Gabriel Richard's Eso Akunne, who recently eclipsed 1,000 career points, is averaging 19.9 points per game. Sophomore Josh Herbeck is next at 17.3. Quarterfinal opponent Melvindale Academy for Business & Technology returns four of five starters from last season.

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

Eso Akunne would sit in the Crisler Arena team room or locker room, student managers keeping him from solitude. His teammates, the guys he saw every day, sweated with every practice, were on television.

He could only watch them lose throughout the second half of last season.

He had himself to blame. He had worked his way into Michigan coach John Beilein’s rotation as a freshman, playing 17 minutes at Utah on Dec. 9 before academic ineligibility sidelined him.

Less than five months after the Ann Arbor native who attended Gabriel Richard High School earned a scholarship in his first year at his hometown school, he couldn’t do anything with it but study and practice.

“When I knew I couldn’t play anymore, that’s been the toughest year of my life, really,” Akunne says now, practicing with Michigan as the team prepares for its preseason trip to Europe, which starts Aug. 20.

He took a demanding schedule, including Calculus 1, his first semester of college. His grade in the class, he said, had been inconsistent. Then three days before it was announced publicly, Akunne found out his freshman year was done just as it began to get started.

When it did become public, he had 30 missed calls, all from people he grew up with, asking ‘What happened?’

“I didn’t know my grade,” Akunne said. “…It was completely my fault, it wasn’t my teacher’s fault. So I didn’t understand because by the time I knew what my actual grade was, it was too late to change classes, so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

The time away, in an odd way, had its positives.

Still allowed to practice and fully on the scout team, he watched tape for hours, breaking down every play Michigan ran. He’d watch extra film his father, Hy, would tape at home and then break it down more.

Even in the offseason, he’d rewatch games to try and understand things more. If he had to sit out, he might as well learn everything he could.

Watching in person was the worst, though. He still vividly remembers the Michigan locker room after its 57-56 loss to Michigan State at Crisler Arena. He still has his ticket stub from the Michigan loss at Michigan State in the regular-season finale, a game Michigan was blown out of as he looked on from the Michigan section of the Breslin Center.

“We got plastered when we went up there,” Akunne said. “So it motivates us every day. It was some of the worst times ever, and we know we can’t go through that again.”

Akunne, who was recruited as a walk-on and, after one year on scholarship, is a walk-on again entering the 2010-11 season, hopes to help.

He spent three to four hours working out with teammates Corey Person and Jordan Morgan every day during the summer. He also focused on his grades, and said he earned over a 3.0 grade point average the past two semesters.

All of the work has led to this point for the 6-foot-3 guard. Beilein considers him a candidate to be in the Wolverines rotation in the fall. With Michigan searching for a backup point guard behind sophomore Darius Morris, it is easy to see Akunne sliding into that role.

“He’s got some point-guard vision, he’s more of a big-guard body, but especially over there (in Europe), with the 24-second clock, he’s going to be playing,” Beilein said. “With those, (Zack) Novak will move back there a little bit, he’ll be there.”

Even if it is a little later than he would have envisioned, the semester of sitting helped him grow up.

“That tough year made me a stronger person,” Akunne said. “So I can face any adversity, whether it is on the court, or in practice, or off the court.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein