Precipice

From that magical fifteen minutes when we shared Spike with an incredulous nation.
Andy Lyons / Getty Images

If you have noticed, or maybe you have't, I haven't written anything about the Michigan basketball team this season.  This should not indicate a lack of interest in the sport, or some grudge against the team, because it is neither of those things.  The lack of comment comes from a knowledge that I personally lack a depth of understanding about basketball to write about it with what I feel is a competence with which I feel comfortable sharing with the world. A man's got to know his limitations, after all.

Basketball will always rank fourth with me of the four major North American sports, and really, its probably fifth behind soccer.  That's not saying I don't enjoy the tournament, because I do, it's just the nature of my particular model of sports fandom.  One of my friends has suggested that my issue with basketball is that I place a personal premium on scoring, wherein the more difficult to score, the more I enjoy the game.  I can see this.  Basketball, even when played well defensively, has something in the nature of 20 to 30 made field goals for each team.

But I do know what I like in basketball.  I like outside shooters.  I like smart.  I like hustle.  I like adaptable. But mostly I like humility and teamwork.  The small size of basketball teams makes it more likely that the players on the team will feel more like a family, a brotherhood, than other sports.  So when players talk about how much they care about each other, you can believe it, because it's a small band of brothers and you get to know them.  Michigan's game has so many of the things I like that it leads to Nick Hornby's Arsenal conundrum*, only a positive one.

(*--As stated in Fever Pitch: "See after awhile it all gets mixed up together in your head, and you can't remember whether life's sh*t because Arsenal are sh*t or the other way around.")

And so I came to know this team on a first name basis, because it was always about Trey, or Tim, or Mitch, or Glenn, or Nik, or Spike, or Jordan, or Jon, or Caris, or Matt, or Josh.  It because about Nik and "CTRL-V" when he hit a three.  It became about the Trey Burke layup where he goes up, puts everything on the line, hits the deck, and goes to the line for the and one.  It became about GRIII hovering in the air like a glitch in The Matrix.  It became about The Big Puppy playing with an Novakian enthusiasm for life and the game.    It became about missed free throws and what felt like missed opportunities.  But it also became about hope.  It was a basketball version of Team 133, restoring something that had been gone, but we knew could be again.  It became about a coach who would never make it about himself, who carried himself with dignity, grace, and class, who noted just how amazing the first half had been as he's being interviewed on his way to the locker room.

In the end, we can probably go back and pinpoint the small moments that made the difference.  We were trying to do it on Twitter last night and we were more wrong than we were right, because there's no penalty for being wrong about something like that on Twitter.  We can argue about strategies, coaching decisions, rotations, and the like, preferably with our facts straight, but it won't matter.  It doesn't change the outcome, it doesn't really numb the pain.  The heart aches a little, because the moment was there and it slipped away and if the last quarter century has taught us anything, it's that you never know when those moments will come again.  But for now, know that Michigan has been in six national championship games, a loss to a Wooden UCLA team in 1965, a loss to Bobby Knight's undefeated Indiana team in 1976, a classic victory over Seton Hall in 1989, a loss to Coach K's back to back Blue Devils in 1992, a loss to Dean Smith Tar Heels in 1993, and now a loss to Rick Pitino's Louisville team in 2013.  A combined 21 titles for opposing coaches, 4,066 victories among them, all in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.  Hopefully the next one will be better.  Hopefully it will be sooner than later.

My thanks to you 2012-13 Michigan basketball team.  You were fun, talented, and classy.  That may not be all that you can ask for, but that's a pretty darn good start.

Trey Burke, Speech to the Electors of Crisler

Burke opposed the French Revolution, but he supported the American Revolution.
Political scholars ponder the meaning of this, as if it were something more than a dislike of decapitations.

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.

He tells you that "the topic of declaring for the draft has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this arena;" and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of a coercive authority forcing players to stay in school.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Michigan basketball player to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with Coach Beilein and his assistants. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion of his talent, his mature judgment of his abilities, his right to play professionally if he so chooses, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your point guard owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of the Maize Rage is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a player ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the player is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to support, and to receive no remuneration for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,--these are things unfortunately known to the laws of the NCAA, and which arise from the fundamental mistake which is the whole order and tenor of its constitution.

Michigan basketball is not a congress of players from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, without agent or advocate, against others without agents or advocates; but basketball is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the team; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a point guard indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not just a Michigan Man, but he is a basketball player. If a Michigan constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of a player, the team ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to at least the end of my sophomore season: a flatterer you do not wish for.