The Michigan Wolverines’ basketball team won a title in historic fashion a season ago. Their 2025 team was dominant every step of the way. They won every NCAA Tournament game, save for the title game, by double digits.
The Wolverines’ title was the first that the Big Ten had won since Michigan State claimed a title for the conference in 2000 with Tom Izzo at the helm.
26 years later, Izzo is still the coach of the Spartans. He’s knocked on the door, but never kicked it fully down for a second title.
As it turns out, he was not rooting for Michigan to win last year either.
That’s understandable. As much as people in college sports talk about rooting for their teams within their conference, I think that’s silly.
If you’re a Michigan fan, were you rooting for Ohio State to win the national championship in 2024? Of course not.
Izzo not rooting for the Wolverines, a team he’s said in the past he hates, is understandable. He was asked if he believes a team from the conference winning the title helps benefit them.
“I guess it helps a little bit,” Izzo said. “I know what it takes to win a national championship. And I know how good you have to be but how lucky you have to be.
“I’ve been in a couple Final Fours where there have two Big Ten teams in it. It’s not like we haven’t knocked on the door. I don’t think that’s a stigma. I don’t think Illinois was in a stigma or us a few years ago or all the other teams that have made it there. I don’t think they’re sitting there the night before a championship game saying, ‘No Big Ten team has won it.’
The line about how lucky you have to be was brought to the attention of Dusty May, last season’s coach who won a title in his second season, matching Izzo’s total from the 31 years he’s been in charge in East Lansing.
Dusty May Responds
May, as you’d expect, clapped back.
“Once we went to Vegas we felt like we certainly had a chance to win a national championship,” May said to Go Blue Hoops. “As I've recently heard about the luck factor we didn't feel very lucky when we were playing in those Final Four games without (LJ) Cason and Yaxel Lendeborg."
Cason missed the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in late February. Cason was the team’s backup point guard.
He was averaging 8.4 points and 2.4 assists in about 18 minutes. He shot better than 40 percent from 3-point land.
Lendeborg did not miss any games, but did have to play compromised after suffering a sprained ankle and bone bruise in the team’s win over Arizona in the Final Four.
Lendeborg did play in the national championship game two nights later. He scored 13 points in 36 minutes, but was clearly hampered by the leg injury. The Wolverines were able to knock off the Connecticut Huskies anyway, en route to the program’s first national title since 1989.
Conversely, Izzo has not won a national championship since 2000, which was in the same city as the site of this year’s Final Four. The Final Four will be in Detroit, Michigan. As Izzo enters the twilight of his career, opportunities to win a second title will run thin.
Perhaps this will be the year that Izzo is able to break through again. The Big Ten is loaded, and the Spartans are projected to finish at or near the top of the conference with a solid roster.
Maybe a little luck will be on their side this time around.
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