The Michigan Wolverines Are The Big Ten Basketball Champions Because Your Shit-Ass Teams Couldn’t Be Bothered To Stop Them

It’s only fitting that in 2021, which is just Extended 2020, the most interesting Big Ten basketball season in a while from a preseason standpoint should be won by what Dick Vitale described as “the real Cinderella story of college basketball”: the Michigan Wolverines.

Michigan fans started to come back out of the woodwork coming into March, but were quickly silenced by an ass-kicking at the hands of the Fighting Illini sans Ayo Dosunmu. However, this was only their second loss in league play, and they rebounded by stuffing their supposed rival Michigan State into a trash can to gain league recognition as the regular season champions.

And now you’re gonna hear about it. Michigan fans’ complete lack of attention to and love for what’s been the most successful basketball program in the Big Ten in the past decade has yet again been rewarded with a league title and now that they’ve won, the older ones will talk about integrity and character while harkening back to the time they cheated massively to assemble a legendary recruiting class, while the younger ones will be posting deep-fried laser eyes memes in your replies. I’ll take personal responsibility for not running that one into the ground in 2019, but it won’t just be the fans. Dickie V spent half of last night’s game talking about the Fab Five, and you’ll now hear about Waking Up The Echoes from the rest of the media for a few weeks, as though Michigan has been trash for decades and isn’t just a few years removed from a national runner-up appearance.

And you know what? As far as I’m concerned, you all deserve it except for Minnesota.

All of your shit-ass basketball teams had at least one chance to stop these Wolverines from cruising to a championship. As a collective, you had three less chances than you should have, but that was still enough.

Illinois did our part. Down the best player in college basketball, we stopped them at the arc and found open looks, eating Hunter Dickinson alive not just with Kofi Cockburn but also with Giorgi Bezhanishvili. Minnesota pitched in, going 1-1 including an 18-point ass-kicking. Where were the rest of you?

Penn State had a chance on the road (since the return trip was conveniently never rescheduled) and couldn’t score for the last 3 minutes with a 2 point lead. Whatever, I didn’t expect much from them, or for that matter Nebraska. Northwestern can put together a max of 28 non-consecutive minutes of competing with anyone in the league in basketball, which is notably less than 40. I suppose they owed Michigan for giving up the only Northwestern basketball highlight ever to Drererk Prardrorn a few years back. Who knows or cares why Northwestern basketball does what they do?

I’m taking a bit more of an issue with the likes of, say, Purdue and Indiana. Hey, have you noticed how Minnesota laid the blueprint for beating Michigan? Did you notice how easily it can be done when you have a legit two-way big man (as opposed to a Luka Garza)? Purdue, how hard was it to do literally your entire identity for the last decade plus and just PLAY THE EXTREMELY TALL GUY? Being a decent team, you knew you were only getting one shot at Michigan. Edey played 14 minutes as y’all shot 31%? Do you have any idea what team you are?

Indiana at least deserves some credit for exposing Luka Garza as a fraud, but Jesus, you guys played Trayce Jackson-Davis for 35 minutes against Michigan and got three defensive boards out of him? You couldn’t even stay within punching distance in this one for like ten minutes, and you were at home. Well, guess what? Now you’ll get to stay home, and by home I mean “wherever you live,” not “Assembly Hall in Bloomington where NCAA tournament games will be played.” How the hell you fired Tom Crean for Big Lots Brand Tom Crean I’ll never understand.

Hey Rutgers! Congratulations on both of your Big Ten road wins this year! That’s about the most you’ll ever win on the road in this league if you insist on your dare-them-to-call-fouls-at-home style of defense. Steve Pikiell doesn’t have Tom Izzo’s clout. I’d recommend he keep his players behaving on campus as well for that reason. Hey, lose another road game and then choke in the conference tournament and you won’t have to worry about playing postseason games outside the friendly confines of Piss Thataway.

I have no idea how Brad Underwood keeps losing to Mark Turgeon, who somehow lacks the clout to have his team shoot more than 6 free throws at home, but if you couldn’t win a game where your opponent shot 6/19 from deep, you sure as shit weren’t winning the road rematch. Your team must suck because you’re on Michigan’s schedule twice. Bet Maryland fans are thrilled that Turge has Underwood’s number...and nobody else’s.

Now I’ll grant Wisconsin that Michigan was on long rest both times they played (once again, being on Michigan’s schedule twice this year is a surefire sign that you suck), but way to play Iowa defense in the road trip and totally delegitimize yourselves. Your coach’s last name is literally “Gard.” Fucking guard someone! In round two, at home, you had a twelve point halftime lead and then only scored 6 in the last 8 minutes. Aren’t you glad that instead of hitting a single goddamn shot from the floor in this 8 minute stretch, D’Mitrik Trice saved all his shooting for the last two minutes against Illinois only to lose anyway? Where was Three Point Contest Trice then? Did his mother have some sort of ailment that prevented her from making loud tropical bird sounds during Michigan free throws? You’re absolute frauds, and Brad Davison should be your next head coach.

Good job, Buckeyes! I still don’t understand why EJ Liddell cares so much about Owning Illinois, but hey at least you got the rival your best player cares about! You gave up 92 points to Anti-Iowa, the team that only plays defense. It’s all good. We know you were overlooking Michigan and Michigan State ahead of your matchup with the only game that matters to you this Sunday. Don’t worry, Tuf Borland is totally fast enough to cover Andre Curbelo.

Speaking of Anti-Iowa, how about Regular Iowa? If Fran’s entire purpose in coaching has been to prove that you need only play offense, he should resign after proving against the team that only plays defense that he’s wrong and his ideas are wrong. The Best Player In The Country Bar None managed an impressive 16 points against Michigan...on NINTETEEN SHOTS. In the context of Iowa-Michigan, Iowa would have been better off playing Andre Curbelo at center as he scored 17 on 14 shots and outboarded Garza 6 to 4 in just 19 minutes. Luka Garza is a gimmick, and if Iowa was anything more they’d have been able to occupy the same court as Michigan for at least a half. I will give them this though: they’ll produce one of the most fun and high scoring games of the tournament as they lose to a 14 seed.

All of those teams deserve to hang Michigan’s Big Ten Championship banner in their gyms. Michigan State deserves to hang three copies of it. This whole “Playing Basketball” thing wasn’t working out too well for Tom Izzo’s boys, as they got whipped by Northwestern and held to 37 by Rutgers in the early going. With March approaching, desperation kicked in and Izzo decided to abandon basketball in favor of whatever sport the 1989 Pistons were playing. It worked like a charm, the officials decided to roll with it and it led to a situation where Ayo Dosunmu got borderline Jack Tatum’d while driving the lane. Curiously, Ayo was a less effective shooter after this incident.

Michigan State fans online have all seemed way more proud of knocking out Ayo than of winning the game, but win the game they did. Tom Izzo was very proud of his boys and agreed that the game was a “street fight” and that this was a good thing. In a major break with precedent, Mady Sissoko was not suspended for the flagrant-2 he picked up. Izzo has had no comment on the situation.

So what the hell happened to all that STREET FIGHT TOUGH PHYSICAL MANBALL bullshit in Ann Arbor? The only repercussions of how they played Illinois was that Illinois’ next two opponents felt like they had the green light to try to tackle Kofi Cockburn. Fortunately, those flagrant fouls were actually called, but the Big Ten had no problem with Michigan State showing the whole league that you should play basketball like this. So, knowing there would be no consequences, where was all this Bad Boy shit last night? You beat up Illinois, talk all kinds of shit about how great you are for doing it, and then go to Ann Arbor to have Juwan Howard stuff your head in the toilet and flush it repeatedly to clinch the Big Ten Title. Congratulations, you’re now Michigan’s errand boys and your only way out of this situation is hoping that professional options for pro-caliber high school players don’t improve in the next year.

All of y’all should be ashamed of yourselves and your teams for letting this happen. Don’t bother showing up to the Big Ten Tournament next week. Not very many of you even bothered to bring any give-a-shit to Ann Arbor (where nine of Michigan’s 16 Big Ten games have been played), and for this those of you whose teams actually make the NCAA tournament should be forced to listen to Dick Vitale sing Hail To The Victors repeatedly while your team plays.

Except you, Minnesota. You’re cool with us.