A Big Ten team has won the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 26 years – by the last team Ohio State fans wanted to see win it.
Michigan became the first Big Ten men’s basketball team since Michigan State in 2000 to win a national championship as it beat UConn, 69-63, in Monday night’s NCAA Tournament final in Indianapolis.
After starting the game slowly offensively, Michigan finished the first half on a 10-4 run to take a 33-29 lead into halftime. The Wolverines took control of the game early in the second half, pulling out to an 11-point lead of 48-37 on an Elliot Cadeau 3-pointer just over seven minutes after halftime. UConn didn’t go down without a fight, cutting the lead to as few as four points in the final minute, but the Wolverines held on to secure the championship.
With Michigan’s win, the Big Ten became the first conference since the American Athletic Conference in 2014 – when UConn won both titles – to sweep the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments. UCLA beat South Carolina in the women’s national championship game on Sunday.
Including Indiana’s College Football Playoff triumph, the Big Ten is the first conference to win national championships in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball in the same academic year since the SEC won all three titles in 2006-07 (Florida in football and men’s basketball, Tennessee in women’s basketball). It’s the first conference ever to have three different schools win championships in all three of those sports.
The Big Ten is the first conference to win the football and men’s basketball national championships in the same season since the ACC in 2016-17, when Clemson won the College Football Playoff and North Carolina won the NCAA Tournament.
Michigan has now won two national championships in men’s basketball, winning its previous title in 1989. The Wolverines’ second national championship comes in only their second season under head coach Dusty May, which makes the Wolverines’ national championship an even tougher pill to swallow for Buckeye fans, as May was considered a candidate for Ohio State’s head coaching job before the Buckeyes hired Jake Diebler, with Michigan hiring May a week later.
