2013 against Kansas was probably my favorite March moment. Put that together with the team blowing the doors off of VCU and Florida and then beating Syracuse in the Final Four.
Way up there is the 2017 Big 10 tournament run after the plane crash. That whole 5 days was just surreal and amazing to watch.
Those are good ones for sure. Another one for me was blowing the doors off Tennessee 75-45 in the first round in 2011(?). I was watching something on ESPN and Lunardi was predicting all the first round winners and picked Tennessee. I forget what he said, but it made me mad(I don’t care for him much anyway- jealous I guess). And then U of M smoked them, Stu had a dunk, it was great. That was the year we darn near beat Duke. I’ll always wonder what would have happened if Darius had kicked it over for a game winning 3 attempt.
I think the VCU beatdown was my fave. Weird choice because of the early round, but VCU was a trendy pick that year to go far, and a common pick to beat Michigan. Those of us in the know realized how welI Michigan matched up with that team. I think I was as fired up during that game as any game over this great run. Watching Michigan tear VCU apart was a beautiful thing.
Last year’s Texas A&M game is also a fave. I’ll bet I’ve watched the “every 3-pointer” video more than I’ve watched any other Michigan video.
We not only were picked to be upset against VCU, but in the preceding game against South Dakota State. Made those wins all that much sweeter.
There was so much good in that game, but it’s what I always call the “Air Stu” game. Morris with the steal and a behind the back pass in transition to a trailing Stu who elevated…and just kept on elevating. He didn’t just sneak it over the front of the rim, he legit threw it down.
I’ll never get tired of watching that highlight.
The VCU game was fantastic. I was there in person. Entering that game, we hadn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 1994 (19 years!) and we had just let the Big Ten title slip away, so there was a lot of pressure on that team to make its mark. And then VCU was the trendy upset pick. Boy was that game satisfying.
I remember that game was one of the early-afternoon matchups. I was at work and desperately trying to find out what was going on. I overhead someone say “They’re up by 15” but didn’t know who the “they” was. Finally I had a chance to catch the score and we were up 30. I remember doing a double-take at that score…