Like the Fire Swamp in the movie "The Princess Bride," the low post in Big Ten basketball is a place fraught with peril. Deadly elbows, fiery personalities and Students Of Unusual Size threaten all who dare enter.
The meek might inherit the earth, but the low post is best left to those brash enough to laugh out loud in the face of danger.
But if Peter Vignier has laughed in danger's face this season, nobody heard it. You could say his success has come in a vacuum, but black hole would be more like it. Which is fitting for tonight's opponent - no team in the Big Ten has collapsed on itself more since last season than Illinois.
"I think there's plenty of post players that play just fine," Vignier said. "They're not loud, they're not running up and down the court ... dancing."
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| Michigan center Peter Vignier and forward Chris Young battle under the boards. Rebounding has been Vignier's forte this season, averaging 7.9 per game.
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His game may not have the flash of Josh Asselin's.
"He's definitely a more reserved and quiet type of guy," Vignier's teammate, senior guard Robbie Reid said.
He might not make the splash that Louis Bullock does from behind the 3-point line. But quietly, he's been cash. He's fifth in the Big Ten with 7.9 rebounds a game; his 3.45 offensive rpg is currently second in the Big Ten. But more importantly, he's gone from the end of the bench to the starting lineup and helped stabilize what was a shaky frontcourt at the start of the season.
Asselin show-dunked his way to three straight career highs last week, and into the corner of the media spotlight not taken up by Bullock and Reid. His three straight career-highs in scoring led the way for Michigan's young frontcourt. Even though Michigan dropped its last two games to Purdue and Minnesota, every member of the frontcourt has been gaining confidence.
"Especially Pete," freshman forward Chris Young said. "His confidence is incredible now."
Wait a minute. Vignier? And he's playing well?
Inconceivable!
At least that's what most would have thought before this season.
His coach, Brian Ellerbe, said that Vignier "got a raw deal" from the media last season.
He may not have Traylor's touch (for a big man) from outside, or the Tractor's rim-bending bulk.
"At the beginning of the season, he was kinda like, 'OK, I think I can do it,'" Young said. "But now he's like, he gets the ball and he's going to the basket."
Against Minnesota last week, Vignier owned the low post in the first half. He would catch a pass, dribble once, and loft up a jump hook that found teine every time.
In another game, against Michigan State on Jan. 9, he allowed two passes to bounce off his hands and out of bounds. Before, he might have let that rattle him. But against the Gophers, when the ball squirted out of his hands as he rose up for another jump hook against the Golden Gophers, he calmly collected the errant ball and sank the shot.
Loud or not, that's the kind of confidence that makes for presence in the post.
"When he gets the ball in the post, he just takes that one little dribble and goes up and shoots his jump hook," Young said. "He doesn't even think about it.
"If you think about kicking it back out or anything, they'll just double-team or triple team you," Young said.
As Tom Cruise's character, Maverick, in "Top Gun" would have put it had he been a center in the Big Ten instead of a fighter pilot in the Navy: There's no time to think in the low post. if you think, you're dead.
The post, like any dangerous place, demands presence, confidence, most of all from it's challengers. The kind of people who "just go up and down the court and play and they can help their teammates out"
The kind of people like Vignier.
DAVID ROCHKIND/Daily
01-28-99
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