Lay Your Weary Head Down, Gorgeous
3/30/2021 – Michigan 49, UCLA 51 – 23-5, 14-3 B10, Season Over
This is absolutely projecting my feelings onto a sporting event determined by a lot of coinflips that went the wrong way, but in the end it felt like the weight got to them.
A year of empty arenas and COVID tests. A perpetual uncertainty about what games would even be played. A three-week break in the middle of the season where they couldn't even practice together. A captain lost on the eve of the tournament. Juwan Howard losing his mentor to COVID. A fanbase that just needs something to remind them why they're a fanbase at all.
— MichiganCFBRisk (@cfb_risk) March 30, 2021
All college basketball teams played under a weight this year, of course, but Michigan's was amongst the heaviest. They soldiered through it better than anyone not named Gonzaga. They demolished the Big Ten, until things started to come undone.
The thing about carrying a weight is that you can do it without looking burdened for a while, and then you slow down some. Then maybe you have a second wind, and then you're staring at it on the ground wondering how you ever picked it up in the first place. Michigan's weary bones tried to get a ball all the way to the basket late in this game and just could not.
After every fateful miss I exhaled a little bit more, resigned. Not angry, just succumbing to the inevitable. Hunter Dickinson and Mike Smith missed five consecutive free throws, Franz Wagner went 1/10, and Michigan shot 13/25 at the rim. What can you do? Sometimes you want your arm to do a thing and it says no.
[After THE JUMP: attack of the killer ants!]
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I mentioned that I hit a wall during the pandemic and found myself at a point where two roads diverged.
Before that, for months on end I found the whole buttoned-up world soothing. I pulled clover out of our neglected backyard, and moved mulch, and bought great piles of stone to move about. Then there was more clover to pull. I dug up all the loose pavers in the backyard and re-seated them. I could go nowhere else—then even the playgrounds were closed—and found that I felt like I didn't really need to.
The kids plucked wild strawberries out of the weeds I was pulling and offered some of them to me. I usually turned them down. The little berries are seedy and sour, but sometimes my daughter would absolutely insist and I would relent. When you are two and you have been told you must share everything all the time, sometimes "no" is not an acceptable answer when you're actually doing the thing everyone says you must. They had no reservations about the berries. They powered through them avidly, the delight of harvest blowing their usual reticence to eat anything unfamiliar out of the water. Bea Arthur Cook would exclaim "I found one!" whenever she found one.
When I was tired I would sit under the shade of one of the trees at the back of the yard and close my eyes. Occasionally I'd lay down, a temporary situation when you've trained your children to believe that a prone father is the world's best trampoline. In the moments before I received a preschooler's atomic drop I felt the wind and looked up at the sky through an irregular canopy of leaves.
Denard Robinson Cook made a habit of flipping over those pavers to see if he could find an "ant colomy," which he often did.
i have convinced my son the most appropriate noun for any situation is "bad boy".
— mgoblog (@mgoblog) June 21, 2020
EG:"can we lift this bad boy to see if there are any ants?"
The ants would scatter and I'd tell him not to touch any of them. Once we found a giant number of ovoid, sickly translucent eggs being tended to. Upon being exposed to the light, the ants tending them burst into activity. In a couple minutes the eggs had been transported out of sight.
Then they started biting us. The time that it took to scurry the eggs out of sight exactly corresponded to the amount of time it took another group of ants to migrate out from the nest and find us, two feet away.
Bites from your common backyard American ant are strange. The first one feels like a little spike of pain that may be the kind of incidental thing that occasionally happens for no reason when you are 40. The second one starts you wondering, and then you realize you're under attack. DRC and BAC started howling as we retreated to the house; leaving the scene of the crime did not stop the little flares of pain because by that point they'd infiltrated our clothing. Once inside I took their clothes off, searching for the irate little bastards and taking their kamikaze lives. They were still biting me, of course. After a couple of minutes the kids were near-nude and sad. Every once in a while I'd get a flare of pain at a random spot on my body and slap it in case I could prevent a recurrence. We made quite a trio, sitting on the floor just inside the door, some of us weeping, some of us muttering under our breath about what a bad idea evolution was.
You may think this was a bad thing that happened. It was. But also it was a thing, that happened. Then it got cold and nothing happened. Or not enough, anyway.
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Into this void stepped the halting restoration of sports. Specifically, the donkey sport. Michigan football succeeded only in deepening the Black Pit Of Negative Expectations that immediately followed the Minnesota game, and then farted through a 2-4 season whose only virtue was that half of it was mercifully canceled. The guys who were supposedly neck and neck to be the first great Harbaugh quarterback have both transferred, and when we dutifully put up roster news about the football program people are increasingly furious:
Please stop with football content, nobody cares. Please more women's Basketball coverage instead
— Poofas_JR (@PoofasJ) March 30, 2021
This did not count as something happening except in the ants-are-biting-us way, and to be perfectly honest I preferred the ants. The ants did not last four hours and have incessant Buick commercials. I did not have to write about the ants. I chose to write about the ants.
Then, this team. Gradually. Hints of promise in MAC blowouts, but that Oakland game. They won by four at Penn State and were sort of in a game against Nebraska late. Mike Smith was still the Columbia transfer with the hair and not the scrappy guy who hits stepbacks and is constantly blasted in the face. Franz Wagner was enigmatic and slightly disappointing, not the rightful defensive player of the year. Chaundee Brown was a guy with questionable shooting stats and not a contest-immune gunner who is also a linebacker. Hunter Dickinson was hard to comprehend for a fanbase coming off a decade of John Beilein. Getting used to this team took a minute. Believing it took another one.
There was a familiarization process, but once they clobbered Maryland, Northwestern, and Minnesota back-to-back-to-back they were something to do. Something to care about. I know that after they won the Big Ten title my ensuing column was rather morose, but thoughts and feelings are not constant. They are sine waves that dip and recover. Yeah, this meant something.
[Campredon]
It means something. Playing a barnburner against Ohio State and being gripped by every dribble meant something. A reminder that you can be invested in and rewarded by sports meant a lot.
When they went on that enforced break the sudden loss of rhythm was palpable. Not for them, but for me. I had grown accustomed to a couple two-hour blocks each week in which Michigan basketball rented a steamroller and made an opposing team very, very flat. Now we have to re-adjust ourselves to that absence, probably bidding goodbye to a number of guys we've seen grow up in a Michigan jersey and a couple of guys we barely got to see at all.
I'll miss it.
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I have raked the leaves I did not get to last fall, and this time I am not irritated at myself for having left some of it late because it is a thing to do. I have cut the tall grasses and moved most of the mulch again. I am at the point every spring where I look at the dwindling pile and curse myself for not having gotten more. My son climbs the pile and uses his shovel to knock off bits of the little wooden cliffs my shoveling makes, one of his first genuinely useful activities. My daughter grabs a stick and shouts "mix mix mix" as she moves little bits of dirt and wood around the partially-filled wheelbarrow. She lets me take the wheelbarrow to the backyard after I thank her for mixing.
I have a shot in my arm and a date 20 days in the future for a second. In exactly 34 days I am going to Pinball Pete's with my son. Maybe I'll take him to see GODZILLA VS KONG, he's five, he might want to see a giant lizard fight a giant gorilla. Maybe I want to see that. Hell yeah. Fuck him up, Socrates.
The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. Michigan basketball helped drag me there. So even if they couldn't drag themselves across the finish line I can't be anything but grateful. Let us sing them to sleep.
BULLET
FFS. Elegiac, oversized season-ending columns do not usually have bullets attached because the analysis can wait a bit as we sit in our feelings. This one isn't much different, but I mean come on:
- UCLA at rim: 6/9
- Michigan at rim: 13/25
- UCLA midrange: 12/32
- Michigan midrange: 4/15
It's enough to stuff yourself in a blender.
UCLA had a 4% chance of making the final four based on the quality of shots they got and let up in each game! pic.twitter.com/S2ntuMBJm6
— ShotQuality (@Shot_Quality) March 31, 2021
Ah well, bring on Moussa and the Jets.
March 31st, 2021 at 12:50 PM ^
House money, found under the grimy seat cushion of a couch that may or may not have been seeking asylum from East Lansing.
That - and nothing more - is what slipped though our fingers last night. We weren't even supposed to be here at all. That we were, and that it still stings a little, is testament to what an unexpectedly joyful ride it was for the time it lasted. I'm a little - well, no, a *lot* - gutted right now but that just means these guys made me feel something during a time when we've all had to compartmentalize and emotionally shut off various aspects of life just to simply cope.
If you'd told anyone before the season that this is how it'd end, who here wouldn't have signed up for that in a heartbeat?
If you'd let me draw out what I thought the best-case scenario was in September for this team, I would've said something like 3rd in the Big Ten, playing in the conference semifinal, a 4 or 5 seed and a visit to the second weekend.
They gave us so much more than that. We loved this team for all the right reasons and I can't wait to see what Coach Howard does next year.
March 31st, 2021 at 12:50 PM ^
Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more
March 31st, 2021 at 12:52 PM ^
Great work here! Felt it all the same way, too - in a dark, desolate winter this team was a lone bright spot.
Seems like an end of an era, too, as we say goodbye to the last of the Belien folks. I'll certainly miss Livers - his injury will always leave a cloud of "What ifs" hanging around this run....Such is life as a fan of a college team, players you watched grow up are gone too soon it seems, and now you're left wondering what's next.
March 31st, 2021 at 12:52 PM ^
Last night I was frustrated because it sucks to see your team lose and it sucks more when they lose ugly.
Today I'm weighing the disappointment against the joy that watching Chaundee Brown over the last month brought. The rest of the team too, but Brown has always stood out to me because of the way he's thrown his body around, flying in out of nowhere for rebounds, diving after loose balls. And of course the ecstatic emotional release of a timely emphatic three point swish, which is maybe the closest thing basketball has to a power play goal in a close hockey game.
This was a great season and the disappointment for me isn't so much the loss as not getting to see these guys play together next weekend.
Great last sentence.
March 31st, 2021 at 12:53 PM ^
Alexa, play 'Never Meant'.
March 31st, 2021 at 12:59 PM ^
The team was tremendous in fortitude and mental toughness.
Furthermore, the team demonstrated a 'brotherhood' (like women's team a sisterhood), like we have not seen lately in the football program.
This said, while I did not play with ants in my yard -- I agree, Michigan Basketball got me through the 'long dark winter' of C19 and spring rings eternal.
Danke fellas - there were many times this season, I raised a fist in triumph due to Michigan basketball.
Go Blue.
A great piece of writing
Once you get over the initial shock/disappointment of losing in the NCAA tournament, the next feeling is sadness that it's over. I was thinking yesterday that the season was going to end within a week, no matter what, and I wasn't ready for that. This team has been so much fun to watch.
The good thing is that we can expect a lot more fun in the future. Juwan built a powerhouse out of a team picked to finish 6th in the Big Ten, won a banner, and nearly won another despite a key injury. I'm excited to see what else is in store.
A bummer of a game. Took a total failure of 2 pt and FT shooting and we still almost won.
I'm not saying Mick Cronin made a deal with the devil, but I'm also not saying he didn't
In this tourney, @UCLAMBB
— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) March 31, 2021
-was outshot by MSU (still won)
-was outshot by BYU (still won)
-was outshot by Alabama (still won)
-was outshot by Michigan (still won)
They're the 1st team to win 4 games in a single NCAA Tournament in which they had a lower FG% than their opponent.
Plus the shenanigans with inexplicable terrible FT performance. UCLA has a horseshoe up their collective ass
But also and I said this in the pre-game thread, Cronin is a good coach and has been figuring out how to "muck up" an opponent for a long time. Keep things close enough so that you can roll a seven on the last throw and you can take your chances with luck. I keep thinking we got kind of suckered in the late first half through the end of the game to base our offense on dump downs to the center / post up instead of working through inside-out offense. I would have liked to see Brown get about 3-5 more shots this game, or some of the hi-low game with Hunter operating around the elbow instead of on the block.
Pretty impressed with Cronin's work, really. His teams seems well-coached. They were really good at getting matchups they wanted, made it hard to keep Juzang covered.
That's what I kept noticing, was they basically ran Bob Knight's offense for Steve Alford for Juzang so that he kept getting the ball in spots he was comfortable with, even if it was a 1 on 1 hero ball situation. And this is also where I think our stagnation / dump down offense was actually a benefit for UCLA-- Juzang had to spend zero energy chasing Franz / Brooks / Brown / (Livers). Huge credit for this has to go to UCLA's post defense. Even though Dickinson scored in stretches, they made him work for every hoop and post position, tiring him out.
Although Illinois is more talented, I thought UCLA used their playbook. Overwhelm our guards and muck up our offense. We could have used an elite one on one scorer.
UCLA committed AT LEAST 4 less turnovers in every tournament game they played (except ACU) and were never beaten on the offensive boards, except last night. When you average 7-9 more shot attempts than your opponent, that's a big deficit to overcome no matter who you play. Michigan mitigated that somewhat last night by winning on the boards, but those 6 extra turnovers turned a (probable) close win into a close loss.
I'm only disappointed that they played such a sour game to end the year, particularly after they looked so amazing vs. FSU.
I don't know how Free Throw Defense works, but UCLA is doing it right. 56% FT% from Michigan after Alabama went sub-50%. Inexplicable airballs from the field.
I feel like not enough people are taking about how X-Men mutants exist and Hep Cronin is low-key flexing Professor Charles Xavier powers.
you think that's weird? take a look at his assistants.
definitely something mutant-ey happening in westwood.
It's like a lineup of supervillains.
Yup. Four Lex Luthors.
I think UCLA does a good job of making you work a lot on the offensive end to get fouled. I think back to the end of first half free throws for Mike Smith. He looked absolutely exhausted at the line and I think it affected his shot. I would have called a time out just to let him catch his breath.
I'm hoping Franz sticks around for one more season to improve his shooting ability and maybe clean up some smaller parts of his game. His percentage from 3 fell off a cliff during the tournament and the last part of the regular season. Also for some unfinished business regarding a National Championship!
Then again, NBA teams have a tendency to overlook poor shooting in college. Most, if not all, believe they can get a player to shoot better in the pros. Just look at where Romeo Langford was drafted.
I assume it is close to 100 percent that Franz enters the draft. Commentators all year have proclaimed him one of the most NBA ready players in the Big 10. That said I do think he will struggle mightily. His shooting is a major concern, not just based upon his percentages, but based on his actual shot mechanics and form. He starts the ball very low, almost at his waist and even for a 6'9" player with long arms, his release point is not that high. Also he doesn't elevate much- it is a near set shot. In the NBA he will struggle to get it off without it being blocked.
I think he needs to break his shot down and re-make it. His own brother Mo, wouldn't be the worst shooter to model after, he has a nice high release point. An even better example that we are familiar with would be Duncan Robinson.
I love Franz and what he has given us and his defense and passing have gone way beyond any expectations I had for him, but the shooting is a problem.
I will go to the mat and argue that there are precisely zero red-blooded Americans who don't want to see a giant ape fight a giant lizard.
The American Revolution was pointless if you're wrong.
If someone doesn't smile reading that description you should be wary of them as a possible alien body-snatcher.
Those aren't wild strawberries, they are snakeberries.
Potentilla indica
In the case of that game vs UCLA, yes, the evidence points to "snakeberries".
Otherwise though, I've had actual wild strawberries growing in the yards of at least 3 of the 4 homes I've owned, all in Michigan. White blossoms rather than the yellow blossoms described and pictured in your "snakeberries" link.
Tiny but delicious in their sweet tartness, that is if you can get to them before the robins do.
This was a very disappointing end with so many missed chances against a team we would beat 90% of the time. It was just an off game. And we would have won easily with Livers in the lineup. But that's the nature of the NCAA tourney - one off day or injuries can end a run.
Depth was always an achilles heel for this team and usually an issue in NCAA basketball where one injury can seriously disrupt a short rotation.
But bottom line, this was a phenomenal season despite so much uncertainty and roadblocks. Despite major adversity, they won a big ten title and were one of the top 3-4 teams in the country. They finished one bucket from the Final Four. The sour end doesn't diminish their amazing accomplishments.
Congrats to all the players for their fantastic season! Looking forward to a bright future with Coach Howard and all the amazing talented players we will have next season and beyond!
The ants go marching 10 by 10, hurrah!
As a guy that was a mother’s veto away from naming his son “Juwan Dhani” in 2003, please please please tell me Brian really named his son Denard!
Not 100% but pretty sure this is the case since he has mentioned it a number of times.
Too bad you couldn't pull off Juwan Dhani. I won the lottery when my wife suggested "Desmond," having no sense of the significance. She was just floating it as one among many ideas, and I cemented that mofo in the moment LOL.
I'm pretty sure "Denard Robinson" and "Bea Arthur" are pseudonyms for Brian's kids as it may not be in their best interests for their actual names to be posted on a website read by tens of thousands daily.
Probably true but at the same time I would not be surprised if he named his child Denard Robinson Cook. It's like when those people named their twins "Brett" and "Favre". Brian has a near fanatical obsession with Denard and will curse Al Borges to the grave for the gross misuse of his abilities. I get it, but like, chill bro. (me to Brian in that last line)
Denard Robinson Cook is a pseudonym. Brian has stated that he "could not get Denard by the selection committee"
I was really looking forward to basketball when the season started. Between Covid and the football team, and politics, and work, it was just what the doctor ordered. Last night I went to bed early and didn't watch the game, relatively confident that we would win; I mean, come on we had a date with Gonzaga, to find out how good we really are. I woke up around midnight, probably subconsciously wanting to know the score of the game. I let out an audible, 'Oh no...'. I'm in freaking mourning. I didn't get to experience it. It's over. I was not prepared for it to be over. Now what?
This is excellent and the sort of thing that makes Mgoblog what it is. I hope you're doing okay (or at least okay-ish), Brian.
Good column. Puts into perspective what this season really meant in light of the bitter, disappointing ending. The fact that we had a season at all is reason to be thankful, the fact that this team was so enjoyable to watch for 99% of it is even more reason to be thankful. A banner will be raised, despite protests from a team that didn't make it out of the first weekend, and the #1 class in the country is coming in. The future is bright, both in terms of emerging from this global pandemic and in terms of Michigan basketball's prospects. Thank you Juwan and co.
The last year hasn't hit me as hard as it has hit some, but to one extent or another it has affected all of us.
Sports are not an end to themselves. They are a hobby, something to watch.
And something to share with others.
Michigan basketball was fun this year. Given the opportunity to make a Final Four, yesterday was very disappointing. In the end, though, we had every chance to make it; by the time Franz's last half-second shot clanged off the backboard and I hit the power button on the tv, I couldn't even be upset that we didn't get one last chance. We got four last chances. The offensive clunker that I was worried about occurred, and it was over.
And in the end we got a B1G banner (eat it, Illinois) and a trip to the Elite Eight and a lot of fun basketball to watch. Rare is the year when a team's season does not end on a down note. This is a year where we can legitimately be happy with what we had and where it is going.
Nothing could harsh my weekend. Michigan's game against Florida State wound up behind a lot of other stuff in importance in a very full and almost entirely wonderful day. I saw a friend get to spend time reunited with his dad, and see families encouraged and helped, and baptize my son. And, on the down side, was able to visit a hospital and pray with a family whose father was dying. The results of a basketball game don't compute on that scale.
It's just something to watch, to be privileged to have something to care about and enjoy. After decades languishing in irrelevance, Michigan basketball is a power. No longer do I take for granted a berth in the NCAA tournament. Cold weather and snowflakes outside, a field of 64 teams, your team on one of the lines, nothing but hope and chaos in front of you.
And no longer do I take for granted a trip to the second weekend, when teams have been defenestrated and yours has not. The turn of the season as April beckons and games against great teams and you have those fleeting imaginations of what it would be like to have "One Shining Moment" close with images of your team cutting down nets.
The temperature grazed 60 on Monday. A friend texted me about how encouraged he was as a father. I'll be able to hold my first campfire of the season with my kids this weekend. Michigan played for a trip to the Final Four, has a top coach in the sport, and welcomes the #1 recruiting class next year.
It feels like spring.
Funny thing about statistics - sometimes you wind up on the wrong side of the "you have a 90% chance to win" side of things. Michigan played poorly and lost because of it. It sucks. I'm sad, but will still remember this team fondly for being the unexpecting blip of hope during an otherwise crappy sports year.
As for the rest of the tournament, now that Michigan is vanquished, I am free to root for Gonzaga, We were tearing them down for not playing anyone all year, and all they've done all tournament is torch everyone in their way. They are proving KenPom right. I want them to finish the job and win it all without a single blip on their record. That's a great sports story.
Better than UCLA's cinderalla story anyway. I've never seen cinderella with so many horseshoes and rainbows up their ass. They won yesterday by a bucket despite only scoring a dismal 51. They won two other games in OT. One of their other games was against the 14 seed Abilene Christian, who also shot like ass just like Michigan and Bama and BYU did (BYU shot 56% FTs and 17% from 3). Pretty easy to win games when your opponents shoot ~25% (or less) from 3 and around 50% at the FT line (boy oh boy we sure did underestimate their FT defense huh). I want the Zags to demolish them because honestly I think they're a fraud who don't really deserve to be in the Final Four. It's crazy to think that Michigan State may have been their toughest out so far based on how everyone has played against them.
Ah, anyway, go Zags.
This basketball season has brought me so much joy amidst very trying times. Definitely would have preferred to go down in a shoot out where both teams are playing their best. I really feel for all the players who end their careers with this as their final game.
The future is definitely bright. It’s hard to say whether we’ll reach the same heights as a #1 seed and shot away from the Final Four again soon, but I am confident that, with the players we have coming in, these coming teams will continue to bring us exciting basketball.
It’s not just poetry it’s prose. Thanks Brian for saying all the things my brain can’t say and my heart just won’t. This team at this in the world will always be special to me.
Beautiful column, tears just from the headline.
Beautiful team, it was a joy to watch them bridge a tough fall with hopefully the best spring of all of our lives.
And welcome back Brian. I remember taking my son to Pinball Pete's when he was 5.
He's 29 now and his eyes still light up when we talk about it.
Maybe we'll see you at the Zilla movie. I'll be the old guy with the huge smile.
It's great...
...to be...
... B1G Champ Wolverines!!
The elements of duality came at extremes for this team all season. We all had very modest expectations as Brian noted but The Team went out and won the B1G regular season title. We went into the tournament with guarded Sweet 16 aspirations after the loss of Livers but then thought we were all but guaranteed a Final Four spot after great games against LSU and FSU only to have our hopes crushed last night.
There are life lessons in sports and the team members and all of us will be stengthened by the lessons of this season's journey. With the opportunity of joy comes the equal opportunity of anguish. The possibility of banners is coupled with another entry in the sports almanacs and online season record data. We have every reason for hope for our teams but then we will be met with certain levels of disappointment in future games and future seasons.
Even as we drift away into the summer months, all of us will eventually return to embrace another season journey with Michigan Football, Hockey, and/or Basketball. We will fight each other on the negatives but will have joys to share in victories, individual efforts, and season successes. We cannot control these ups and downs but we keep coming back so we are all accepting them in our own ways.
I was pissed the the end of the game, because I couldn’t believe they couldn’t have hit one more shot, or made a couple more free throws. I was not a fan of the 3s when they just needed 2. Today, I’m still disappointed, but the season was a blessing. Like others, it helped me get through the winter. I’m a week out from finishing my 28 days post-J&J vaccine, and looking forward to working back into a social life. Definitely looking forward to next season. Things are getting better.
Great column Brian. I do feel like like this team became something special that is hard to replicate even with great recruits coming in. And while they played great without Livers (and, yes, injuries are part of the deal) I feel like last night was the game where his absence was really felt. It's hard to imagine Wagner, Smith and Livers get cold all on the same night.
Smith was an 81% FT shooter this year and was 0% vs. UCLA. Dickenson was 75% this year and was 25% against UCLA.
Spoke with a co-worker who is a former basketball coach and he asked if UCLA pressed a lot. He theory is that pressing and exhausting people, especially younger players causes them to miss free throws because the no longer have the legs. Don't know if I buy that or not.
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