 | Alan Goldenbach The Bronx Bomber |
It's no less than three weeks, three days, nine hours ... well, maybe seven hours, until the start of the single greatest event in all of sports.
PIt's the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. And March 13 is sneaking up on us pretty quickly.
And when that thrilling Thursday afternoon arrives, there will be 64 teams all possessing something more than a dream of a cutting down the nets in Indianapolis 18 days later.
Those teams all have the proverbial heart.
We say proverbial because it is something that critics assume a team has in order to be successful enough to make it to the Big Dance.
If a team is going to win a conference's postseason tournament or pull off a 20-25-win campaign, then it had to have built up some heart during the course of the season.
You need heart to win those games that go down to the wire. You need heart to win games where your star player goes down with an injury or foul trouble. You need heart when you go up against a better team, and need to pull off the upset.
You even need heart in those games against teams like Chico State where the bigger challenge is not whether you win, but whether you cover the spread.
Right now, Michigan has no heart.
Zero.
Not even an artery, a vein or a drop of blood.
Just emptiness.
The Wolverines haven't demonstrated at any point during this Big Ten season that they have the heart of an NCAA tournament team, let alone a national champion.
They are simply trying to get by on their awesome levels of talent and athleticism and it's not working now that the meat of their schedule is upon them.
It worked in the early going of the season when Michigan squeaked by teams like Cleveland State and Bradley.
Michigan got even luckier in December when it beat Duke.
But as far as what has transpired during its Big Ten slate, forget about any kind of heart.
Those close games? Just look at yesterday's catastrophe, where Michigan fumbled away a 20-point second-half lead. Want more? Look back a few weeks to when these same two teams hooked up in Bloomington - a two-point loss which Michigan could have easily pulled out, considering that Indiana decided not to score in the game's final three minutes.
The games where you lose a star player? Maurice Taylor's nose was shattered and his head was filled with stars after he took an elbow from Wisconsin's Paul Grant.
Did Michigan rise to the occasion in its star's absence?
Well, Louis Bullock did. But everyone else rolled over and played dead.
How about the games against the better teams? The games where you build heart by beating a better team.
Michigan went into Minnesota and pretty much conceded victory to the Gophers. Never did the game get out of hand, but the result was never in doubt. Minnesota played Michigan like a yo-yo in that game, letting the Wolverines get close, but never close enough to think they could beat the Big Ten's frontrunner.
And lastly, let's look at those games where you know you're going to win, but you just need to show up for 40 minutes and simply remember how to dribble.
When Michigan lost its Big Ten season-opener at home to Ohio State, the most significant dribbling was a result of Michigan choking on its Gatorade.
The heck with covering the spread. Michigan coach Steve Fisher might have gotten more of an effort Huron high school that day.
Five big games. Five big losses. Five big absences of heart.
When is this team going to realize that you don't score more points for yelling and dancing after a dunk? The flash and cockiness sells a lot of clothing, but it doesn't win you many games.
There's something to be said about having a desire to win. It's evident in teams like Minnesota. It's evident in a team like Indiana, which refused to keel over when it fell behind by 20 points.
Most importantly, it's evident in those 64 teams still playing on March 13.
Yesterday's loss is the crowning achievement of Michigan's season. It encapsulates all that is wrong with this team.
There is absolutely no reason that the Wolverines should have let that lead get away from them - especially after watching Maceo Baston's emphatic slam and Bullock's 16-foot jumper in the final 10 seconds of the first half. Bullock ran off the court raising the roof and the Crisler crowd was rocking.
Michigan must have gone into the lockerroom and given itself a gut check.
And then promptly left those guts in the lockerroom.
Michigan's next four games - Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois - will give the Wolverines a prime opportunity to show if there is heart on this team.
That's followed with a pair of should-wins - Northwestern and Ohio State.
If the Wolverines win two of those four tough games and one of the last two, then they will make the tournament.
If not, now altogether, everyone ... NIT - the Spring-time haven for the could-have-beens.
And the teams with no heart.
- Alan Goldenbach can be reached over e-mail at agold@umich.edu