4/10/2006 – Week #23 – Season Wrap-Up, Final Grades, Looking Ahead

Season Wrap-Up

In general, it was a disappointing season for the University of Michigan men's basketball team.  On the one hand, they ended up with a very respectable record (22-11 overall, 8-8 in the Big Ten), and they won 4 games in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), but on the other hand, they did lose to Minnesota in the 1^st round of the Big Ten Tournament, which kept them out of the NCAA Tournament again.

As I said in last week's column, I suppose that there's something to be said for playing in 5 postseason games in the NIT, instead of losing in the 1^st or 2^nd round of the, like all the Big Ten teams did, but if you can't get into the Big Dance, the only real consolation is winning the Little Dance, and Michigan came up short.

The saddest part about the way the season ended is that this year's senior class, especially Graham Brown, Daniel Horton, and Chris Hunter, deserved a lot better.  This was a very good senior class, and they had the misfortune to be on a hard-luck team that just barely missed making the Big Dance.  If Michigan had suffered one less key injury, not had an academic ineligibility, or had gotten one less bad break somewhere along the line, this season could have ended very differently.  I understand that injuries, academic ineligibilities, and bad breaks are part of the game, but UM seemed snakebit this season (and last) by extra injuries and extra bad breaks, all at the worst possible time.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that the team was better than their record and results show.

Speaking of their results, here are the final results for this season:

As you can see, UM peaked in early February, when they were 16-3 (6-2 in the Big Ten).  From that point on, they lost 7 out of their next 9 games, before winning 4 in a row in the NIT, and losing in the championship game.  Three of those seven losses were predictable and forgivable (at Iowa, at Michigan State, at Ohio State), and two of them were toss-up games (home vs. Ohio State, home vs. Indiana), but the other two should have been wins (at Purdue, and vs. Minnesota).  Those 2 wins would have put Michigan in the Big Dance, and made it a lot easier to consider the season a success.

So, what happened?  How did Michigan go from a ranked (#20) 16-3 team to a "bubble team" to an NIT team?  As I mentioned above, it was a wicked combination of injuries, academic ineligibility, and bad luck.  Here are the messy details: 

Lester Abram – Last season, he missed 28 games with injuries, and he had injury problems again this season, missing 12 more games.  He missed 2 games due to a toe injury he suffered in the Chicago State game on 12/31/2005, then he missed 10 games after he suffered a high ankle sprain in the Minnesota game on 01/21/2006.  Even when he returned, he wasn't quite the same player.

Dion Harris – He suffered a severe ankle sprain in the Ohio State game on 02/09/2006, and he missed 2 games.  Once again, even though he returned after missing those 2 games, he wasn't the same player for several more games.

Chris Hunter – He suffered a minor knee injury just 2 minutes into the Michigan State game on 02/18/2006, and he missed 3 games because of it.

Brent Petway – He was academically ineligible for the fall semester, which cost him 11 games.

Jerret Smith – He injured his ankle in the Miami (OH) game on 12/22/2005, and he missed 2 games.  He came back from that injury, then he suffered a concussion in the Penn State game on 02/01/2006, then he came down with mononucleosis, and he ended up missing 4 more games.

Here's the complete list: