To understand Michigan guard Derrick Walton Jr., look at his cell phone

A cell phone can reveal a lot about a person.

What pictures do you carry around? What is in your text messages? How about your call history?

A cell phone can tie together an entire life story.

That's what it does for Michigan point guard Derrick Walton Jr.

His cell phone reveals everything about how he is approaching this month's NCAA tournament.

A couple months ago, Walton changed his cellphone's background wallpaper to a picture of Kemba Walker, the Charlotte Bobcats point guard who led UConn to the 2011 NCAA championship.

How fitting, right? Walker carried his team in 2011, practically willing the Huskies to victory.

It's the same thing Walton is trying to do at Michigan, which will open play in the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis on Friday against Oklahoma State (12:15 p.m., CBS).

“He’s one of my favorite players,” Walton said. “I just admire his playing style. I think he’s a hard working guy. What he was able to do at Connecticut was special.”

In 2011, UConn finished ninth in the Big East Conference before Walker led the Huskies to an improbable conference tournament title by winning five straight games in five days, the springboard to the national title. All told, it was a magical, thrilling, unbelievable run.

Michigan has started on a similar path. U-M had the eighth seed in the Big Ten tournament last week when Walton led it to a magical, thrilling, improbable tournament championship, winning four games in four days after a plane crash.

“Derrick and Kemba share the same leadership ability and have the same leadership qualities,” said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, who was the AD at UConn for four years, taking over after Walker left for the NBA. “(Former UConn coach Jim) Calhoun talks about Kemba Walker the same way that (Michigan coach) John Beilein talks about Derrick, in the sense of the type of people they are, the leadership qualities, the ability to know when to turn it on and when to include their teammates.”

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Walton and Walker are both 6-foot-1 point guards, who experienced plenty of ups and downs through their college careers.

“They are both great people,” Manuel said. “They both have the tenacity and can put a team on their back.”

For Michigan to have any chance to advance into this tournament, Walton needs to keep doing what he’s doing.

“I think of it as the Kobe (Bryant) farewell tour,” Walton said, smiling. “I’m trying to leave my mark on every venue as I can and be one of the best leaders I can.”

A need for FaceTime

Take a look at Walton's call history on his cell phone. It sheds a different picture.

A couple of times a week, Walton calls his mother, Angela Walton. “He can text, but a couple of times a week, I have to hear his voice,” she said. “I tell him, ‘I know you are busy, but I want to hear your voice.’”

Walton is an only child, who went off to college without knowing how to cook or do his laundry. He has matured tremendously in the last four years, both on and off the court.

But nothing prepared him for what happened last week.

Walton took out that cell phone and called his mother from Willow Run Airport on March 8.

“All I could hear was, ‘Mom, we were in a plane accident,’” she said. “And the phone went dead.”

She called back five or six times and it went straight to voice mail.

“I was getting ready to put on my shoes and go there,” she said. “Zak Irvin’s mom called me. They are close, so we are close. She called me and we were talking about what we knew. Then, he clicked in on the other end.”

Michigan’s plane had skidded off the runway.

“He was like, ‘The plane slid off and I hurt my knee,’” she said. “I said, ‘Do you need me to come?’ He was like, ‘No, they are getting ready to look at my knee.’”

Walton cut his knee when he was struck by an emergency door, and he required five stitches.

He talked to his mother a couple hours later.

“He got to the hotel room and he starts telling me everything that happened,” she said. “He was like, ‘No, mom, I’m not getting back on a plane.’ ”

She offered to drive him to Washington for the Big Ten tournament.

“I told him: ‘I totally understand. If you don’t want to get on a plane, you don’t have to. I can totally imagine how you feel,’” she said.

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She rented a small truck to drive to the nation’s capital, and she offered to drive him through the night. Instead, the psyche of the team was reset during a players-only meeting, and they voted to fly to the game.

Walton texted Angela the news, but she wanted to see his face. They talked on FaceTime.

“I didn’t leave until I saw his face and he told me everything that was going on,” she said.

It took courage for Walton to get on that plane. It took strength to face that kind of fear.

Remarkable.

Angela drove through the night, in time to see Michigan play Illinois.

Her son practically was unstoppable by the end of the weekend, and Michigan earned an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

“We have one of the best coaches in the country," Walton said. "We have the best scheme in the country. And we have some loving guys, who just love to share the basketball. The talent on this team is second to none, in my opinion.”

Best player on the floor

There's another side of Walton that's revealed in his text messages.

Beilein asked every member of his team to write an affirmation before the postseason, an idea he got from a Division III coach.

Walton wrote his on his cell phone and texted it to Beilein, who asked his players to save their messages and read them every day.

“I told him that I’m a determined and fierce competitor,” Walton said. “I will be the best point guard on the floor every time I’m on the court. I am nothing without God.”

The best point guard on the floor? Walton was the best player on the court during the Big Ten tournament.

“In my mind, he’s the best player in the Big Ten, a top-five point guard in the country,” U-M senior Zak Irvin said. “He’s a heck of a player and he leads us.”

Walton was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big Ten tournament.

“A guy like that, you have to look up,” freshman guard Xavier Simpson said. “Derrick is not very talkative, not the most vocal, but he talks enough to get his point across. …When he says something, everyone has eyes on him, from coaches to managers, to everyone. Everyone is looking at him.”

Everyone was looking at Walton at the Verizon Center in Washingtonbecause he was putting on a show, doing whatever he needed to help Michigan win its first league tournament title since 1998; passing or shooting, playing defense or yelling or calming his teammates. He is like a conductor of an orchestra.

“I take what the game gives me,” Walton said. “We are a very unselfish bunch. Whoever has got it clicking, we get him the ball.”

And, now, he has a road map of how to get there.

It’s right there on his cell phone. In that picture. On his wallpaper.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/.