Thursday night, the Michigan men’s basketball team captured the Big Ten regular-season title, ensuring that its conference winning percentage would be better than Illinois’ no matter how the two teams’ final games went.
But after the Fighting Illini won at Ohio State and the Wolverines lost at Michigan State, many Illinois supporters — including head coach Brad Underwood — have claimed that the Fighting Illini’s 16-4 league record including a head-to-head win at Michigan on Tuesday is worthy of sharing a Big Ten title with Michigan, who went 14-3 in league play. Michigan played three fewer games after a COVID-19 shutdown that spanned the Wolverines’ entire athletic department caused Michigan to postpone five games, only two of which were made up.
“I know this, nobody’s won more games than us,” Underwood said Saturday. “And we’ve played them all.”
Of course, the argument for Michigan is that it lost one less game than Illinois. Both teams lost at Michigan State recently, but the Fighting Illini stumbled at Rutgers, vs. Maryland and vs. Ohio State — teams the Wolverines are a combined 4-0 against this season.
Asked about the situation after Sunday’s loss to the Spartans, Michigan coach Juwan Howard had an emphatic response to the notion that his team wasn’t the outright Big Ten champion.
“I don’t get into that stuff, man,” Howard said after Michigan’s 70-64. “You’re not gonna get any sound-bytes from me or any bulletin board shit, I don’t care about any of that stuff. I just care that we’re Big Ten champs and I’m so proud of our guys for working their butts off since June and grinding.
“All the unknowns, being able to pivot and sacrifice what their college life is supposed to be like. But still manage to have a season and then be stars in their own role. That’s amazing what our student-athletes were able to endure and overcome and then at the same time accomplish something special, that’s the Big Ten title. So I’m not gonna let anyone — I repeat, anyone — try to ruin it for them. They earned it.”
In terms of actual change being made, the Big Ten has already established that the Wolverines are Big Ten champions by way of winning percentage. That has been the league’s approach to imbalanced schedules during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is not expected to be reconsidered because a fanbase demands it.
The Wolverines’ missing games, which were decisions made in conjunction with the Big Ten, were road games at Northwestern and Penn State and a home game against Indiana. Michigan went 3-0 against all those teams.
Michigan just lost to Illinois on Tuesday, 76-53, but will try to regroup in the Big Ten Tournament as the 1-seed, with a potential rematch against the Fighting Illini on the horizon.
