With no shot at going to the NCAA Tournament, the Michigan men’s basketball team is prepared to do anything it takes to prolong its run at the Big Ten Tournament that begins Friday night for the Wolverines.
Well … almost anything.
“I know I’m not shaving my head,” freshman Daniel Horton said. “My head is shaped kind of funny – I’ve got a hump and a dip in my head, so I’m not shaving mine.”
Despite the ever-growing tradition among NCAA teams to make a team-wide trip to the barbershop just prior to tournament play, the Wolverines haven’t made any plans to grace the United Center court in Chicago with a major fashion statement reminiscent of the Fab Five.
“We don’t really have anything yet,” center Graham Brown said. “I hope they don’t bring up anything (like shaving our heads), because I don’t think I’ll be dealing with that.”
Senior tri-captain Rotolu Adebiyi agreed that Brown staying away from the whole head-shaving idea was a smart move on the freshman’s part.
“I don’t know if I’m too excited about seeing Graham with a shaved head,” Adebiyi said. “I’m open to whatever – if they want to do something, that’s fine with me. I’d like to keep my hair as long as I can, but you never know what will happen.
“Overall, we’re a team of handsome young men, and I think we could pull off the look.”
While the shaven look has become prominent in basketball recently, the Michigan hockey team implemented a variation on the style for last year’s playoffs – the Wolverines opted to keep their hair, but dye it blonde.
Senior Gavin Groninger said that his high school team opted to go blonde for its playoffs, but the rest of the Wolverines would rather keep that idea on the shelf as well.
“I can’t go with the blonde hair,” senior LaVell Blanchard said. “Sorry, I just can’t do dyed blonde.”
The most popular option among team members appeared to be a Big Ten Tournament title going hand-in-hand with the shaving of coach Tommy Amaker’s head.
“We’ve been talking about that all year,” Horton said. “That if we win the Big Ten Tournament, we should shave coach Amaker’s head, but I don’t know.”
It’s unclear whether or not Amaker has agreed to a deal that would leave him bald for a while.
Blanchard claimed that the Wolverines had a chance to clean Amaker’s head, but couldn’t finish the job.
“We had an opportunity to do that one, but didn’t get it done,” Blanchard said suspiciously. “I can’t say (why) … but we didn’t get it done.”
While the Wolverines don’t have any plans as of now to show camaraderie via baldness as of yet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that something won’t happen before Michigan hits the court to take on either Indiana or Penn State late tomorrow night.
“You know it’s tournament time, so maybe the night before, in the hotel, guys will start thinking of stuff,” Adebiyi said. “You never know what will happen.”