Michigan Basketball: NCAA Tournament Hopes not Dead

Michigan basketball ended its regular season in about the worst way possible, but with the Big Ten Tournament to play, postseason hopes aren’t dead.

As painful as it was to watch Michigan basketball‘s season slip away into darkness on Saturday night against the Iowa Hawkeyes in a 71-61 loss, the Wolverines’ postseason aspirations are not dead.

Michigan crawled to the finish line by losing six of its final nine games and didn’t do very much in the latter half of the conference season to make a good name for itself in the eyes of the selection committee.

The Wolverines’ last six losses came at an average of just over 10.5 points per contest. They simply looked bad in most of their defeats, which is part of the reason having 20 wins isn’t carrying more weight.

Before going into why Michigan’s postseason hopes are actually still alive, let’s make a quick distinction: There’s a difference between looking like a tournament team and actually being a tournament team. Michigan by and large hasn’t looked like a tournament team since January, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a tournament team; that’s just the nature of the beast.

You know how every year there are complaints about a small school not getting selected despite playing well the entire season and having a standup record? It’s teams like Michigan that take those spots.

Now that that’s out of the way, the Wolverines don’t need to do as much as you might think to get into the big dance.

For starters—and I know I talk about this often, so bare with me—Michigan still doesn’t have a bad loss to date. Its worst loss was to Ohio State, which was well inside the RPI top 100. As I’ve pointed out, not being bad isn’t good enough, but if Michigan is a coin-flip team on Selection Sunday, that could be significant.

The problem is getting to the point where you’re fortunate enough to even be on that 50/50 line. Because right now Michigan isn’t.

With so many people eager to dismiss the Wolverines’ chances, I’m wondering if they’re forgetting about the power of the conference tournament. I know there are a number of teams who look to the conference tournament as one final last-ditch effort to make a solid case for themselves to the selection committee, but Michigan is on the right side of the fence still. It’s desperate, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as desperate as some teams who will need to be hoping for a miracle.

If other bubble teams (Tulsa, Gonzaga, Florida, Oregon State, etc.) play to Michigan’s favor, the Wolverines are one win away in the Big Ten Tournament from being right on that line.

Right now Joe Lunardi (ESPN) has Michigan listed as one of the first four teams out. When averaging every teams’ RPI and KenPom rankings, the Wolverines get the same result: fourth team out. (Credit to Basketball, by the NUmbers for doing the calculations.)

Michigan (No. 8) will play Northwestern (No. 9) on Wednesday at noon ET. The winner goes on to play Big Ten regular season champion Indiana. The Wolverines are in great position if they win both, but even just the first win against the Wildcats would maybe be enough to propel them into the NCAA Tournament.

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Right now Michigan is on the outside looking in, but with a moderately favorable matchup against Northwestern—the Wolverines won their only meeting this season, 72-63—this thing isn’t over.

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