Simpson, Teske Reflect on Each Other, Growth, Journey Before Senior Night
3/4/2020 2:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Features
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Quality seniors are a rare commodity these days in college basketball, but the University of Michigan has three of them in point guard Zavier Simpson and centers Jon Teske and Austin Davis.
However, prior to Tuesday's (March 3) practice here, Wolverine head coach Juwan Howard invited Davis back for 2020-21 as a fifth-year senior. The framed jersey he was to receive at Thursday night's home finale with Nebraska will need to be stored for another year.
The celebration at Crisler Center will be for one of the best point guards and one of the top shot-blockers Michigan has ever had. And it will be a salute to a duo that's won more games -- 107 and counting -- than anyone else in 103 years of program history.
"That means a lot to me," said Simpson. "I'm still embracing every single day. I'm pretty sure that a decade or a half-decade from now, I'll look back and give myself a pat on the back. But it's kind of hard because life is moving fast right now. Big Ten Tournament's coming up. NCAA Tournament's coming up. I want to win another Big Ten Tournament championship so bad."
Teske said of the victories record: "It's special, and it's special to share that with 'X' (Simpson's nickname since he spelled his first name "Xavier" upon entering Michigan). To have that together is just a testament to what we do on and off the court, and to Coach B (John Beilein) and his staff, and now Coach Howard and his staff. That winning tradition we have is the best. We come every day to every practice and every game ready to play.
"And that's what we do, we win."
Teske played sparingly in 2016-17 -- the season when victories began flowing in abundance once again for the program with a 26-12 showing.
Simpson spent that entire freshman season under the wing of Derrick Walton Jr., and with a limited playing role, learned his lessons well from the fiery leader, becoming one himself.
But that path to leadership didn't come easily.
"Building relationships is something I prayed about after my freshman year," said Simpson, who went from averaging 27.2 points as Ohio's Mr. Basketball to 1.6 as a freshman. "I didn't have good relationships my freshman year, but I wanted to come back here and leave a good legacy in that way with all my coaches and teammates.
"I needed to be more outward, definitely. But it was more about respect. I came in my freshman year, and I was so frustrated because I wasn't playing. I had a lot of anger inside. But at the same time, I had to mature. I've done that, but I'm still maturing today. That's what life is about: learning, living and maintaining, maturing."
Teske, asked Tuesday what he values most about Simpson, said, "His leadership skills and how he presents himself on and off the court. You see him on TV, yelling and screaming at us. But we believe in him and he cares about us.
"Yesterday, he got us together for breakfast to talk about things other than basketball, and it doesn't matter with him whether you are the first or 15th guy on the team. We sat around for an hour, eating, talking and joking around. After a tough loss, nobody was talking about that. We were just having fun together."
Simpson said something was missing during the 77-63 loss to the Buckeyes.
"I just felt like it was a different feel at Ohio State," he said. "I didn't like it, obviously. I'm very angry when we lose -- especially with how we lose sometimes. Now, we can't win the Big Ten (regular-season) championship and have to put that aside. We have to finish out Thursday night for our crowd.
"That's the least we can do, finish out on a positive note and give them something to remember. Then we go on the road to Maryland, to play the Big Ten leader. We've got to finish out by going 2-0 in these games with the habits and culture Juwan and the coaches started here from day one.
"Then we'll focus on the tournament run, which pretty much anyone can win. It's wide open."
Their first three teams each reached both the Big Ten Tournament championship game (winning twice) and the NCAA Sweet 16 (only Gonzaga, Kentucky and Purdue match Michigan there). They played in two Final Four games as sophomores, beating Loyola-Chicago and losing the title to Villanova to finish 33-8, setting a school single-season wins record. They were 30-7 as juniors and are 18-11 as seniors.
It all began with that crazy freshman season. They joined other teammates in surviving a crash at Willow Run Airport, running out of an emergency door opened by Walton onto the wing of the plane before jumping from it and running to sure safety. Four games and four wins later in the four days that followed, they were part of a very improbable Big Ten Championship team in Washington, D.C.
Simpson and Teske arrived as formidable players one year later in leading the Wolverines to another conference tourney title at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Teske came off the bench to score 14 points in the championship game, and laid down a monster dunk on 7-foot-2 Purdue center Isaac Haas. Simpson shoved Teske in the chest, screaming encouragement while Teske shouted for joy, and afterward Simpson could not stop talking about his classmate.
"I was so proud of Jon," said Simpson. "That was a time when I established myself as the starter, but it was a big moment for Jon, too. Jon was well prepared for that game and kind of put his name on the map. We had Moe Wagner, who got drafted in the first round by the Los Angeles Lakers, but we had another center from Medina, Ohio, who had been working every single day and was ready."
Teske, after that 75-66 triumph over the Boilermakers, climbed the ladder beneath the net with a pair of scissors as fans chanted: "TESS-KEE! TESS-KEE! TESS-KEE!"
I asked that day if he ever in his wildest dreams imagined a moment like that, with fans chanting his last name at such a storied arena?
"Nahhh," Teske said, shaking his head and smiling. "I never would've thought that would've happened here today. It's amazing."
Two years later, on an afternoon after practice, Teske said, "I saw the replays and me expressing myself after that dunk, going crazy. Everything changed from there on. It gave my confidence a real shot. I always knew I could do that. I did that in high school, but now I was doing it in college as well.
"That was my favorite moment here, winning that Big Ten championship our sophomore years. But, really, every win is special because they don't come easy."
They've sung "The Victors" 107 times in triumph in postgame locker room celebrations.
"I know the words for sure," said Teske, beaming.
Teske's dunk over Haas led to a celebratory shove from Simpson
Simpson won Ohio's Mr. Basketball award in 2016, while Teske was a finalist, having scored 1,130 points in his Medina High career. Simpson played for his father at Lima Senior High after Dad got that job going into his junior season. They reached the state championship game together when Zavier was a senior. Add his two years at Lima Central Catholic and his point total was 1,986.
The honors have continued coming for them at Michigan.
Teske was the Battle 4 Atlantis MVP in leading the Wolverines to a surprising tourney win in the Bahamas after beating Gonzaga, North Carolina and Iowa State.
He scored 19 with four blocked shots and a career-high 15 rebounds against a formidable Gonzaga front line to earn the trophy that now rests on the bedroom window sill of the place he shares with teammate Luke Wilson and head team manager Luke Testani.
Teske was All-Big Ten honorable mention in 2019, when he also won the team's Rudy Tomjanovich Most Improved Player and Loy Vaught Rebounding awards. Teske is averaging a career-high 11.7 points with 6.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks as a senior, and teammates voted him and Simpson co-captains.
"I like Jon's leadership by example," said Simpson. "He's a smart player, but he's a jokester, too. A lot of people see Jon as a quiet guy. But he makes a lot of jokes off the court, keeping people happy.
"He's a practical joker. He'll trip you some way or he'll tap you on one shoulder from behind and pass you on the other side."
Nicknamed "Big Sleep" and "Big Nasty," at 7-foot-1 and 265 pounds, Teske made his mark with 162 career blocked shots, moving into fifth place in school history and trailing only Roy Tarpley (251), Courtney Sims (213), Chris Webber (175) and Eric Riley (168).
"It's something special," said Teske. "I've always prided myself in protecting the rim and blocking shots. I'm not the most athletic, but I time shots, and being tall helps. I take the right angle and try to be more aggressive defensively without fouling. Whether you block the shot or not, you want to get into the heads of those guys when they're going downhill.
"It goes back to my dad and grandpa teaching me basketball. I have a high IQ (as a result) and my family has always been around basketball. You've got to know your opponents and how you can play on one of their sides. Film study is another key component."
Simpson has 651 assists, ranking second to All-American Gary Grant (731, 1985-88) in that department.
"I just want to play the hardest I can," said Simpson, who will break former teammate Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman's school record for career games against the Cornhuskers in game No. 145. "I want to play as smart as I can, and make sure my team is playing together.
"Those are the three keys I bring, and they go a long way. I make sure everything I do, I do hard, to the extreme. But I make sure I'm working smart as well."
Last season, Simpson (6-foot, 190 pounds) was an All-Big Ten first team pick by the Associated Press as well as making the Big Ten's all-defensive and all-tournament teams. He also was Michigan's MVP and team captain for the first time.
"Being Big Ten first team was big," said Simpson, who added that he was deserving of the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Award that went elsewhere. "That was pretty special."
Simpson is averaging career-highs with 13.0 points and 7.9 assists (second in the nation) with 4.5 rebounds as a senior.
He's 33 rebounds away from becoming the first Wolverine to score 1,000 (1,049 and counting) with 500 assists (651) and 500 rebounds (467).
Simpson's parents, Bobbie Carter and Quincey Simpson, will be there for the postgame celebration along with Julie and Ben Teske.
It could get quite emotional. Four years together is a long time in big-time college basketball, with a flood of memories coming at them and the spotlight beaming down.
"This is kind of crazy," said Teske. "It feels just like yesterday that I walked in here with 'X', and now we're playing our last game at Crisler. I don't know what to think right now. It's all kind of hitting me this week. There have been lots of ups and downs in four years, but I wouldn't change it for anything."
Simpson said, "Honestly, I've come a long way to be in the position I'm in now for my family, teammates and friends. And I'm blessed to be on this team, and to have learned how to build relationships with my coaches and teammates."
He recited the names of both head coaches and every assistant coach he's had at Michigan -- as well as the entire current support staff.
"And Coach Jay (Smith, director of player personnel and development) has played a big part -- a very, very big part in my last season. (Video analyst) Dave Metzendorf has played a big part as well. They've all developed my ability to build relationships, and when I go down to the coaches' offices, I feel I have great relationships with everyone now."
He's become such a great leader that Howard often refers to Simpson as "my Tom Brady".
Simpson and Teske will take one last bow at Crisler, receive framed jerseys, wave to the Maize and Blue faithful, and walk off the home court as the biggest winners the program has ever had.
"It's been a great ride," said Teske, "and I'm looking forward to continuing that ride."
