Michigan basketball players react to low standing in Big Ten media poll: 'I love that a lot'
Michigan Wolverines basketball was picked 11th in a Big Ten preseason media poll put on by The Athletic and The Columbus Dispatch heading into the 2023-24 campaign.
The Maize and Blue have never finished 11th or worse in the league, and the last time they concluded fourth to last or lower was 2007-08. But after missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015 and losing its top three scorers, outsiders have low expectations for head coach Juwan Howard‘s fifth Michigan team.
At Big Ten Media Days Tuesday, Michigan players were asked for their reaction. Yes, they saw the poll, and one Wolverine in particular is relishing the opportunity to use it as motivation.
“I love that,” graduate guard Nimari Burnett, an Alabama transfer, said. “I love that a lot, because expectations are low, and I think we’re going to rise. I know we’re going to rise. I’m excited about this group, especially because we have a lot of similarities in the fact that we’re all hungry, we’re all hungry to do it together.
“We’re going to show a lot of toughness throughout the year in those situations when we are in close games. With the experience that we have and the places that a lot of us have been, we’re going to come and bring that to this year, together, and really write the narrative the way that it should be.”
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Burnett wasn’t on Michigan’s squad last season. Neither were graduate forwards Olivier Nkamhoua and Tray Jackson, imports from Tennessee and Seton Hall, respectively. But they all have something to prove in their own ways. The Maize and Blue lacked experience a year ago but are now a veteran squad, despite having three incoming transfers and a freshman in guard George Washington III.
“Their identities coming into our program have been great,” fourth-year junior guard Jace Howard said, gesturing to Nkamhoua and Burnett, who joined him at the podium in Minneapolis. “These are two starters at top-10 programs last year, and we feel that leadership.”
Howard said Michigan isn’t dwelling on where the media picked it.
“Obviously, we see it, but we’re not focusing on it, because we know that our best basketball is ahead of us,” Howard explained. “We just know that we’re gonna be that team that — everybody has a chip on their shoulder on this team. We’re embracing that. You can feel it in our practices, you can feel it with our energy in the locker room. And it’s positive — it’s nothing negative.
“It’s like, ‘Yo, we’re here. We’re here to make a mark and we’re here to stand.’ They’re 40-minute games, and they’re going to have to play us for 40 minutes. Every team has about 33 games or something like that, 30 games, and those games, it’s going to be a fight.”
The Wolverines were 4-13 in games decided by two or fewer possessions or in overtime last season, one of the main reasons why they didn’t make the Big Dance. While Michigan is working to fix some of the issues that plagued them, the focus is ahead on this season, especially considering how different the makeup is of this year’s group.
“They’ve been through what they’ve been through last year, last year’s team did what they did, [but] we’re a whole new team,” Nkamhoua said. “We have returning pieces and players that are going to have similar roles and players that are going to have very different roles. We’re just using examples of close-game situations that we’re going to have to be able to deal with this year as our own team and our own way.”
