Indianapolis — As the final minute ticked down of a comfortable Final Four victory, the members of Michigan’s Fab Five looked down from their broadcast perch in the crowd of Lucas Oil Stadium. Smiles and laughs faded into reflective gazes. Then the joy of youth in front of them turned into the wisdom of their age.
And a reminder.
“All I’m gonna say is I’m tired of getting here and losing,” said Ray Jackson after Michigan’s win during an alternate broadcast of Saturday’s Final Four win.
How’s this for quite the quintet? Michigan is in its fifth national championship game since winning the NCAA title in 1989. And yet that history comes with its painful reminders: the Wolverines are 1-6 in NCAA championship games all time. UConn, the final team in its way this season, is 6-0.
Michigan (36-3) and UConn (34-5) will play for the national championship Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium, looking for only its second national championship in program history. UConn is playing in its third title game in four years, having won the previous two.
Even if Michigan throttled another opponent in Arizona, the highest-rated foe left in the field that stood no chance past halftime, those who’ve been there before had their warnings:
“Going into this game, everybody was saying quote-unquote these are the two best teams and whoever wins this is gonna win the championship,” Fab Five member Jalen Rose said. “It reminds me of when we played against Kentucky. People were saying the exact same thing. So Michigan gotta be ready on Monday.”
For the Wolverines, it’s been run after run of watching someone else cut down the nets. Since Seattle’s Kingdome treated them like royalty in 1989, their four championship game trips have been those of a postseason pauper.
There was Christian Laettner and Duke in 1992, then Chris Webber’s phantom timeout against North Carolina the next year that left the Fab Five without a title, not to mention the Ed Martin scandal brought those banners down from the Crisler Center rafters.
Trey Burke left 2013 as the Naismith Player of the Year, but not a national champion as Rick Pitino’s Louisville won it all — until, of course, that was vacated five years later. That same year, 2018, Villanova throttled Michigan to leave John Beilein empty-handed on his two title game trips.
What would it mean for Dusty May’s group of transfers to finally get Michigan to finish the climb and cut down those nets on Monday?
“It would mean everything,” point guard Elliot Cadeau said. “Just all of our work we’ve all put (in). A lot of us weren’t in the situation that we envisioned or were satisfied with last year. So just being able to be on this stage this year, and everybody’s kind of playing the way that they wanted to play and showcasing the way that they want to showcase, and it would just mean everything to all of us.”
For most college basketball programs, getting to the national championship is a climb. Year-over-year growth puts together a roster capable of winning it all. In the course of two seasons, Dusty May and Michigan put the right pieces together to play for the title Monday, largely through retreads.
“We took four guys out of the portal,” May said. “If you listen to the college basketball gospel, we took 17 of them, and that’s all we have in whatever case in year two, and we should have a bunch of fifth-year seniors in year two. We just don’t.”
But these Wolverines say they still have a connection to the program.
“I’ve only been at Michigan for a couple of months, but I definitely feel a connection,” Cadeau said. “Like the alums are here at the games, like Fab Five is here at the games talking to us, dapping us up before the game. It’s just really refreshing, and it just helps me connect with the past, for sure.”
And when it comes to championship games, a painful past at that. This Michigan team has a chance to break through a history of almosts and coulda-beens, but if it does so, it will be for each other more than anyone else.
‘When we go out there, we’re playing for Michigan. We’re playing for this team who’s capable of so much,” said Nimari Burnett, whose three years with the program make him the second-longest tenured Wolverine. “It’s like a personal level, but also, like, we’re so much about each other, and this team is so unselfish that it quickly gets right back to, let’s do it for the team. Let’s do it for each other.”
“It means everything, especially everything we’ve been through, the adversity that we’ve been able to overcome throughout the course of the season,” Roddy Gayle Jr. said. “I feel like it was just yesterday we were just all going up to northern Michigan and being able to kind of really understand each other from a broad perspective, and being able to learn each other’s backgrounds, I think was very important. And looking back at the moment, I’m very appreciative to be able to kind of deep down, dig deep, and learn our teammates. And I think that’s what really kind of built our chemistry.”
@ConnorEaregood
NCAA Tournament
NO. 1 MICHIGAN VS. NO. 2 UCONN
▶ What: NCAA Tournament championship game
▶ When: Monday, 8:50 p.m.
▶ Where: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis
▶ TV: TBS/TNT/TruTV
▶ Records: Michigan 36-3, UConn 34-5
▶ Line: Michigan by 6.5
