When the Michigan men’s basketball team kicked off its practice last week, coach Tommy Amaker said that every position was up for grabs except senior captain LaVell Blanchard’s power forward position. That leaves many people around the team looking very closely at the heated competition for the center position.
With freshman Amadou Ba out for the season as a partial qualifier and transfer J.C. Mathis forced to sit out by NCAA rules, freshmen Graham Brown and Chris Hunter are left fighting for the post spot. The two bring contrasting styles of play to the position and are going to be mixed and matched throughout the season.
The competition is also helping the two players adjust to the college game and get a better grasp on what is expected of them.
“The competition (with Hunter) is very good,” Brown said. “It is good to have another guy his size out there and have another guy who is the size of a Big Ten player. You need competition to be good and I think we have it. We have to work even harder to earn our spot.”
Michigan’s third option at the position, though undersized at 6-foot-7 is Chuck Bailey. The sophomore is Michigan’s only option with any college experience, and appeared promising last year but he played fewer than 14 minutes a game last year, scoring 3.8 points and grabbing 3 rebounds per game.
All of these players will be looking to fill the shoes of departed senior Chris Young (11.4 ppg and rpg). Young, who averaged more than 30 minutes per game, was the only Wolverine to start in all 29 contests last year. Young was Michigan’s dominant force in the post, and he left big shoes to fill.
At 6-foot-9, 245-pounds, Brown is nearly identical in body size to Young and likes to bang in the post just as much. But having come from a high school of less than 300 students, his experience against players his size is limited. In addition to dealing with the new level of competition, he must also learn to grasp Amaker’s system.
But many of the coaches and veteran players feel that Brown and his classmates are doing a superb job of making the needed adjustments.
“I think the freshmen have handled this first week of college basketball really well,” Mathis said. “They have grasped all of the complex concepts that coach Amaker has thrown at them so far.”
Meanwhile, Hunter has been banged up during his first week of practice and is yet to compete at full strength due to nagging injuries to his ankle, knee and foot. Due to the recurring ailments, he has missed portions of every practice.
His luck did not improve on Friday, when, while trying to take a charge, Brown landed on Hunter’s ankle causing him to sprain it and sit out for the rest of practice. Though Hunter said he should be fine in another few days, these injuries have impeded Amaker’s ability to evaluate Hunter and the center rotation.
“Hunter needs to be a guy that we can see out there on the floor a few days straight, to be able to evaluate things,” Amaker said. “He is a pretty talented player but we need him on the floor to see how things are going to progress with different combinations.”
Once Amaker is able to make those evaluations, he will have a better grasp of his lineup and will be one step closer to surrounding Blanchard with the talent he needs to win.