Michigan Basketball: 3 takeaways from a sloppy loss to Villanova

2. Was the season a boom or bust

With a preseason ranking of number six, Michigan basketball had title hopes coming into the year. They won their first two then lost to Seton Hall and the bottom fell out from under them. The Wolverines were 7-7 after the covid break and went 3-2 without Juwan Howard. They experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows throughout the rigorous schedule.

Beating Purdue, Michigan State, Ohio State and Tennessee were the peak points of the season. The sky started falling in November when Michigan lost to Seton Hall at home and people said it was better to lose then. 15 losses in all is a lot to overcome, especially the Minnesota loss which turned out to be as bad as it could have been at the time, but it didn’t define this team. Despite all of that Michigan still made it to the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

Regardless of what anyone says, Juwan Howard did a fine job getting his boys back on track midway through an off-the-rails season.

They could have packed it in and went on to the NIT, but instead, they saved the season and turned a negative into a positive. The future of Michigan basketball is in great hands and it doesn’t seem too far-fetched that they may be in line for a championship sometime soon.