and a sense of urgency to finish strong,” Klein said. “We will see where we end up when it comes to Big Ten play and NCAAs but hopefully this loss sparks a response to go and get it.”

The No. 16 Michigan women’s soccer team was winning in every statistical category. If you were watching the game and didn’t look at the scoreboard, it looked like the Wolverines were going to cruise to another victory. They led in all categories but one — goals. Michigan (13-4-1 overall, 8-2-1 Big Ten) dominated No. 21 Rutgers early on in the match Thursday night. Up until the 43rd minute, it looked like the Wolverines were positioned for a win. But soccer is a fickle game and can change in an instant, and Michigan lost, 1-0. In what was the Scarlet Knights’ first successful offensive set, and the Wolverines’ first and only lapse on defense, Rutgers sliced through the Michigan defense and scored. The Wolverines found themselves down and couldn’t recover. “Sometimes you can just be a little unlucky and one thing changes in a snapshot,” said sophomore midfielder Raleigh Loughman. “You just have to keep your head up and keep going.” In the beginning of the first half, Michigan dominated the field by controlling the ball on its side of the field, accompanied by clean passing and transitions. Every time the Scarlet Knights took the ball onto their side of the field, the Wolverines tightened up on defense and immediately cleared it back to their offense. In the first half alone, Michigan had seven shots but was unable to convert any of those into goals. The Wolverines set themselves up with many opportunities with corner kicks and crosses, but failed to execute in front of the goal. KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily “I think the main thing our Sophomore defender Janiece Joyner was forced to leave at the end of the game.

Senior Night Stalemate Michigan comes up short on Senior Night, drawing Wisconsin, 1-1, as Andrew Verdi comes up big in overtime LIOR KOLTON For The Daily

In the last 10 seconds of regulation, the Michigan men’s soccer team almost earned a penalty kick. The near buzzer beater would have been the highlight of the season for Michigan if it was not a clean slide tackle. The Wolverines (7-4-4 overall, 2-1-3 Big Ten) tied 1-1 against the Wisconsin Badgers (2-103, 0-4-2), in what seemed to be a lopsided soccer game. Michigan dominated Wisconsin in shots 17 to eight. Michigan was in complete control throughout the entire match. It was a frustrating result for the Wolverines who held the majority of the clinical chances. “We really had clear cutchances, but I think we absolutely dominated the match from start to finish,” said Michigan head coach Chaka Daley. “There was 22 fouls here, and 13 corners. With all of that, we had a lot of opportunities. Wisconsin fought for their lives because they had to with no real chances for them.” Michigan was knocking on the door five minutes into the second half while looking for the first goal of the game. Sophomore forward Soso Emovon provided a spark off the bench for the Wolverines. He led one of Michigan’s best chances to score in the 48th minute. Emovon thunderously ran down the right side of the pitch and crossed the ball to freshman midfielder Harry Pithers. Pithers was unable to make a strike on the left alone ball from five yards out. In the 75th minute, the

Wolverines’ ultra attacking efforts finally paid off. Senior forward Jack Hallahan tapped the ball around the 15-yard box which cleared off the shin of a Badger defender into the back of the net for an own goal. Two minutes after the own goal, junior midfielder Marc Ybarra’s tackle led to a questionable penalty call. Badger midfielder Noah Leibold shimmied his way into sinking the goal down the middle for Wisconsin. Daley had no issues with the

(Goalie) Andrew (Verdi) saved our butt in overtime.

penalty. “There was a small patch of opportunity, and I was not able to see the penalty call,” Daley said. “It was out of our hands.” Senior goalkeeper Andrew Verdi was the most important player for the Wolverines. Verdi was carried out with an injury during overtime, but his efforts were not unnoticed. Five minutes into extra time, Verdi made a miraculous save in, “what seemed to be a sure goal well outside the penalty box,” Daley said. “He was excellent. Andrew saved our butt in overtime. He made two great saves and hopefully he’s okay.”

For more coverage of Michigan soccer, visit MichiganDaily.com

AUSTIN KARNICK For The Daily

Andrew Verdi is the backbone of the Michigan men’s soccer team, literally and figuratively. The senior goalkeeper is the team’s last line of defense. Often times, he is the difference between wins and losses. And on the Wolverines’ Senior Night on Friday, he proved that to be true, making saves in a gritty 1-1 draw against Wisconsin. After Wisconsin’s lackluster offensive performance in the first half, Verdi was far more busy in the latter 45 minutes of the match. The keeper had two saves, one a punch-out and another while

jumping vertically. He allowed a goal during a 77th-minute Wisconsin penalty try. A late regulation skirmish off a corner kick also kept the keeper on his toes. In extra time against the Badgers, a loose ball created a golden opportunity for Wisconsin to win the game, and upset the Wolverines in Ann Arbor. Verdi had other plans. A Badgers’ striker faced Verdi with a one-on-one chance, almost a surefire goal under most circumstances. Verdi sprawled quickly on all fours and got his entire body in front of the shot. As a result, the ball bounced right back to the Wisconsin striker, whose second shot was then

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Senior goalkeeper Andrew Verdi made a crucial save in overtime to keep the score level against Wisconsin, securing a draw against the Badgers on Friday.

denied by a strong clearance by senior centerback Abdou Samake, keeping Michigan alive. Unfortunately for Verdi and the Wolverines, the keeper was injured during the play. After the game, Michigan coach Chaka Daley was unsure of the status of his injury. “No, I don’t have any updates on (Verdi’s) health,” Daley said. “But he was excellent. He saved our butt down here in overtime with a great save and had two other great saves.” Ultimately, the stalemate formed in regulation was never broken, and the match concluded in a frustrating 1-1 draw after 110 minutes of play. But the draw does not tarnish the value and impact Verdi and the other seniors have had to the team. “(The seniors) have had an interesting time here,” Daley said. “In their first year, we struggled. They’ve seen a little bit of adversity. They saw some good times in ‘17 and ‘18, and we’re still growing.” Verdi epitomizes Daley’s description. As a sophomore, he started in 13 games in a successful campaign. His junior year, he didn’t see any playing time, as every start went to keeper Henry Mashburn. Now, in his senior season, the staple between the Wolverines’ posts has started every single match and has been a critical part of the team’s success. His three saves against Wisconsin showcased his importance to the team. With Michigan approaching the postseason, Verdi’s injury status could be monumental to the Wolverines in their efforts to avenge their Big Ten tournament final loss from 2018. At the moment, Daley is strictly focused on getting Verdi back on the pitch. “I’m not worried about postseason, to be fair,” he said. “I’m just worried about if Andrew’s OK, first and foremost.”

SportsMonday

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

October 28, 2019 — 3B

Run game does what it’s good at, sees payoff

Defensive speed stifles Notre Dame attack

ETHAN SEARS

THEO MACKIE

Managing Sports Editor

Ed Warinner has two kinds of outside zones built into his run game. One is, essentially, the base outside zone you see everywhere. Everyone shuffles in one direction and takes the man in front of them. The only difference is, there’s a fly sweep attached, to get the defense moving the other way. The other, what he calls a manscheme outside zone, is what other coaches call a pin-and-pull. He wants to create a wall by blocking down, let the play stretch, then let the runner explode through with the pullers creating a hole. In 2018, as Michigan’s offense clicked into place throughout the season, these two runs helped form the basis of what the Wolverines did. In 2019, as things sputtered out over the first few weeks, Michigan seemed to not know what it wanted from its run game. Eventually, the Wolverines decided on something simple: Do what they’re good at. “That’s what you try to figure out each year,” Warinner, Michigan’s offensive line coach, said last week, before the Wolverines lost at Penn State. “Every team’s different. There’s no carry over.

I feel like when I pulled, it was able to open a lot of holes. You’ve got carry over players, but you have to establish who you are and what you want to do. And then you evaluate. At some point, you have to say, here’s what we’re good at.” If there was any question as to what Michigan is good at before Saturday, there isn’t now. This was Warinner’s run game — outside and inside zones, pin-and-pulls and the rest — in full force, and it sprung the Wolverines for 303 yards on the ground and a 45-14 win over Notre Dame. They held a twoscore lead before Shea Patterson even had a passing yard. “I feel like when I pulled, it was able to open a lot of holes,” said junior center Cesar Ruiz. “Running backs were able to make some really good reads off of it. I feel like that’s one thing they weren’t really expecting and I feel like that was really an advantage for us, to have them on the perimeter a little bit.” “We’re bringing back some stuff that worked last year,” added senior guard Mike Onwenu. “Watching previous games and it’s important to bring that back and do what worked instead of trying everything else.” Michigan has talked about establishing the run before, but had yet to do so in this fashion — in the rain, against a top-10 Notre Dame team that figured to be a real test. By midway through the first quarter, when redshirt freshman running back Hassan Haskins burst through the hole on an outside zone and galloped for 20 yards, hurdling a defender along the way, it was clear the Irish stood little chance. Haskins ran for 149 yards, or just 68 off his career total before Saturday. Alongside him, Zach Charbonnet tied a school record with his eighth and ninth rushing touchdowns as a freshman. There are still four games left in the regular season. The run game, finally, seems to be hitting its stride. “Made some creases and had some really crisp blocks,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “The backs were squeezing through them and breaking tackles. Hit a trap play early, that was big. Hit another couple inside runs, hit a couple outside runs. (Offensive coordinator) Josh (Gattis) did a nice job with the running game, inside then outside. RPOs started clicking.” And in a first-half monsoon, against a top-10 opponent and a rival, Harbaugh’s team got out to a decisive lead in the kind of game the program has long coveted winning. By the time Tru Wilson ran 27 yards into the end zone in the fourth quarter for Michigan’s third rushing touchdown of the night, the competitive portion of the game had long ended. It all harkened back to Warinner’s message, one so simple that Gattis and Michigan seemed to forget it until just a few weeks ago. Do what you’re good at. On Saturday, that’s what Michigan did.

Daily Sports Editor

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan’s offense broke out for 45 points on Saturday night, dominating Notre Dame, 45-14, in a rain-soaked affair at Michigan Stadium.

rain and hail

Six quarters that lifted Michigan’s season MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor

No one on the outside knows quite what happened at halftime in State College last weekend, and those on the inside don’t seem too keen on sharing. Those are moments that can be blown out of proportion, anyway. But the team that walked out of that locker room, staring down a 21-7 deficit in the fire-breathing cauldron of Beaver Stadium, is not the same as the one that entered. That’s plainly clear. What entered was an underwhelming offense and a mistakeprone defense, a defeatist squad with a downtrodden mentality, a coach under a fervent national microscope and a program unable to escape the pressure of its own weight. What exited, it appears, is a whole different football team — one that came inches from an historic comeback last week and dominated No. 8 Notre Dame in every facet of the game this week, smacking the Fighting Irish, 45-14. “I think the second half of the Penn State game, I thought we found our stride,” said senior quarterback Shea Patterson on Saturday. “We realized after that game, going into this week, from Monday’s practice that offensively we’ve got to come out that way start to finish. We can’t come out flat and expect to make a heroic comeback in the end.” In those six quarters, the Wolverines have outgained their two opponents 667 to 260, out-rushed them 379 to 60 and, most importantly, outscored them 66 to 21. After turning the

ball over 13 times in the six-and-a-half games prior, Michigan hasn’t turned it over once since — against two of the most turnover-happy defenses in the country. Patterson has looked far more in line with his 2018 self. The defense has evolved into the suffocating menace most expected. To put it flatly: this is a team that has done what it’s wanted to two top10 teams in a way it failed to do to a Conference USA foe and a Military Academy mere weeks prior. “Yeah, I saw it coming,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “Watching them prepare, watching them practice, watching the detail and the meetings. How important it was to them. Day in, day out work in practice. The growth, you can see it.” The success has been rooted in many of the core tenants from last season. A coalescing offensive line has allowed just three sacks in the last two games, supplementing what’s quickly blossomed into a potent rushing attack. In a driving rain, Michigan racked up 57 rushing attempts, continuing to pound its running backs, daring a hapless Notre Dame side to stop it. Junior Hassan Haskins tallied 149 rushing yards on 20 carries, plowing through — and hopping over — the Fighting Irish defense. The Wolverines stamped their way to 5.9 yards per carry, tossing the elements aside and the game to rest from the outset. At halftime, they’d run the ball 28 times and thrown it just four. The score, 17-0, even belied the feeling of finality that had already set in by then. Michigan won this in a

way that left no doubt as to who was the better side — and as to whether last week’s second half was any sort of anomaly. “We’re taking leaps,” said sophomore linebacker Cameron McGrone, a burgeoning defensive star. “And I believe we’ve always had it, it was just us clicking and, like I said, at Penn State, I think we really found what our team can do and that we can do it whenever we want.” For all the positive takeaways from that half, though, they still cannot be evaluated in a vacuum. The loss to the Nittany Lions is still a loss, and still comes with all the season-altering ramifications. Michigan still has two Big Ten defeats, and will still likely be locked out of postseason title chances. What to make of this team-wide reinvention perhaps depends on your own conception of success going forward. It’s more than fair to quibble that this is all too-little, too-late. But whatever this team figured out in a cagey locker room in Pennsylvania has made a demonstrable difference. From here, all it can control is the game it’s playing. This win was no statement. No boisterous journey for revenge. No atonement for the two losses that clouded the season thus far. Just business as always intended — and maybe a dose of therapy. “I just thought we needed to come out, start to finish, and just play,” Patterson said. “Play the way we know how to play. I think really that’s kind of the first time, in all cylinders, we’ve played our best game. And when we do that, we’re really hard to beat.”

Against the Irish, Wolverines flip narrative ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Editor

Hassan Haskins broke free, found his gap and exploited it. He’d done this before, but this time, there was an encore. Haskins jumped into the air and over his defender, picking up a few extra yards in the process. That run provided 20 of the Michigan football team’s 303 rushing yards of the night, 149 of which came courtesy of Haskins. But the reality was it didn’t really matter who got the handoff. The Wolverines’ offensive line mauled Notre Dame’s front seven, opening up gaping holes for Michigan to run through. On a night so rainy the cheerleaders played slip and slide in the end zone, a potent running game was vital. Last year against the Irish, that run game was conspicuously absent. The Wolverines rushed for just 58 yards on 33 attempts en route to a 24-17 loss in South Bend, Ind. After promises of offensive line improvement under then-new coach Ed Warinner, that unit struggled, with any potential running holes sufficiently plugged before they opened. The pass protection was even worse, allowing three sacks and six quarterback hurries. On Saturday, after Michigan got a shot at revenge, the situation was like night and day. Haskins praised his offensive line for opening up the gaps he ran through. The line’s stout play showed in the success of the running game, with 303 rushing yards the most the Wolverines have had this season. The pass protection was markedly

better, allowing two sacks and no quarterback hurries. “We expected to run the ball a lot,” said senior guard Michael Onwenu. “But a lot of holes were open, more so than we thought. The backs were shifting, a lot of motion and whatnot, so we expected that, but it was attacking the holes faster than we thought, so we adjusted.” Even backup center Steven Spanellis got in on the action, continuing to block his man after both went out of bounds in the fourth quarter. It was a play so memorable that it got a shoutout from Charles Woodson on Twitter. If last year’s matchup with the Irish was a re-affirmation of the narratives that have surrounded Harbaugh during his tenure — inability to beat rivals, starting slow, underperformance in big moments — Saturday’s 45-14 blowout win took those narratives and flipped them on their head. “It’s a feeling that I know I’ll remember for — and I’m sure everybody in the locker room will,” said senior quarterback Shea Patterson. “I was just so happy to be a part of that and I feel like as a group we’re just doing great especially since last year left a bit of a sour taste. Just very proud of ourselves.” Michigan beat the eighth-ranked team in the country handily. The offensive line played like one that returned four All-Big Ten starters. And this time, the Wolverines weren’t the ones that started slow. Last year, Michigan went down 21-3 early and spent the whole game playing from behind. The Wolverines scored

two more touchdowns after that and made it a close game. But it’s hard to win like that, especially against a rival, and even more so against an opponent with Playoff aspirations of its own. On Saturday, the Wolverines were the ones that went up early — leading 17-0 at halftime. The offense did its part while the defense clamped down and dampened the Irish’s hopes of a comeback. “Our problem, especially as a team — not just as a defense — is that we start slow,” said senior safety Josh Metellus. “We start slow and once we pick it up, it’s hard to stop us. Offensively, it’s hard to stop us, hard to put a cap on it. But once we started fast in that first quarter and we didn’t give up a first-quarter touchdown or any first-quarter points, I knew that we’d be able to hold on through the rest of the game.” And in thoroughly flipping the script on last year’s frustrating loss, Michigan also gave itself a blueprint. This is how it can start to change those narratives. This is how it can beat rivals and top teams. This is what it’s capable of doing. Though it’s a little too late for those Playoff hopes, or even a conference championship, the Wolverines still have two rivalry games left on the schedule — against two opponents that have left particularly bad tastes in their mouths the past five years. With its statement against Notre Dame, Michigan got more than just a marquee win. If it can follow the path it forged on Saturday, it could start to reverse the narratives it’s struggled so much to escape.

Cam McGrone raced toward an emptying student section, flexing his right arm then his left above his head. Aidan Hutchinson and Luiji Vilain stood to either side of McGrone, serving as bodyguards to his celebration. A few yards behind Michigan’s jubilant passrushing trio, Notre Dame quarterback Phil Jurkovec lay face down on the 13-yard line. It was Jurkovec’s first play of the game, but as starting quarterback Ian Book looked on from the sidelines, the back of a gold helmet emerging from the turf provided a familiar sight. Book left the game early in the fourth quarter after an 8-for-25, 73-yard performance — his career low as a starter, en route to a 45-14 Wolverines’ win. A year ago, when Michigan opened its season with a road defeat against the Fighting Irish, McGrone, Hutchinson and Vilain largely watched from afar, underclassmen patiently waiting their turn. Senior safety Josh Metellus was a starter that day, but he too watched most of the game from the locker room after a first-quarter ejection for targeting. And for 14 months, since that night in South Bend, he’s known this performance was coming.

(Our speed) allows everybody to be around the ball. “The type of offense that they run, they try to stick to the same script, get the same guys the ball,” Metellus said. “They don’t like going outside the frame in the type of stuff they like to do in their scheme. We knew coming in they watched teams previously and see what worked against us and try to hit there.” According to McGrone, the area that Notre Dame tried to exploit was the edge. It’s a funny thought for anyone who watched this year’s game, because “exploit” may well rank last on the list of verbs that could be used to describe what the Irish did to Michigan on the edge. All evening, though, they tried — bouncing runs to the outside, throwing quick passes into the flat, scrambling toward the chains. And all evening, they failed, chased down by the Wolverines’ superior speed. “(Our speed) allows everybody to be around the ball at all times,” McGrone said. “I’m pretty sure there’s multiple pictures of five to eight guys around the ball, which is kind of unheard of.” On Saturday, that translated into just two sacks, but the effects permeated far further into Notre Dame’s offensive performance. For the better part of three quarters, the Irish’s only play for more than 10 yards came on a spectacular sideline catch from senior Chase Claypool. Their longest rush of the day went for just nine yards on a scramble. Despite the lack of sacks, Book stood at the center of it all, desperately running from maize and blue jerseys, if only to find enough reprieve to huck a pass into the stands. “Defensively, it was a great performance,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “We’re just so fast, we’re just running so good and the knockback in the defensive line was outstanding, really good coverage, linebackers were running.” The result was a defensive showing that finally allowed the Wolverines to match complete performances on both sides of the ball. The fact that it only comes after two losses isn’t lost on these players — they know what that means for their Big Ten title hopes. But for more than six quarters now, dating back to a near-comeback against Penn State last weekend, they’ve been the dominant team that was promised before the season. And at the crux of that is a defense that’s allowed first downs on just six of its last 22 possessions. It’s why defensive coordinator Don Brown’s message at the end of it all was one of pride in a unit that McGrone said, “played how we know that we can play.” It’s also why his message included a follow up, as McGrone relayed after the game: “We still believe that our best football’s ahead.” After Saturday, that’s a scary thought.

SportsMonday

4B — October 28, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Western draw

Wolverines split home-and-home series with Western Michigan, dropping Saturday game, 4-1, in Kalamazoo TIEN LE

ROHAN KUMAR

KALAMAZOO — All it took was five minutes for Western Michigan to dictate a game. Five minutes to set the pace. Five to dominate the ice. Five minutes to create a lead the Michigan hockey team would spend the remaining 55 trying to overcome, ultimately to no avail. “From faceoff to forecheck, to getting pucks out, to getting pucks to the net, to getting pucks through,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson, “they put on a clinic in that first five minutes.” And it was in those first few minutes that the Wolverines’ 4-1 loss was decided. Despite the initial faceoff win to open the game, Michigan (3-2-1) was beat on the three following consecutive draws. This forced the pressure on the Wolverines to defend in their own zone, and unprepared for the rapid-fire attack, conceded a goal a minute into the game on a tipped pass high in the air. “We weren’t ready to play,” Pearson said. “We talked about the game, about the first five minutes being really important, and (we) weren’t ready to play tonight. They were hungrier than we were at the start of the game, and we got in a hole.” And that hole only got bigger as Western Michigan (2-3-1) refused to give up the pressure. Two minutes after letting one in, another was scored off a rebound passed out wide. Michigan had defended the initial shot, but after Strauss Mann pushed the puck out to his left, a Bronco player waited and reacted accordingly, shooting the puck past the sophomore goaltender. It was a start that exemplified how passive the Wolverines had played to that point. They couldn’t create any offensive pressure, refusing to forecheck and were subjected to relentless

KALAMAZOO — With under two minutes to go and the Michigan hockey team (3-2-1) trailing by two goals against No. 18 Western Michigan (2-3-1), sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann skated to his team’s bench to give the Wolverines an extra man on the attack. Soon after, the Broncos’ student section motioned toward the empty net and filled the rink with taunts of “better goalie.” To say this particular frame had a significant impact on the final result is baseless. The game was already out of Michigan’s grasp, sparing late game magic. That said, it depicts the bigger picture of the night — that playing in Lawson Ice Arena can turn everything sideways. In the week of practice leading up to the series the Wolverines were well aware Saturday night’s tilt could come with a challenging environment, some even referring to it as a “rowdy spot.” But that prior understanding didn’t prevent events from unfolding as they did. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly to what extent the environment affected the game, and that answer will vary greatly coming from spectators and Michigan personnel. But there was certainly some level of influence from the moment the game began. This appeared to startle the Wolverines, and they found themselves down two goals in the first few minutes. “Just the slow start can impact the game, especially with that crowd,” said senior defenseman Luke Martin. “It’s a good home team. Tough place to play, but we take that on ourselves. If we come out with a better start it’s a totally different game.” The crowd targeted the game through multiple channels. For instance, after Mann gave up his first goal the students shouted his name repeatedly to mess with him, and they did this many more times. This appeared to at least somewhat

Daily Sports Editor

Daily Sports Writer

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

Senior forward Will Lockwood scored in the second period to make it 2-1.

attacks throughout the period. The minute they entered the offensive zone with the puck, the players were met with clashing sticks and poke checks, and simply gave the puck up. “We just did not create much pressure on them for the most part,” Pearson said. “This was the most shots we’ve given up in back-to-back games, I’m going to say since I’ve been the coach at Michigan. “Nobody wants to go forecheck, we’re looking around for somebody else to go forecheck or we just do one man and they just had two defensemen, they bump it to the other guy and then they’re out. We’ve just gotta look at that and do a better job.” The only real threat Michigan posed early was from the power play. To end the first period, sophomore forward Jimmy Lambert drew a power play after being checked in the back. The team didn’t see the result of the man-advantage until after the intermission, where it looked to rectify its poor start. And for a moment, it looked like it did. Senior forward Will Lockwood shot a wrister into the top-left shelf after freshman forward Emil Ohrwall drew the defense to him. He then dumped it off to a waiting Lockwood.

It was a moment of relief for a team that had failed to compile any complete offensive push to that point. “We got it to 2-1 as the second period started, and I thought we’d be fine,” Pearson said. The moment of relief was soon broken after senior forward Nick Pastujov committed an interference penalty. With the man advantage, Western Michigan shot the puck from the slot, having it ding off the right post before hitting the left and sliding in. “If you give them enough chances, if we get running around a little bit, they’re going to take advantage of that,” said senior defenseman Luke Martin. “The best penalty kill is no penalty kill. Stay out of the box. We need to do a better job than that and just limiting their chances off that.” It was warranted advice after another power-play goal, one scored in the dying seconds game to further cemented how insurmountable that early deficit was. “We’re gonna have to settle for some more simple plays,” Martin said. “And I think we did that as the game went on. But like I said, the start is everything.

rattle him, as later in the game he looked shaky when collecting a loose puck and nearly gave up an easy goal. Freshman defenseman Cam York was another victim, and he was constantly singled out when on the ice. When Michigan got called for penalties, students often yelled “cheater.” With the students seated directly behind the penalty box, some resorted to a more handson approach. They pried at the corner of the box, separating the sheets of glass mere millimeters because that was enough to send discouraging words. With this being the first road game of the season, it was the first time playing in such a hostile environment for some of the youngsters. “I think they handled it really well,” Martin said of the youth’s control of the atmosphere. “But I don’t think we did a good enough job as upperclassmen showing them what it takes to have a good start, and it starts in the locker room.” The Wolverines committed a season-high seven penalties against Western Michigan. Some of those were easily avoidable, such as when senior forward Will Lockwood got called for interference early in the final frame. Lockwood had been roughed up a bit near Michigan’s net, but there was no call. As the play went on, he skated into the neutral zone and elbowed a guy near the head. Penalties like that, potentially a result of the hostile

environment, made it hard for the Wolverines to come back. The intensity of the crowd created for an extra physical affair. It was the type of game where if you turned away for a second, you could look back to guys fallen down, loose helmets and scraps. The crowd even got Michigan coach Mel Pearson’s attention. As he walked back onto the ice following the first intermission the students started booing, so he looked right at them, pumped his fists emphatically and pointed to the ‘block M’ on his sweater. He then stepped onto Michigan’s bench and took a bow toward the student section. “It’s a great environment,” Pearson said. “I’m just trying to get them riled up a little bit. You could see they get going, and you want to play in this environment. I was just promoting Michigan to them.” It’s unclear whether the hostile environment was the root cause of the Wolverines’ difficulties. But the end result indicates atmosphere and context matter, and Michigan will need to grow accustomed to such places for better results. “It’s a good learning lesson for our team,” Pearson said. “What they need to do to prepare to play in a tough environment against a tough team against a good team and a physical game, we haven’t played in that kind of game like that yet all year, and it was on the edge of out of control, but you’re going to have to play in those games.”

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Michigan coach Mel Pearson did his part to rile up the opposing crowd.

‘M’ misses on upset of Minnesota

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Senior outside hitter Sydney Wetterstrom had two key kills in the fifth set to temporarily give Michigan an edge.

NICHOLAS STOLL Daily Sports Writer

Freshman middle blocker Jess Robinson goes up for the attack mirrored by two Gopher blockers. Her hand comes forward, delivering the attack. The ball collides with the defenders’ arms and falls to the floor — point, Minnesota. The Crisler Center is silent for the first time all night. The Gophers win. The Michigan women’s volleyball team (13-7 overall, 6-4 Big Ten) gave up a two-set lead to No. 7 Minnesota (153, 9-1) Friday night, losing the fifth set, 15-13. The close loss was a missed opportunity for Michigan in what would have been a statement win against a top 10 team as well as conference opponent. The match opened up in the Gophers’ favor, who had the lead for the initial part of the first set. Two kills by Robinson, assisted by senior setter Mackenzie Welsh, tied up the set for the Wolverines. Afterwards, both teams were locked in a back and forth battle until the end of the set, which included nine lead changes and eight ties. Michigan finished off the set, 25-23 with a memorable play — Wetterstrom laid out for a dig that Welsh set to Robinson, who delivered a

powerful kill in the back corner of the court. The Wolverines carried the momentum into the second set, trailing only once in the entire set. They showed control throughout, operating efficiently on offense. They found many kills off of assists by Welsh to sophomore outside hitter Paige Jones. At one point, Michigan was siding out at 68.8 percent. The Wolverines took the set, 25-23 and a comfortable 2-0 set lead going into the third set. The third and fourth sets painted a different story. Minnesota came out more aggressively and successfully contained Wetterstrom and Jones. The Gophers increased their serving intensity, keeping the Wolverine setter on the run. This changed the offensive dynamic, causing the team to struggle with their passes and become predictable. “Our passing numbers went down, their blocking numbers went up, and those two things are tied together,” said Michigan coach Mark Rosen. “We lost a lot of the balance to our offense in the third and the fourth set.” Other Michigan struggles could be attributed to the physicality and athleticism of the opposition, with Minnesota outside hitter Alexis Hart at the forefront. Hart finished Friday’s

matchup with 20 kills and a .378 hit percentage. “She was going over the block a lot of time,” Rosen said. “It creates a different dynamic.” The Wolverines, unable to contain Hart’s attack, dropped the third and fourth sets, 21-25 and 18-25, respectively. The fifth set started off evenly, each team responding to the other’s intensity. Michigan went into the side switch leading, 8-5, after two Wetterstrom kills. Minnesota responded by winning six straight points and taking the lead, 11-8. The Wolverines fought their way back to a 12-12 tie after a blistering kill by Jones. Hart responded with her own attack, putting the Gophers up one. Jones countered with a block to tie the set up again at 13-13. A mishandled ball by Michigan dropped to the court. Match point, Minnesota. The Gophers took the set, 15-13, after Robinson was blocked, completing the reverse sweep. “In the fifth set, there was little swings in momentum on both teams,” Rosen said. “It was a two point game in the end.” The close loss visibly hurt the Wolverines. They walked off the court into the tunnel with their heads down, having to prepare for a bout against No. 6 Wisconsin in just two days.