Michigan basketball keeps perspective as historically bad season nears end

Nobody in or around the Michigan basketball program has experienced anything like this.

The losing streaks. The disappointment. The frustration; it all continued Sunday, a day meant for celebration.

Michigan fell to Nebraska on senior day at Crisler Center, 85-70, to wrap up its regular season. At 8-23 overall, no team in 107 years of history has lost more games in a single season. Michigan hadn’t had a five-game losing streak in more than a decade, then had three separate such stretches in the past three months.

The Wolverines dropped 18 of the final 20 games; their KenPom defensive efficiency rating (107.1) wasn’t just the program’s worst since the stat started in 1999, but is the league’s worst mark since 2018 Iowa (108.2).

Or perhaps the most damning, U-M never had consecutive wins over high major teams all year long.

While head coach Juwan Howard insisted after the game that the season isn’t over and said his team will now turn its attention to the Big Ten Tournament — U-M will be the No. 14 seed for the first time in its history after finishing in last place in the league for the first time since 1966-67 — senior Terrance Williams II was willing to reflect on what’s transpired.

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Technically he has a year of eligibility left, but he didn’t sound like someone with plans to return.

“That 8-23, it won’t ever sit right with me,” Williams said, reflecting on what might be his last year in maize and blue. “I didn’t have that vision my senior season. But it happens. Adversity … we’re all going through adversity. It’s making us the young men that we are.

“l can’t be mad at it. I can be mad at that record, but what we’re going through, I feel like we’ll get through it. I made brothers this year, I’m happy about that. I’m playing basketball, can’t be mad about that. So you know, my 10-year-old self would be happy with where I’m at right now.”

‘That’s false information’

During the preseason it was captain Oliver Nkamhoua who downplayed a media poll which pegged the Wolverines to finish No. 11 in the conference.

“Those teams are going to have to prove on the court they’re better than us,” he said at the time.

The Wolverines had a shorthanded roster from the start, and went the entire summer without their head coach. The team practiced without Howard for months, before and after he underwent open heart surgery in September, and now with the benefit of hindsight, those in the program appeared to underestimate just how much that would throw a wrench in the season.

“It’s been a strange year in a very strange season,” Howard said Sunday. “I didn’t get an opportunity to be myself and on the floor, teaching (in the summer). Each and every day, thinking about when you have an aneurysm, what day is it going to burst? … Then you have surgery, go through that … learning how to walk again.

“I’m going to keep forging ahead because I know my team and my staff needs me. I’m not going to quit on them because that’s not how I operate. I’ve never quit anything in life. We have a season to play, so I’m going to give everything I can to this university, this team and this staff, because these are the people I love.”

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Things started well: Michigan was 3-0 at one point, then later 6-5, when the year went sideways just before league play began.

Howard got in a verbal altercation with former strength & conditioning coach Jon Sanderson, point guard Dug McDaniel got suspended, the flu ripped through the locker room, and Nkamhoua (broken wrist), Tray Jackson (concussion, broken nose) and Jaelin Llewellyn (ACL rehab) all battled through varying ailments.

As the roster got thinner, the losses mounted; but even though U-M has lost 18 of 20 games for the first time in more than 40 years, the players say they appreciate the way it’s been handled.

“Coach Howard, he’s trying to share the message that we have to get 1% better every day,” Williams said. “He’s not pounding the losses on us or any of that. We watch film, we try to learn from these mistakes that we keep doing and apply it. I appreciate coach Howard for that. A lot of coaches could be yelling at us, putting us down.

“Coach Howard just wants us to be better on and off the court. … I appreciate him for that.”

There’s a chance the comment could be misconstrued as apathy. Maybe it comes off as the coach not demanding more of players. Maybe it comes off as the new generation being satisfied with a participation trophy.

Williams shut down any conspiracy theories of that sort immediately.

“I mean, nah, we’re definitely being pushed every day in practice,” he said. “We’re trying to fix the mistakes. We’re not just going into practice like we will wipe away the game that happens. We’re gonna watch film, drill, Coach Howard’s going to drill us to help us in the next game.

“We’re not satisfied with the record, just to be transparent … that’s a fan perspective. I just feel like that’s false information, because we’re being pushed every day. We’re pushing each other every day.”

The bigger picture

Fans don’t want to hear about the moments they don’t get to see.

Barbecues at Howard’s house won’t end what looks like it will assuredly be the program’s first two-year NCAA tournament drought since it missed 10 straight (1999-2008). Neither will bowling nights, though those happened, too, as did a watch party for the Super Bowl.

But for the players — whose years of dedication and hours of work per week are rewarded with losses and scrutiny — that’s what this year will be about.

“Even though this season hasn’t gone how we all wanted it to be, how we all envisioned, we can never question the group of players, the group of teammates, the group of people we had,” Nimari Burnett said. “With that being said, it definitely sucks. It weighs on us in our own individual ways.

“But us as a group, these guys are people I’ll talk to the rest of my life. Ultimately, I’m grateful for that.”

There are many questions about what the future of the program looks like. The coach, the roster construction, the NIL investment, the recruiting, the transfer portal; all of which are valid for a program that’s gone from Elite Eight to Sweet 16 to bubble team to bottom of the Big Ten.

But from where Howard sits, there’s no question about what needs to happen. And no place he’d rather do it.

“We’re going to grind like no other this summer,” Howard said. “Getting back to what we’re used to … and that’s winning. But this year right here alone, we have learned a lot and I feel we have won in a lot of ways.

“I could have sat this season out but that’s not how I’m wired. I felt this team and this staff needs me and I need them, too.”

Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.