Michigan did not save the Big Ten from complete embarrassment in the first weekend of the 2021 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Wolverine also offered real hope that the conference could be represented in the final four weekends. At the end of the four-day period when eight of the nine conference teams lost in a series of inconsistent performances, No. 1 Michigan recorded an 86–78 win over No. 8 LSU in the second-round East Region on Monday night.
Consistency still matters for something.
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The Big Ten regular-season champions will make their fourth consecutive trip to the Sweet 16. The only school with a long streak is Gonzaga – the top seed in the tournament – with six.
How important was the victory for the conference? Had Michigan lost, the Big Ten would have dropped out of the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006. The other top programs in the Big Ten flopped through the first two rounds in rapid succession.
No. 11 Michigan State lost a game-play to UCLA. No. 2 Ohio State lost to No. 15 Oral Roberts and No. 4 Purdue to No. 13 North Texas in a first round stunner.
No. 1 Illinois – Big Ten Tournament Champion – No. 8 Loyola lost to Chicago on Sunday, and No. 2 Iowa was swept off the floor by No. 7 Oregon on Monday afternoon. No. 9 Wisconsin, No. 10 Rutgers and No. 10 Maryland were all eliminated in the second round as well.
The “just like football” comparison began, and in the most likely way unfit. It felt like a massacre on another New Year’s Day. The Big Ten’s strong regular-season legitimacy was cut off, and the prevailing thinking was that these teams wore each other.
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To save basketball, the cost of that football criticism is left to the school, which is for at least one more weekend. The Wolverines, unlike football, threw their game back in the face of the SEC.
LSU was a hot offset pick, most notably without Michigan senior Isaiah Liver, who suffered a stress fracture in the first round of the Big Ten tournament. The Tigers led by nine points in the first half and it was uncertain whether the Wolverines would be able to maintain a high-scoring offense led by future NBA first-round pick Cameron Thomas.
Michigan responded with a well-rounded performance from its main players. Eli Brooks, who was fond of the Big Ten tournament with an ankle injury, hit five 3-pointers and finished with 21 points. Chaundi Brown scored 21 off the bench, and Franz Wagoner and Hunter Dickinson scored 15 and 12 points respectively. Mike Smith had a night out, but the Wolverines won an up-and-down affair that felt like a second weekend game.
Can Michigan survive without a lever? The big question entering the tournament was that he provided 13.1 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, not to mention his intangible leadership qualities.
Kevin Johnson, the replacement for the Levers in the starting lineup, has delivered high-energy minutes. Brown will have to promote the same scoring in the second weekend as well. Brooks hit 8 of 14 from 3-point range in two tournament games, and that hot shooting should continue. Dickinson and Wagner have to avoid dishonesty to keep the pressure on Smith. This is a lot of “ifs”, but the Wolverines have been able to make it to the Final Four for the third time since 2013.
The Big Ten cannot complain at this point. The conference still faces a national championship drought that extends back to 2000. At least there is hope.
Michigan is still owed to second-year coach Juwan Howard, who played in two national championship games and played the Elite Eight match with the eventual national champion, Arkansas, as a Wolverine player from 1991–94. The stage was not too big for him, and it should not come as a surprise that it was the Wolverine team that stepped into the most unpredictable first weekend in history amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are made for this. The Michigan Big Ten was the team that had a COVID stoppage of about a month and closed the previous two weeks with five matches in 11 days. A loss to LSU would have presented a more difficult narrative, but the conference now enters its second weekend with a 7-8 record.
At least Michigan is in the Sweet 16, right?
This will be remembered more than the record at this point, another valuable lesson that proves to be true every year.
Consistency still matters for something.
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