NOAH TRISTER
AP Sports Writer
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Just wait until basketball season.
That refrain became an expression of hope for Michigan fans over the last few months — as football Saturdays turned increasingly dreary in Ann Arbor. Everything would be fine, the thinking went, once the Wolverines took the court at Crisler Center.
Over the last week, however, the hardwood has been as unkind as the gridiron.
First came a stunning home loss to the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday. Then Michigan lost to Eastern Michigan at Crisler. The first defeat was national news. The second stung as well, coming against a school located only a few miles away.
“We tried too hard a few times,” coach John Beilein said Thursday. “Sometimes guys want to win so much.”
Michigan has won two Big Ten titles in basketball over the last three seasons — with a Final Four appearance in between. The program’s rise under Beilein was especially welcome since it came at a time when the football team was going through an unusually rough patch. It’s been a decade since Michigan won the Big Ten in football, and the Wolverines fired coach Brady Hoke last week.
Beilein’s basketball team looked ready to pick up the slack again, beating Syracuse the same day Hoke was fired. But then came NJIT. And Eastern Michigan.
The football coaching search is providing enough drama at Michigan. Now the basketball team might end up on the NCAA tournament bubble?
The football team’s future remains the single overriding issue facing Michigan athletics. A big-name hire — like former Wolverine Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers — would bring optimism back to the Big House right away.
After all of its success in recent years, the basketball team won’t descend into turmoil because of a couple unexpected losses, but the Wolverines will need to raise their level of play to contend for another conference title — and the NCAA tournament selection committee won’t look kindly on those NJIT and Eastern Michigan results.
Next up for the Wolverines is a game Saturday at No. 3 Arizona. Guard Spike Albrecht, who says he’s been dealing with an unspecified lower-body injury, said assistant coach LaVall Jordan had some encouraging words recently.
“He said it best the other day, just yesterday,” Albrecht said. “He said the season’s roughly six months, which is roughly 180 days. We just had four bad days, so we’ve got a lot of basketball left to play.”
