A day after the JCB made a triumphant return to the hoops handicaping world, and the Big 10 race carved out clear front runners for first and last place, the hometown Michigan Wolverines get their chance on the court to make their statement of the weekend. Michigan isn’t swimming anywhere near the Bubble right now, but a home win over brand name power UConn could make up a lot of strokes in a hurry. Its been an uneven season for the Wolverines, at beast. Even though they appear to be on the uptick, the Wolverines havent had anything in the way of a winning streak to distinguish itself record wise. With 15 games remaining, the Wolverines need to begin piling up some wins, something like a 2 out of every three clip, the rest of the way to become a sure fire NCAA tournament. At this point, its hard to buy into the fact that the Wolverines have the chops to pull that off. But you can only win the game in front of you and then move on.
Speaking of which, the position and challenge ahead for Michigan today has me drifting into days of yore. Not quite as far back as the days when MJV prowled campus in his crank-started model-T. But still pretty far back. Twenty-four whole years. Almost to the date, the Michigan basketball program faced similar straights they do today: struggling to make a name for itself, NIT-only dreams and hosting an elite Big East program in a nationally televised game. Let’s take a trip into the Maize and Blue Wayback Machine in advance of this afternoon’s tipoff.
It was January 18, 1987 and the Michigan basketball team, one of the country’s elite hoop programs the previous team seasons, was struggling. They only lost a combined nine games the previous two seasons, but Michigan had already lost six times in the 86-87 season. They had won back to back Big 10 titles, but were off the a 2-3 start in Big 10. The fact those wins were home celebrations over bitter rivals Ohio State and Michigan State didnt really inspire a ton of hope that Michigan was going to be among the league’s top shelf for a third year in a row. They were non competitive in double digit road losses at Illinois and Purdue. And Indiana thwarted a Michigan comeback and broke the hearts of the Crisler crowd when Steve Alford went end to end to score a game winning bucket at the buzzer. Throw in December losses at home to Western Michigan and on a nuetral floor to Middle Tennessee State and people weren’t exactly spending January dreaming of any March Madness.
The fanbase was not overly restless with the performance. People were frustrated by the team’s play, but most of us were still feeling fat, satisfied and pretty after the first Big 10 championship in four years on the gridiron that academic year. The Wolverines lost the Rose Bowl, but the good times from a season with wins over Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State (something the school has done only three times since: 1991, 1997 and 2003) still washed over the faithful.
Besides, with hoops, it was expected to be a transistion year. There was strong sentiment and expectation that the ensuing seasons would be championship ones. Virtually everyone on this squad would return and sprinkled into the mix would be two of the best recruits in the country, Rumeal Robinson and Terry Mills. The duo were ready-made players, expected to be the forward/point guard combo to rule the Big 10 in future seasons. Unfortuneatly, they were spending their freshmen seasons in 1987 in street clothes after failing to qualify to Prop 48 standards on their SAT tests coming out of high school. Future championships seemed assured with them waiting in the wings, so Michigan fans were ok to take their lumps that season with a team that just didnt have enough to be elite that season in the Big 10. Read more »
