Michigan emphasizing accountability to turn its season around

As Michigan sets out to steer its season back on track, the hard part is already done. It bounced back from its stunning loss to lowly Central Michigan, routing Maryland in its best performance of the season. 

Now comes the harder part — maintaining that level of play in a Big Ten gauntlet.

“There’s no way to bottle that type of energy from a game-to-game basis,” Hunter Dickinson said Tuesday. “It’s just a daily mirror check. You gotta look yourself in the mirror: ‘Yo, I gotta bring it this game, I gotta go out there and do all the things that the coaches are telling me, that my role is requiring of me.’ I gotta commit to being great every play, rather than trying to continue success.” 

The idea that a performance can be replicated, Dickinson said, is often misconstrued. Rather, the process starts in other settings — in practice, in the weight room, in the locker room — where habits are formed. That process, he says, is still ongoing. 

“I don’t think we have the habits yet, we’ve shown flashes,” Dickinson said. “… If we do the habits that we’ve been trying to build since we got here in July, that stuff works. We just gotta commit fully to doing it every time, all the time.”