How can I explain the journey? How can I come to grips with the fact — the fantastic fact — that the Michigan basketball team, the team I care about most deeply, is playing for a national championship tomorrow night in Atlanta?
It's been 20 years since this occurred, and we all know — and try, in vain, to forget — what transpired in the Wolverines' last national championship game. But my overall memory of that 1993 team and, heck, of the Fab Five pales deeply in comparison with how I'll remember this team.
I was 9 years old in 1993. My family didn't even have a TV in our house. If I wanted to watch the games, I walked through our backyard garden and joined our neighbor Nelly, a woman in her 90s who shared with me a passion for sports.
The night of the championship, my Dad took me and a couple friends to Crisler Arena (now named Crisler Center). I vaguely recall the din, the place packed to the brim, the cheerleaders, how loud it was until, well, you know. I clearly remember the drive back home down, feeling devastated and hearing the blaring siren of a fire truck that was, no doubt, on its way to extinguish the heatbreak.
Those magical Fab Five years were special, but for me, they have nothing on this era of Michigan basketball. My memories from this Michigan team — regardless of tomorrow's outcome — and the journey that has led to this point will live on forever in the large sports fan compartment of my brain.
I will never forget:
- The red-hot start to the season and the handful of times I'd yell out to no one in particular (or, more likely, post on Facebook): "I love this team!"
- Being surprised when Nik Stauskas missed a 3-pointer, because he was so, so money when open, and watching the viral video of him making 45 of 50.
- The evolution of Glenn Robinson III from a terrible alley-oop finisher into one of the best in the country. He couldn't finish an 'oop for the first two months of the season!
- The heartbreak of the Trey Burke miss at Ohio State, the Ben Brust shot at Wisconsin, and, of course, the final 50 seconds in the Big Ten finale against Indiana.
- And, of course, the Burke 30-footer against Kansas on the Night I Received More Texts Than Ever Before.
But even more than the specific memories or numbers, I will remember this season for two things:
1) The realization that Michigan was once again a top-notch program in the country.
2) Following a coaching staff and players who are impossible not to like.
Way back in November, I was asked by a sportswriter friend to dig into my Michigan basketball memories and pick out A) The low point of the past several years of watching the team, the point when I wondered, 'Are they ever going to get back to being a consistent winning program?'; and B) The game or moment when I knew the Wolverines were headed in the right direction toward a season like this one and postseason like we're experiencing.
This is what I wrote in my response way back in late November:
I'd say the low moment that sticks out is March 3, 2007. It was Tommy Amaker's sixth year, and he had still failed to reach the NCAA Tournament, but a win against No. 1 Ohio State would almost definitely push Michigan over the top. Amaker was coaching for his job. The team was coming off back-to-back wins, including over Michigan State. As you can see from this link (http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/030307aaa.html), Michigan was up 6 with 4 minutes left but couldn't score again. It was a crushing loss for a fan base that had been waiting for that watershed moment to put the past 10 years in their rearview mirror. Instead, the loss meant another NIT invitation, and Amaker was gone slightly after that. No one knew where the program was going.As far as knowing when the Wolverines were back, I felt good about the Beilein hire from the start, which was only boosted by the 2009 NCAA Tournament appearance, but I'd say the end of the 2011 season was that time. The 2010 team had been a huge disappointment, which had only been compounded by the losses of Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims.Then the 2011 team started 1-6 in the Big Ten and people were calling for Beilein's head (not I, but many fans). The run that team went on was incredible, starting with the win at Michigan State (I remember sitting in a bar watching that, just waiting ... waiting for the Spartans to take over the game; it was incredible, and was Michigan's first win over the Spartans in football OR basketball in 1,181 days — watch this video at thte 5:44 mark:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTDALJlA7k) They won 8 of their last 11 games, demolished Tennessee, then you know how close they came to beating Duke in the second round. Even though they lost that game, I knew when the season concluded that Michigan was back and Beilein had the program going in the right direction.
The journey has been a long one. First there were Amaker's six years of cleaning up the mess that was left behind, but failing to develop players or make the tournament once. I liked the Beilein hire, and just making the 2009 tournament was a huge accomplishment for the program. But the disappointment of 2010 left many people, myself included, wondering where things wer headed.
The magical run in 2011, while it ended a lot earlier than this year's, was special in its own right. I remember sitting on the edge of my friend's love seat in North Carolina taking in the Wolverines' second-round game against Duke. When Darius Morris' runner in the lane clanked off the back rim, yes, I was disappointed — a team so tantalizingly close to a huge upset, a season over — but I was also giddy with excitement. Right then, I knew Michigan was on its way. I drove the 5 hours home, back to D.C., that Sunday afternoon with a smile on my face.
And now, a mere two years later, Michigan is a game away from the national championship, and I couldn't feel better about rooting for a coaching staff and group of kids.
How was it possible that national POY Trey Burke had one of his worst offensive games of the season against Syracuse last night, and yet the Wolverines held on? Because this team is about so much more than its leader. Everyone likes each other. Everyone trusts each other. So it was no surprise to Burke, Beielin or anyone when freshman string bean Caris Lavert came out of his offensive funk — he hadn't made a 3-pointer since Feb. 24 — to knock down a pair of triples over the Syracuse zone. And when Burke's backup, Spike Albrecht, did the same, it was just another guy stepping in (Albrecht, by the way, has been near-flawless the entire tournament).
And who didn't feel great for Jordan Morgan, the upperclassman who has lost all his minutes to freshman sensation Mitch McGary, but hasn't whined, hasn't said a single negative thing, and in the waning moments Saturday night at the Georgia Dome slid over — in time, I must add — to take a legitimate charge on Brandon Triche and save the season.
It was only appropriate that it was Morgan who caught Lavert's pass on Michigan's final possession and threw down a barely-above-the-rim, yet game-sealing dunk.
Back in February, when Michigan had hit perhaps the low point of its season after blowing a 15-point lead at last-place Penn State (an argument could also be made for the blowout loss at Michigan State as hitting rock bottom), Wolverines' walk-ons Corey Person (graduate student) and Josh Bartelstein (senior) called a team-only meeting at Pizza House to let all the players air their grievances. Anyone who's been in a work environment where everyone likes each other can attest to the fact that it's not easy to be critical of each others, but that's what the Wolverines did that evening.
Thanks to the leadership of two guys who only see the hardwood during warm-ups.
I want to save some words for after tomorrow night, but let me close out this series of ruminations with this:
Regardless of what happens next year, or three years from now, with the blue-chip recruits that are coming in and Michigan now in the spotlight, this year's team as well as the teams from the past two years — and the indelible contributions of base-layer-building Zach Novak and Stu Douglass — will also have the most special place in my Michigan basketball heart.
The leadership of Novak and Douglass laid the foundation for success back when everyone in Ann Arbor was counting down the days until football season. Now Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr. and the rest of the Wolverines have taken us on that magical first season of great success.
The wins will still be sweet in the coming years, but just not quite as memorable and fulfilling as these ones.
Go Blue!
