Zack Novak was finally spent.
The junior guard fouled out with seven seconds remaining in overtime Sunday evening against No. 3 Kansas. Time hadn’t expired yet, but the game was over. The Jayhawks had a five-point lead. They’d soon add two free throws to give the game its 67-60 final score, but they were inconsequential.
Michigan, despite somehow willing its way to the extra period, and even after taking its first lead of the night a minute into overtime, was going to lose.
Its potential upset — the same kind of win that propelled the team to the NCAA Tournament two seasons ago when the Wolverines defeated then-No. 4 Duke at Crisler Arena — was off the table. Fans may remember this one for months or even years, but it’s still doomed to its place in the Michigan annals: a loss, and nothing more.
Novak — the Wolverines’ spiritual leader, the one guy who can be counted on every time out to do everything he can to get his team a win without giving a thought to the damage his body may incur — was now powerless.
All he could do was slowly trudge off the Crisler court, resigned to his team’s fate.
The junior took his time getting to the bench. He knew that once he got there, the brief ray of light that had grown and grown as Michigan fought back against mighty Kansas would be definitively gone.
Novak doesn’t believe in moral victories. He certainly wasn’t thinking about one as he walked off the court. And when asked by reporters after the game if his team’s close loss represented one of those such ‘wins,’ he was characteristically unenthusiastic in his response.
The truth is, all of his Wolverine teammates should be so bitter.
It’s very easy (and tempting) to see this game from that positive point of view. After all, here was a team picked to finish at or near the bottom of the Big Ten. Its opponent Sunday was one of the most talented and powerful teams in the country.
The Jayhawks will be a popular Final Four pick when all the prognosticators start filling out their brackets come March. Former Ohio State great Clark Kellogg was here to call the game for CBS. And it would shock nobody if, when he broadcasts the Tournament’s Championship game in Houston in a couple months, it’s Kansas cutting down the nets.
And then there were the Wolverines. Their expectations have gone up with their surprising start to the season, but this is still a team with exactly two upperclassmen and four first-year regulars.
The scene was telling when sophomore guard Matt Vogrich entered the game in the first half. Vogrich was matched up with Jayhawk guard Josh Selby, a freshman sensation.
Selby was ranked the No. 1 recruit in America out of high school; Vogrich was No. 137. Vogrich picked Michigan over respectable programs Notre Dame and Stanford; Selby chose Kansas over Connecticut, Kentucky, and Syracuse, among other powerhouses.
Selby was suspended for the first nine games of the season for receiving improper benefits as a recruit; the most anyone ever offered Vogrich on the AAU circuit was a ham sandwich.
But here was Michigan, which found itself down 25-10, which shot 26.1 percent from the field in the first half, which didn’t make a shot until nearly seven minutes had elapsed in the game.
Here were the Wolverines — nowhere near as long, athletic or talented as their opponent — forcing the Jayhawks to play at their pace, throwing zones at them and causing a season-low point total even with the extra period.
Wow, one might say, how did such a bad team manage to hang with Kansas for so long? They should be proud of themselves.
“I mean, we proved that we can play with them, but how far does that really go?” redshirt freshman forward Jordan Morgan pondered to nobody in particular after Sunday’s game. “We wanted to beat them. We were in a position to beat them … We were there, we should’ve won that game.”
It would be unwise for Michigan to take solace that it “should’ve” won, or that it was even in a position to do so. Sure, everyone has said the Wolverines are still a year or two from truly competing.
And the players could see it that way — that just playing tough against Kansas should be something to build on, a point of satisfaction for a group repeatedly told that they aren’t good enough.
That would be the easy way out. Everyone talks about the future with this Michigan team, willing to put this year aside as just preparation for the next few seasons. The future, though, cannot just be a convenient crutch to demand anything less than excellence.
Any team that can shoot 33.3 percent (14.3 percent from 3-point range) and still find itself with an overtime lead over the third-ranked team in the country isn’t a squad built solely for the future. Michigan proved it can play with anyone this year.
The Wolverines, then, should perhaps just be angry after this loss (and they damn well shouldn’t be anywhere near content).
“We feel like we can be really good, not (just) down the road, but this year,” Morgan said.
Good news, Jordan. The second-ranked Buckeyes are coming to your place in a couple days.
Here’s your chance to prove it.