So much of the college basketball season is about the journey and responding to the last thing that happened. Then, it ends in one long night in March, and the journey is finished.
The finality of an NCAA Tournament defeat is difficult to process. Only one team ends the year with the ultimate celebration, so what’s the proper reaction in defeat? Early upsets feel devastating, but second-weekend defeats fall somewhere in the middle.
Michigan fell short of San Antonio with a 78-66 loss to Auburn on Friday night, but it did enough this season to make us believe it had a chance. In the end, that’s all you can ask for.
The Wolverines ended their season on the second most significant stage of the sport, and that speaks to how far the program has come.
By any reasonable measure, Dusty May’s first season in Ann Arbor was a resounding success. He had to put an entire program together in weeks in the offseason and then guided that team about as far as anyone would have dreamed, let alone expected.
Entering the year, simple achievements like competency and an NCAA Tournament berth would have been enough for most. Instead, Michigan finished tied for second, won the Big Ten Tournament, and punched a ticket to the Sweet Sixteen before falling short to the No. 1 overall seed.
As impressive as this group’s accomplishments were, they’re even more enticing as a foundation moving forward. This was the instant brew version of Dusty May building a roster—his first high-major roster at a new school. The upside is off the charts moving forward, given how much work he’s done in the 11 months since to improve the program from top to bottom.
There’s also the coaching and the process. Michigan’s season was great, but it wasn’t easy. The resilience this team showed to turn a poor regular-season finish into a five-game postseason winning streak was eye-opening. That sort of steel hardens in a program and remains even as the faces change.
The roster will change, the Area 50-1 combination will play for bigger paychecks, and new portal prospects will emerge, but it’s hard to feel anything other than excitement about what’s to come—even on a frustrating night that ended May’s first season.
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