ROSEMONT, IL – Never have we needed basketball more. In fact, it can't come soon enough in Southeast Michigan.
That's a familiar refrain in East Lansing. But in Ann Arbor? The idea takes some getting used to.
New Michigan basketball coach Mike Boynton Jr. understands.
"Football at Michigan is sooo big. Literally, it's like Yankees, Lakers, it's that big," said the Wolverines' new coach at Big Ten basketball media day on Thursday, Oct. 8. "That's a lot of people ... who need to feel better. That's the way I look at it."
And so, here comes his team, fresh of a dominant national championship run, looking to apply a little salve.
"That's our responsibility even if the [football
team] was doing really well," he said. "Because you don't want to think that they're saying, 'When does football season get here?'"
But this fall? Against the backdrop of this Michigan football team? Maize and Blue Nation could use a pick-me-up. So could Green and White Nation, and Lions Nation, for that matter; it's been a long time since all three teams have looked so dispiriting so early in the same season.
From Ann Arbor to East Lansing to Detroit (where the Lions' magical run to the NFC title game is fading like a falling sun over Lake Michigan), glumness abounds. Last year, the Detroit Pistons picked up the Lions, and it'd be nice if they could do it again. The college hoops teams, of course, have Detroit on their minds, too: The Final Four is set for April in the D in 2027.
They'll start their runs to Ford Field coming off strong seasons: Tom Izzo's team in EL got to its second straight Sweet 16, meanwhile, U-M, of course, won the whole thing.
Yet that Lions-to-Pistons yearning in Detroit doesn't come from the same existential crisis that a dogpile football season in a college town creates. Izzo knows the dynamic well and has felt extra pressure this time of year on and off for decades.
Yeah, he'd prefer things like they were when Mark Dantonio had the football program rolling to Big Ten titles (and even a College Football Playoff berth). And he believes Pat Fitzgerald will get to some semblance of that. (MSU's new AD, Dan Bartholomae, promised more funds – the Spartans ranked 11th in the 18-team Big Ten this season – and that should help.)
"I always feel that [responsibility to pick up football]," Izzo said Thursday in this Chicago suburb. "Because I love where I'm at, I've been there, I have ownership in ways. I like it better when football is good and we're good, and I think we can get back to that."
Tom Izzo's best team this decade?
In the meantime, here come his Spartans, flush with guards and wings, most notably preseason conference player-of-the-year pick, Jeremy Fears Jr. They've got an unproven, yet hopeful frontline. They offer a mix of experience, transfers and highly regarded freshmen.
This is Izzo's deepest team in a while, his most talented team since the Cassius Winston days – y'know, the pre-COVID days – especially on the perimeter. And the expectations are there to go along with it.
MSU is among the preseason conference favorites and will almost certainly be a top-10 preseason pick, if not a top-five pick. Spartans everywhere can't wait. It's tough to blame them. They've been through a lot the last few falls.
Heck, most of the last decade of falls.
Wolverines can't wait, either, even if there is a bit more reluctance to admit it. But then the title run was only six months ago, and that verve and vibe still linger and, boy wouldn't a few wins in Crisler Center dilute the deluge of demoralized masses moping about their football program and around the Big House.
No, the football programs in Ann Arbor and East Lansing aren't the same, and Boynton is right to make the parallels to the Yankees and Lakers, at least in terms of interest. In terms of winning?
The analogy doesn't hold up so well. That wasn't the point he was making, though. He was just commenting on the brand and the size of the audience and sheer number of people that could use a little cheering up.
Like Izzo, Boynton believes his football coach will get there.
"I want Coach Whitt to do well. I don't know him that well personally, but he's been a successful coach for a long time. He knows what he's doing. The industry's changed, he's got to adjust to some things, this is a totally different kind of place, a totally different kind of league, but he'll figure it out."
Sound familiar?
A new legacy in Ann Arbor?
Of course, it does, and thank goodness for basketball, for the Wolverines' returning backcourt, which should be among the best in the Big Ten and maybe the country, and for the new bigs who are here to fill the shoes of the three lottery-picks from a year ago.
Those are some big shoes, to be sure. Yet Boynton isn't looking to dwell on last season; he thinks he has the pieces to drive a new narrative this winter.
But?
"We've got to udnerstand that we're going to hear this sort of messaging about defending a national championship all year long," he said. "Our opponents are probably going to be talking to their teams as they prepare about playing against the national championship team. ... I think the mindset has to be, how does this team create its own legacy."
They'll have to win, and frequently, to get people talking less about last year's team and more about this year's team. They understand that mission.
They understand, too, that the fanbase is as ready for the basketball season as it has been in a long time. That's a newer sensation in Ann Arbor. Not so much in East Lansing or Detroit, where winter sports spent years lifting the pride of Spartans everywhere, and the pride of the "D."
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Can Spartans, Wolverines bring some sunny hoops to fall blues?
