Michigan claims share of Big Ten crown, but the Wolverines aren’t done yet

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The entire season, the No. 3 Michigan men’s basketball team has prided itself on not getting too high after a win or too low after a loss. The Wolverines want to compete at the highest level every night for a sequence of goals that include hanging multiple banners by the end of the season.

Tuesday night against Minnesota, Michigan accomplished the first of those feats by winning a share of the Big Ten Championship for the first time since the 2020-21 season. Although it wasn’t their prettiest win of the season, the Wolverines overcame their loss against Duke — the new No. 1 team in the country — by beating the Golden Gophers to claim the crown.

“It feels really good, because we worked towards this the whole Big Ten season,” freshman guard Trey McKenney said. “Just to be able to do that, accomplish that, because the Big Ten season is a long season and there are a lot of teams now, so I think just our preparation for the game has been championship level. So we’re just really happy to clinch a championship. … But we definitely have to get on to the next game, because we have Illinois.”

Despite the new hardware, Michigan is already turning the page. Albeit, the win over Minnesota is just a share of the title, and the Wolverines are looking to win it outright. But Michigan also has loftier goals at hand and wants to win both a Big Ten Tournament and an NCAA Tournament Championship on top of it.

“We just have such big and lofty goals in front of us, so it’s tough to really celebrate this moment,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “And like I said earlier this year, all glory is fleeting. As soon as we start to feel good about what we’ve done, we’re going to get knocked down. And every game, every possession, is incredibly important going forward. So we’re trying to stay locked in on improving while also feeling good about doing something that’s really, really difficult.”