The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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M the Wolverines clawed to a 13-5 re- cord — one good enough to claim a title — everyone had to wait a little longer. But the wait is over. Michigan bas- ichigan basketball fans waited since 1986 for a regular-season Big Ten championship. Even after BY JOHN BORTON ketball is back, underscored by a con- ference title that few could have imag- ined, even a week before it happened. "It's kind of surreal right now," se- driving too slow," Novak recalled. "It was nerve-wracking." The final six minutes of the OSU- a disappointing slide backward. Last season, after prognosticators MSU game took those cutaneous re- ceptors to another level of sensitivity. But when it finally ended — after nior captain Zack Novak said in the aftermath of Michigan's title ascen- sion. "The saying is, 'Those who stay …' If you stick around long enough, good things will happen." The Wolverines stuck around, all Buford's shot, and after what ap- peared to be an attempted re-creation of Russia's gold medal heist in the 1972 Olympics — a final MSU launch badly missed its mark. The Wolver- ines grabbed a share of the conference title, along with OSU and MSU. In that moment, the dream became overwhelmingly assigned the Wol- verines to the Big Ten basement, they tied for fourth in the league. They also routed Tennessee in an NCAA second-round game, and came within a made three-pointer against Duke of reaching the Sweet 16. This year, led by a pair of senior cap- right. They stuck around after Darius Morris left for the NBA last spring, and the experts asserted he took U- M's 2012 title hopes with him. They stuck around through losses in four out of their first five Big Ten road games, including a two-point crusher at Indiana and defeats at the homes of the other two Big Ten titleholders, Ohio State and Michigan State. The Wolverines stuck around to hold off MSU at Crisler Arena by a single point, and the Buckeyes at Crisler by five. Head coach John Beilein's crew stuck it to road foes in their final four away games, including regular-season-ending wins at Illinois and Penn State. The latter, on March 4, set the stage for the drama to come. The Wolver- ines did their part, clawing to within a half-game of Big Ten leader Michi- gan State with the win over the Nit- tany Lions. They then jetted back to Ann Arbor and took a charter bus to Crisler Center. All along the way, they monitored the Ohio State-Michigan State show- down in East Lansing. As much as it felt like choosing a side in the Freddy Krueger-Jason Voorhees battle, their spirits surged with every OSU rally. The Buckeyes came all the way back The Wolverines Ride A Super Sunday To The Top CHAMPIONS BIG TEN a reality. The Wolverines shouted out "Big Ten champs" in meetings, at the end of huddles, and in other settings throughout the year. In the early evening hours of March 4, they shouted it as an accomplish- ment, not a hope. "This group would finish every practice this year with 'We are work- ing to become champions,'" Beilein said. "On Sunday night, they left the building with 'We are …' "They all screamed, 'Champions!' It was very fitting. This was a differ- ent bubble, whether we were Big Ten champions or not. It fell back to those days when you were trying to sort out the math of where you were try- ing to go [in the NCAA Tournament], but this was much better … it is really special here. I realize it more every day I'm here." Beilein inherited a Michigan pro- from 15 down at the Breslin Center, and OSU's William Buford nailed a strongly defended jumper with a sec- ond remaining, boosting OSU in a 72- 70 win. Leading up to that moment, U-M's team bus rolled toward Ann Arbor — just not fast enough for its inhabitants. "On the bus, I was yelling at the bus driver to drive faster because he was 44 THE WOLVERINE APRIL 2012 a freshman point guard in Trey Burke, who said the scene at Crisler Center was simply indescribable. Meanwhile, senior Stu Douglass saw the rise to the top as the culmina- tion of four years' worth of diligent ef- fort, with results pouring forth down the stretch last season. "It's just a will to win," Douglass said. "It started last year at the end of the Big Ten season, and it's just car- ried over … it's that will to win and that culture change that we've tried to establish here with this program. I think we've established it now, to where we can see this kind of success, year in and year out." It looked like Novak and Douglass tains that no major basketball schools wanted coming out of high school, they clawed their way into Michigan basketball history. They did so behind gram that hadn't been to the NCAA Tournament in a decade. It also fin- ished better than fifth in the Big Ten in just one of the eight years prior to his arrival. Starting over in terms of how he wanted Michigan basketball played, Beilein saw his first crew finish ninth in the conference. Then came a pair of seventh-place finishes, the first high- lighted by a surprise NCAA appear- ance and the second remembered for would establish a culture whose full Big Ten benefits would be reaped only by their successors. As well as the Wolverines played all season, they appeared destined to fall short of the conference prize. Michigan surged into its Senior Night at Crisler Center in a position no one could have imagined in Oc- tober. After an arena-rattling, 56-51 upset over Ohio State and a gritty overtime victory at Northwestern, Head coach John Beilein guided Michigan to a 13-5 mark in the Big Ten during the regu- lar season, which put the Wolverines in a three-way tie for first place. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL