Michigan claims Big Ten Tournament championship
Three hundred sixty-nine days ago, Michigan basketball was left for dead. The Wolverines had ended the regular season losing eight games in a row (seven by double digits) and were set to face Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament.
To some, last year’s Big Ten Tournament offered one last chance at redemption. Juwan Howard had defied expectations in the past, and maybe he had some magic left (“We gonna shock the world!”). But to those of us not partaking in darkness retreats while tripping off ayahuasca, we knew what was coming. And the nine-point loss to the sub-.500 Nittany Lions was the fitting end to a miserable season for a team that never missed an opportunity to miss apportunity.
The loss solidified the worst season in program history. Howard was fired shortly thereafter and the mass exodus of players entering the transfer portal began. Athletic Director Warde Manuel needed to act fast. Fortunately, Northwestern beat Florida Atlantic in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and FAU head coach Dusty May was hired to take over in Ann Arbor shortly after.
Quick aside: It is a fascinating what-if scenario if FAU beats Northwestern. Does Manuel hire someone else, or is he cool waiting a few more days since FAU was highly unlikely to upset eventual national champion UConn? But what if FAU upset UConn? Who wins the national title? Who does Michigan hire instead of May? Where is May coaching? Would Michigan State’s mid-game Senior Day tradition be untarnished? The list goes on.
Expectations varied for May’s first season, but progress was the minimum. After all, it took the legend himself, John Beilein, two years to get his footing, and he was inheriting a program that was coming off back-to-back 20-win seasons. May simply needed to breathe life back into the eight-win corpse Howard left beh ind.
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