Michigan's Trey Burke eager for trip home to Columbus

Sunday will be a weird homecoming for Michigan freshman Trey Burke.

The Wolverines travel to Columbus to face No. 4 Ohio State in a Big Ten showdown for first place in the conference and Burke, a Columbus native, gets his first shot at the Buckeyes. It's a tall order for No. 20 Michigan, which has lost five straight to Ohio State and has won just twice in the last 16 meetings. The Wolverines' last win at Columbus was Jan. 15, 2003, when most of the current roster was in elementary school.

But Burke, who was anointed the starting point guard in his first season after Darius Morris' abrupt departure to the NBA last season, has fit well into Michigan's lineup, averaging 14.1 points and 5.0 assists. He sees the matchup as an opportunity for the Wolverines to get a statement win and downplays the one-on-one matchups against former high school teammate Jared Sullinger and guard Aaron Craft, who has become one of the best guards in the conference.

"It's a game I'm definitely looking forward to — we're tied for first at the top of the conference so it would definitely be a big win," Burke said on a conference call this week.

Although they've been friends since fourth grade, it's the first time that Burke will get to face Sullinger. Burke estimates they played together "probably over a thousand times" as teammates at Northland High School and in the summer AAU season.

"It definitely won't be weird; it's going to be great playing against him. He going to want to win so bad and I'm going to want to win so bad," Burke said. "It's not a one-on-one thing — I'm not going to go into it thinking it's me against Craft or me against Jared."

Burke knows the crowd will be against U-M, but thinks there will be a few supporters among the expected sellout crowd.

"Just to have the opportunity to go back home and play in Columbus in front of a lot of my supporters is big," Burke said. "I know it's going to be people there that want to see me win and people that want to see me do (well) but lose. I know the student section is going to be against all of us — that's how it always is."

Burke says he never really had the chance to follow Sullinger to Ohio State; part of the reason is that Burke made a verbal commitment to Penn State during his sophomore year, which cooled many coaches, including Ohio State's Thad Matta, on his recruiting. Burke decommitted from Penn State and decided on U-M in his senior year.

"I committed to Penn State early but I did want to go to Ohio State — it was my hometown school," Burke said. "It was the beginning of my high school career and Jared committed there and it pulled me toward them and I started to like them more and more.

"(Ohio State wasn't) really recruiting me (much)…. They never really forced the issue to recruit me or offer me a scholarship. He kinda knew who he wanted at the point guard and Craft already committed there."

From Matta's view, everything has worked for all parties involved.

"Trey is having a phenomenal season," Matta said this week. "He's obviously a terrific player and (Michigan) coach (John) Beilein has done a great job getting him into the system they play, and it's exciting to see him play so well."

Now that he's made his roots in Ann Arbor, Burke isn't second-guessing Matta and is happy with the way things turned out.

"He was just recruiting other players and I knew he wasn't interested in me as much as I wanted them to be," Burke said. "Once I got to Michigan, I knew this was the best decision for me and the best place for me to be, so I took it and I knew I had a chance to play against them."

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