Jonathan Epstein
Kelvin Grady, G, MICHIGAN
Grady, standing at a generous 5-11, arrived to Ann Arbor as a highly recruited point guard out of East Grand Rapids High School. His brother, Kevin, also very highly recruited but in football, is a senior running back for Rich Rodriguez on the football team. Grady’s first year under Coach Beilein was a wild roller coaster ride that left the fan-base of Michigan basketball intrigued, perplexed, and eventually disappointed. It all started when the Wolverines traveled to Washington for a game against the highly ranked Georgetown Hoyas in just the third game of last year. Grady started. He scored. He passed. He broke presses. All this and he was just a freshman. Michigan lost the game by 22 points, but we fans didn’t care.
We saw something special in our new freshman point guard. Fast forward several weeks to January 2nd, when the Wolverines played host to the then number 5 ranked team in the country, the Wisconsin Badgers, who knew that would be the last game for the next several games that Grady would start.
Michigan fans were amazed when walk-on C.J. Lee, an energetic and feisty point guard, was the starter when the Wolverines played Purdue on January 5th. When the Wolverines were already 4-10, why would the superbly more talented freshman get moved to the bench? Shouldn’t we be developing him so we get better in the future?
Many wondered why Beilein decided to bench Grady. Fans and media couldn’t see into the head of one of college basketball’s most intelligent minds. It became known, through interviews, pressers and word of mouth, that Grady just simply “didn’t get it.” He had the ball handling skills, vision and jump-shot. The problem is, those are all the attributes that fans can see from the exterior; yet we had no idea what Grady was like as a motivator- which is an important job for a point guard- or as a leader. With many fans still being unfamiliar with Beilein’s offense at the time, we also didn’t know if Grady was running the plays right, or taking shots at the right time. But soon, we would come to find out , his benching was precisely because he wasn’t leading, or motivating, nor taking the right shots. The rest of the year Grady seemed to have lost it. Perhaps it was because when Beilein sat him on the bench that day in West Lafayette, Grady lived up to his reputation and couldn’t handle it. His season didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to, much like Michigan’s, and what Grady did in the off-season seemed to be the model for his teammates. Work hard, listen, get better.
Fast forward to January of 2009. Now, Kelvin Grady is once again a starter. He didn’t start the year in this position however; he was only named the starter once senior guard David Meritt was sidelined due to illness. Grady has played with a swagger this year, and has garnered attention from the national media with several games on national television. In particular, the Wolverines victory against Duke early in the season saw Grady weaving in and out of defenders, breaking presses, setting up teammates, pushing the ball in transition, and scoring. He finished the game with 9 points and 4 assists, hardly a flashy stat-line. But then again, flashy is not what Beilein’s offense is about. It’s about ‘getting it.’ It’s about making cuts, playing tough, and playing smart. Grady is catching on. His teammates are also catching on. Michigan is 13-3 overall this year, and they are ranked in the top 25. Grady’s progress is a big part of the team’s improvement. You see him talking to his teammates more, and you don’t see his confidence go up and down as it did last year when Beilein first sat him on the bench. The team plays gritty. So much so that Beilein believes it can be a staple for his team. He wants them to be known as the team that out-works you. Grady wants the team to listen and look up to him, as they do Beilein, “I’ve got to be another him out there, to work in different situations without looking over to him, to just be able to play and flow.” Well guess what Kelvin? You have become another him out there.
