Hail to the victors, as Michigan wrapped up the first Big Ten national basketball championship since Michigan State’s title in 2000 (trivia question: when was the last time that a Big Ten team won the national championship that was not from the state of Michigan? Okay, it was Indiana in 1987. Second trivia question: when was the last time a Big Ten team won the national championship that wasn’t from either Michigan or Indiana?)
The Wolverines got a major challenge from UConn. We thought that the Huskies
might be able to pull off an upset, but Michigan was just too big and strong, especially inside. There were plays where UConn got what seemed like reasonable shots, shots they hit earlier in the tournament, but just couldn’t get off against Michigan.
Yet UConn showed tremendous grit as well. Michigan only shot 2-15 from outside, and it wasn’t because they can’t hit threes. That was passionate defense.
But no one could score for UConn. Of the starters, only Solo Ball shot as much as 40%. Tarris Reed, who has been so effective in this tournament, and who bullied plenty of guys inside, grabbed 14 rebounds…and shot just 4-12. Braylon Mullins, who played a very heady game and showed more athleticism than we have seen from him before in the tournament, shot just 4-17. He made a huge impression, but he couldn’t score, either.
The star of the game though, somewhat surprisingly, was Elliot Cadeau. He ran his team beautifully and, despite being the smallest player on the court, drove fearlessly.
This was not the same guy we saw last year at Carolina, which, to us, underscores the necessity of letting Hubert Davis go.
Imagine where UNC would have been with this version of Cadeau. Imagine what UNC would have done with the more polished version of Caleb Love we saw at Arizona.
People still argue that Davis deserved more time because he had some success, but he could not develop his players – we learned this from the ones who transferred – and he did not appear to have their trust. We learned this from things that Cadeau and Love said after leaving.
In Monday’s game, we saw quite the opposite from Danny Hurley and Dusty May. They are very different superficially. May is relatively quiet and stable, whereas Hurley is raw and emotional.
Yet they also share a lot. Both inspire loyalty in their players. Both manage to get the parts to make a greater whole.
Hurley clearly learned great lessons from his father, who formed brilliant teams at St. Anthony’s, and sent virtually all of his players to college on scholarships. It’s the best part of Bob Hurley’s story, and rarely gets discussed. It’s the best sort of service one could possibly do. He changed lives and through them, generations yet to be born.
The younger Hurley swims in different waters, but his players love and respect him. He’s strange and intense, coaches like a drill sergeant, then goes home and works through his many self-doubts. Everyone respects his ability, even though many don’t recognize his struggles. He’s a massive bundle of contradictions.
May surely has contradictions as well, but the surface is smooth. He too is intense, but unlike Hurley, he limits what he lets people see.
He took some criticism for building a team around transfers – all of his starters transferred in – but think about that for a minute.
It’s not like he tried to do what Kentucky’s Mark Pope tried to do and just get the best team money could buy. Yaxel Lendeborg was a big fish, to be sure, but the others? How many of them were you familiar with? Cadeau, yes, but Morez Johnson? Aday Mara? Nimari Burnett? Roddy Gale?
Aday was buried at UCLA. May unlocked him.
He is starting Aday, Johnson and Lendeborg up front, and all three of them played center before coming to Michigan.
And he got Cadeau to play with immense confidence, something he was lacking at UNC.
May and Hurley both did a masterful job this season, and both should be around for a long time to come.
College basketball will be better for it.
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