The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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of free throws, or a more fortuitous rim roll, of donning a Big Ten championship ring as a rookie. Plenty of positives got swept into the whirlpool of angst and doubt involving the week between the final regular-season showdown against Indiana and the inglorious Big Ten Tournament bow-out versus the Badgers. That's how it is with expectations — the higher you rise, the harder the emotional crash accompanying a shortfall. But the Wolverines didn't have time for rumination with The Big Dance beckoning, and they knew it. "You'd like to ride into March Madness with a lot of momentum," veteran assistant coach Jeff Meyer noted. "The reality is, we have gone through a really, really rigorous Big Ten schedule. We've played the best of the best, and we've won in a lot of those games. "There's no question in my mind, those kids know we can play with anybody, and we can beat anybody. We've just got to be at our best when that opportunity comes. You can't bring your 'B' game and expect to beat a team that brings their 'A' game." The Wolverines expected to bring fire to the fray in NCAA Tournament play. They freely acknowledged the necessity for a cleanup on aisle "D" after the second-half Badger blowup, but weren't regarding anything about March Madness with trepidation. "It's definitely crazy," acknowl- edged All-Big Ten Freshman honoree Glenn Robinson III. "We've just got to keep the right mindset about everything. I'm definitely excited about the tournament, but at the same time I know we've got to fix things. I know we've got to have that right balance." Robinson, like several Wolverines, rejected the notion that they're not ready for prime time, or rugged enough to withstand a Wisconsinor Michigan State-like exhibition of bully ball. "I don't believe that," Robinson insisted. "We can be just as physical as other teams. We've shown that. We showed it against Indiana. Everything might not fall our way, but I know we can be just as physical and we'll give them our best shot." Big Ten Player of the Year Trey Burke is probably down to his last shot in the NCAA Tournament. Like his teammates, he's not giving an inch. "It's really a new season now," Burke stressed. "There are a lot of teams that wish they were in our position. That's the bright spot we can look at it from." That's true in the narrow focus regarding the NCAA Tournament. It's also accurate in a much larger sense, the Wolverines attending their fourth dance in five years, after 10 seasons of standing in the corner. There are worse places to be, and longtime Wolverine watchers know it. ❏ Editor John Borton has been with The Wolverine since 1991. Contact him at jborton@thewolverine.com and follow him on Twitter @JB_Wolverine.