Fire and Ice: Michigan duo of Burke, Hardaway Jr. form top backcourt

• Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. average average 33.8 points%2C making up for 44 %25 of Michigan%27s scoring
• Michigan State%27s Derrick Nix says they%27re %27the best backcourt in the country%27
• The Wolverines are hoping to ride Burke and Hardaway Jr.%27s chemistry to a deep NCAA run

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When Trey Burke was in high school, he once asked his coach to take one of his friends, a teammate, out of the game; the friend wasn't playing hard enough for Burke. Earlier this season, Burke showed up to a team media availability annoyed that he'd just lost to freshman Caris LeVert one-on-one. He left the room to take care of unfinished business. He beat LeVert in round two.

Tim Hardaway Jr. grew up a self-proclaimed perfectionist, wanting to be the best at everything he did and getting frustrated when he wasn't, whether it was jumping the highest into swimming pool or riding his bike the fastest. His dad, a five-time NBA All-Star, said he never let him win when they played, making the sting of losing last longer.

But their similarly intense competitiveness is by far their most common trait. In reality, Michigan's success in men's basketball is the result of an unlikely combination of chemistry. Mix the two together, and you get a national championship contender — or least that's what the Wolverines are hoping for from Hardaway Jr. and Burke, the best backcourt in the nation.

"Tim's fire, and Trey's ice," Michigan assistant coach Jeff Meyer said. "Different personalities … but they have great passion for the game of basketball but they also have what I think is really special — a drive to win, a will to win, that you don't see in all the kids you recruit."

Plenty of college basketball stars are cloaked in the category of competitive, but this Wolverine coaching staff believes it has something special in these two players — one who is calm, quiet and poised, one who gets who fired up easily, but neither of whom ever take a drill off for fear of losing.

Meyer likes to tell Michigan coach John Beilein they "caught lightning in a bottle" with Burke and Hardaway. These kinds of players — overlooked during their high school years, underrated by recruiting services and addicted to winning — don't normally fall into your lap and blossom into all-Big Ten-caliber stars.

"People didn't really expect anything from us," Hardaway Jr. said. "Both of us tried to go out there and prove a lot of people wrong."

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Hardaway shined as a freshman two seasons ago, and Burke put up big numbers his debut season last year. Expectations for the pair rose entering this season, and with some effort, each learned how to maximize his potential by playing with the other.

Burke and Hardaway average 33.8 points (43.5% of Michigan's offense), and their assist-to-turnover ratio as a unit is 2.42, the best marks for any backcourt of a top 25 team.

"I don't get to coach the other teams," Beilein said. "There are some really good backcourts I'm sure, and I'm sure there are ones that will challenge them. But in my mind, it's a dream backcourt.

"You have the guy with the skill level of Trey Burke and a rangy two, who rebounds, guards, shoots threes and can get his own shot."

They even get an endorsement from Wolverines' biggest rival. "Besides us, I think they're the best backcourt in the country," Michigan State forward Derrick Nix said.

***

What looks easy now — the on-court chemistry, the perfectly timed passes, the transition buckets — took time and effort to achieve. Burke and Hardaway spent a good portion of the 2011-12 season learning how to play with one another. That's not as easy as it sounds.

"As a point guard and a (two-) guard, you have to be in tune with each other all the time," Tim Hardaway Sr. said. "The two-guard thing, it's a rhythm thing. If the two-guard is not in rhythm, then when you pass it to him then it's hard for him to shoot."

By the end of the 2010-11 season, Hardaway already had been in Ann Arbor for a year, and he'd developed a solid relationship with point guard Darius Morris, who then left early for the NBA. Morris knew what worked for his two-guard and where Hardaway liked the ball best, skills gleaned from games and countless hours of practice.

Hardaway and Burke had to start fresh and build their relationship from scratch. There were times they'd seem out of sync on the court, two players with game-takeover talent jostling for baskets.

"You could definitely see on the court sometimes, I'd want to push the ball up the court. He'd be in the middle and I'd try to push it up anyway and make a decision myself," Hardaway said. "It was hard."

Entering last season, Hardaway had established himself as the team's go-to guy, and he was Michigan's leading returning scorer. Add in a new ingredient — a freshman point guard — and everyone had to recalibrate.

"You've got a team and a freshman comes in and plays as well as Trey did, you tend to kind of put your guard up," said Benji Burke, Trey's father. "You're the guy on the team. We've always said this is Tim's team; that's how we feel. When Trey came in and did what he did, once (he) accepted him, that's when chemistry really started picking up."

Hardaway's father, Tim Sr., said he thinks the relationship improved as Burke began focusing on getting other teammates more involved in the offense. Tim Sr. pointed to Burke's performance against North Carolina State this past November, where he had nine assists in the first half and no points until the second half, where Burke took over and scored 18. He got everyone going, then he himself began scoring at will.

Burke knows he has weapons around him, including Hardaway. Their on-court chemistry, improving day-by-day as they spent time together, was boosted by off-court time together. The two guards bonded over summer workouts, elite camps and meals.

They built trust.

"We were comfortable around each other last year, but it allowed us to become closer friends this past summer," Burke said. "Not being around the team all the time or the coaching staff, we got to know each other at a high level, which led to comfort on the court."

A year earlier, they hadn't had time to do that. Hardaway traveled with the U.S. under-19 team; Burke didn't really start to play with Hardaway until the team's preseason practices began. This fall, thanks to the camps and new practice rules that allowed teams to work out over the summer, Burke and Hardaway's relationship had reached a new level even before the team's first game.

Now, both players see if they play well together, their team can be among the best in the nation, helping the program reach levels it hasn't seen since the Fab Five days and increasing their NBA draft stock.

"Maturity — in both of them," Benji Burke said. "They understand that together, they'll have greater success than them playing as individuals. The team will have success, and they both bought into that and bought into Beilein's system. It's beautiful when you see them playing together and they're both clicking."

***

Leadership is a funny thing; it's something that can be learned, but some people naturally grasp it better than others. As Michigan went through its renaissance — to use Beilein's descriptor — two sets of leaders stood out: David Merritt and C.J. Lee (on Beilein's first teams), and Zack Novak and Stu Douglass (the past few seasons). Both pairs understood the precious balance between showing heart and staying calm under pressure. They knew which buttons to push on which teammates to get their squad going.

And then, last spring, Novak and Douglass graduated, and with them went their leadership. Months later, five freshmen joined the roster.

"That was a huge concern heading into this year, a huge concern," said Beilein, adding that senior walk-on Josh Bartlestein is the team's official captain. "But there's no question that the captains on the floor that are playing are Tim and Trey. We have tremendous young talent, but it is young. It is growing every day.

"There's got to be some foundation while the (young guys) go through the ups and downs of college basketball, and those two have been rock-solid."

Last summer, Burke and Hardaway went through a sort of leadership boot camp. They, along with other returning players, were given books about successful and effective leadership styles. Both Burke and Hardaway relied on what they'd seen from Novak and conversations they'd had with him; his two main pieces of advice were to figure out how to reach each individual teammate best, and to be consistent as a leader. As Lee put it, to be successful you have to act the same during individual success and failure.

"They had a lot of similar internal qualities, but Tim is much more of a vocal, off-the-court personality by nature than Trey," Meyer said. "But once you get in a competitive environment with Trey, he has one thing and one thing only, and that is 'How are we going to win this game?' He becomes very vocal in a competitive arena. You kind of knew that going into the equation.

"Together, you could have maybe a locker room voice with Tim and when you get to the game, you know Trey's going to say what he needs to to help our guys."

Burke and Hardaway have each learned that leadership also involves being the cool, collected voice of reason. Burke has been that way all his life, his calm, patient side drawn from his father to go along with the fierce competitiveness from his mother. The most common praise of Burke's freshman season was that he "never played like a freshman," showing poise in high-pressure late-game scenarios. His goal entering this season was to speak up more, add a bit of fire to his repertoire.

Hardaway had to do just the opposite. He needed to cool down and set a different tone for himself and his teammates. In past seasons, Hardaway admits, he'd get down on himself if shots weren't falling, if expectations weren't matching the preparation he was putting in. Miss a few shots, and he'd press and force others.

Now, Hardaway realizes "every game won't be perfection," that "the game is played with mistakes."

"He wants to do it, and he wants to do it right," Michigan assistant coach LaVall Jordan said. "We love that. He prepares as well as anybody I've ever coached. He's in the gym. He's in. He prepares like a pro. It bothers him when he doesn't do well. He wants to do it right for his teammates and himself. He's grown when it doesn't go well or exactly perfect, or when something doesn't happen our way. You see a more mature Tim Hardaway (now)."

Bartlestein, who is Hardaway's roommate in addition to being his teammate, said he's spoken with Hardaway a lot over the years about mental toughness. "I think that's the biggest thing I've talked to him about, more than anything — trying to move on," Bartlestein said. "Always having that green-light approach. Next play. Air ball, turnover, who cares? Just play defense.

"It's something we've talked about for a couple of years, but this year he's had unbelievable growth in it," Bartlestein added. "It's something that hasn't been easy. It's hard to break a (nearly) 21-year-old habit."

A more mature Hardaway has given Michigan a big boost this season, particularly with the game on the line in Big Ten play. He hit what would have been the winning basket at Wisconsin, which was topped only by a near-halfcourt buzzer-beater. Hardaway also single-handedly kept the Wolverines in their home game against Ohio State, hitting five 3-pointers in the second half alone. And he doesn't get rattled like he used to, even after a 1-for-11 shooting performance at Michigan State. He is calmer and cooler now, taking on parts of Burke's character, just as Burke has become more fiery in late-game huddles.

"You've got to set an example for the young guys," Tim Hardaway Sr. said. "You've got to get them mentally prepared. You've got to get them physically prepared. You've got to make sure that they understand what they need to do out there on the basketball court. You can't have a hot head while telling them that. You've got to have a calm, smooth and easy head while telling them what to do. That's what he's doing.

"Both guys lead in different ways, but both guys can lead."