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| Photo by Dustin Johnston, UMhoops.com |
I do, too. I hope that this Michigan basketball team will continue to grow, will build off this momentum, and will win the Big Ten Tournament and make a deep run into the NCAA Tournament. They're capable. They've proven that time and time again this season. They can win the whole dang thing!
But first, let's enjoy the moment.
Yes, a statement like that is sacrilege in today's fast-moving society. Next Sunday, the Big Ten Tournament champion will have all of half an hour — maybe — or less (after all, games are longer this year) to revel in its accomplishment before the NCAA Tournament bracket is released and coaches and players have to prepare for the next opponent.
Disgraceful.
So I'm going against the tide. Years from now, regardless of how Michigan's season finishes, I'll look back to this blog and smile. On March 4, 2014, the Wolverines won their first outright Big Ten title since 1986, when I was 2 and didn't know the difference between a basketball and a diaper. Four days later, they put an exclamation mark on a remarkable regular season with a victory at home over Indiana — a win Glenn Robinson III, an Indiana native, didn't hesitate to call sweet revenge after the Wolverines watched the Hoosiers stun them and celebrate on the same court a year earlier.
I will never forget this season.
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Neither will Michigan's seventh-year head coach John Beilein. He said that much on Tuesday, after the Wolverines put on an offensive clinic in their most complete game of the season, a 84-53 shellacking of Illinois in Champaign, Ill.
"It's something that I know I'm gonna cherish for a long time," Beilein said.
Just not right now. Beilein is too focused on creating more highlights for his players, on making them better. That is what makes the 61-year-old head coach special, among other things. That's also what makes him stand out so saliently compared to the Wolverines' previous coach Tommy Amaker, who failed to take Michigan to the NCAA Tournament in six tries.
That's also one of the biggest reasons why the Wolverines, 6-4 in mid-December, sans a quality win, and about to lose their preseason All-American Mitch McGary to back surgery, were able to win 17 of their last 20 games and clinch the Big Ten championship before Jordan's Morgan Senior Night.
Caris Lavert is the prime example of a player growing leaps and bounds in Beilein's system. As a freshman, the beanpole guard played 10.8 minutes per game, shot 31 percent, and didn't once score in double figures. In many programs, Lavert would have become lost, might have transferred or worst. At Michigan, he dedicated himself to hitting the weight room during the summer and working on his shot (not an easy combination of activities), added some 25 pounds, and is — arguably — the most improved player in the Big Ten (if not the nation).
Lavert's 2013-14 numbers in 34 minutes per game: 13.4ppg, 44% FG, 41% 3-point FG, 4.3 rpg. Lavert's intangibles: Whenever Michigan's offense breaks down with the shot clock waning, the ball goes to Lavert and he creates something; because of Lavert's active hands, length and reflexes, Michigan has been able to play the 1-3-1 effectively — in short spurts — for the first time in recent memory; oh, and Lavert made the pass of the season, overhand style, to Robinson for Michigan's improbable win at Purdue, the most memorable moment from a season featuring many of them.
A commentator mentioned on TV today that he thinks Nik Stauskas, Michigan's should-be Big Ten Player of the Year, is the league's most improved. That's hard to argue, except when you consider his fellow sophomore.
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After each loss this season, Beilein and his players talked about learning from their defeats. They weren't just preaching to the cameras. The final stretch of the season is evidence that the Wolverines truly do make changes and understand what they need to fix — not just X's and O's, either — from one game to the next.
The improvement that oozes from this team isn't just coming from individual players.
Take the loss to No. 1 Arizona in mid-December, which dropped the Wolverines to a humbling 6-4 and an afterthought on the national scene. In that game, Michigan blew an eight-point lead with under eight minutes to play, allowing the Wildcats to outmuscle them and outhustle them in the game's crucial moments.
Since then Michigan has won every nailbiter it's been in. The Wolverines have come back in the final minutes several times (see: at Nebraska, at Michigan State, at Ohio State, vs. Michigan State, at Purdue). And they have closed games by making the hustle plays, as senior, do-it-all big man Morgan and backup point guard Spike Albrecht did with two huge rebounds followed by a Morgan layup to help seal Michigan's 66-56 win over Minnesota last Saturday (just one example).
That's what championship teams do. Michigan wasn't a closing team in losses to Iowa State, Charlotte and the Wildcats. They learned, thanks to the coaching of Beilein and his staff. They progressed.
The ultimate sign of a great college program in this day and age is players buying in 100 percent to what their coaches tell them — and not having to be instructed twice, or six times. With so many outsiders telling players what they want to hear and that they should be getting more shots, it's a wonder when a staff is able to have such a talented group of players' commitment from game to game throughout the season.
Improvement. Progression.
Those two words sum up this Michigan season.
Oh, and special.
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Sure, I'll remember that this team won the Big Ten championship. But what, specifically, will pop in my mind when thinking back on the 2013-14 Wolverines?
How about the fact that their glue guy is a fifth-year senior working on his master's degree in manufacturing engineering after an undergraduate industrial and operations engineering degree? That's Morgan, the forgotten man last season when a bad ankle sprain combined with McGary's emergence saddled him to the bench for the majority of the home stretch and the Wolverines' surreal NCAA Tournament run.
Not once did Morgan complain or say anything, publicly, to take away from his teammates' accomplishments. Inside, though, he was heartbroken over his layup that hung and rolled off the rim at the end of that Indiana loss. He wouldn't be able to completely put it in his past until Saturday night, when — after an emotional buildup to his final game, which including him weeping during an interview for the Big Ten Network's "The Journey" — Morgan played one of his best games, scoring six quick points en route to 15 of them and 10 rebounds against the Hoosiers.
The reason for Morgan's success? He learned from Michigan's 63-52 loss at Indiana on Feb. 2, when the Hoosiers switched a smaller player on him and he didn't pick the right angles to receive entry passes. This time around, Morgan worked in practice on those angles and in the game aggressively called for the ball on the switch and finished time after time in traffic around the rim.
Morgan used to receive all kinds of flack for his "butterfingers." Now, it's a surprise to everyone if he mishandles a pass.
Improvement. Progress. Oh, and a special night.
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But back to Morgan's quote.
That sums up why it's incredibly enjoyable and rewarding, as a fan, to follow this team. They genuinely love playing with each other.
Stauskas will definitely fulfill his NBA dreams after this season. So, likely, will best friends and roommates Robinson and McGary. On a team with so many NBA prospects (Lavert is on his way, too), it's easy for individual agendas to get in the way — even if not publicly.
I can tell you with 100 percent certainly —just from watching each game on TV, not to mention what the players say about each other — that isn't an issue. The team loves to share the ball. No plays elicit bigger celebrations, fist bumps and smiles than the dozens of alley-oops Robinson has received, seemingly, from everyone on the roster. I was in Crisler Center when he made a midair adjustment to throw down a game-clinching 'oop from Stauskas against the Spartans on Feb. 23. The roof nearly came off the arena.
On such a talented team, minutes are hard to spread around. In some games, highly heralded freshman point guard Derrick Walton, Jr. has sat during the crucial portions while Albrecht runs the Wolverines. Not once has Walton made a deal out of it.
One of those games was the comeback, overtime win at Purdue. Albrecht played all the big minutes down the stretch, but when Robinson made the game-winning shot Walton was one of the first Wolverines to mob him. Watch the celebration. It's impossible to tell the game contributors versus the bench guys.
A master's degree engineer; three sophomores likely heading to the NBA; a four-star recruit point guard who doesn't pout when big-game minutes go to his backup; and a coach who talks about enjoying the process, cherishing each success, and, simply, getting better.
It all adds up to yet another special season for a Michigan team that I'll never forget, and a Wolverines program that you can't ignore, now, as one of the nation's best.
The upcoming weeks might bring many more wins. But they'll likely also include a loss. From the outside, there will be questions and criticism. After all, people live in the moment. And as a championship program, bigger titles — including that national one — are expected.
But Beilein, and Morgan, and the rest of this group, will always be able to look back at this year and cherish — coach's word — a special season full of...
Progress. Improvement. And an outright Big Ten championship.
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