This weekend stung. Michigan was denied a regular season conference championship in the sport of women's basketball because of Caitlin Clark and Iowa, but really because the Big Ten couldn't be bothered to reschedule an easy win on Michigan's schedule that had been canceled due to weather. That was a game in Champaign against 1-13 and last placed Illinois. Give Michigan a win in that game, and they'd be 14-4, tied with Iowa and Ohio State, and sharing the conference title. Instead, the Wolverines have to watch as the unbalanced schedule win-percentage gods laugh at them and hand the crown to two other teams [insert comment here about how this is payback for the MBB program winning a conference title under similar circumstances last year]. 

As much as it sucks to lose the potential first conference title in program history due to snow, the good news is that Michigan still has lots to accomplish ahead of them. Their roster is fully healthy, they have a double bye into the quarters of the Big Ten Tournament, and are still in decent position to snare a #2 seed in March Madness. Let's run through the stakes and preview the conference tourney in today's piece: 

Takeaways from the end of the regular season 

Michigan faced MSU and Iowa this past week, winning the former and losing the latter. Beating the Spartans was a slog without Leigha Brown, another painful offensive performance from the team as a unit, made slightly more bearable by Naz Hillmon putting the team on her back. It was her off night inside that doomed Michigan against their rivals from East Lansing in the first meeting, but this time she posted 28 and 8 on 55% from the floor. Hillmon was the only Michigan player doing much of anything offensively in that game, as they still fought the turnover bug and no other player scored in double figures for the Wolverines. Maddie Nolan chipped in the team's only two triples and then just like the Maryland game, it was the defensive clamps that were able to get it done for Michigan, holding MSU to just 51 points.  

The defensive clamps were useless against Iowa, however. The two teams played a shootout at Crisler in the first meeting and this one could best be described as a nuclear bomb of offense being dropped on the Wolverines in the form of perimeter shooting. Michigan got off to a strong start, with an early double digit point lead in the first quarter, but Iowa finished that frame strong and then unleashed the flamethrower in the second quarter. Iowa shot 55% from three on 29 attempts (!!!), with superstar guard Caitlin Clark pouring them in from way outside, like usual. She shot 8/11 from three (!!!) and also had 11 assists.

There really was not much Michigan could do defensively: single guard Caitlin Clark and she'll pull up from thirty feet and knock down the shot. Double team Clark and she was passing out of the traps with surgical precision to wide open Hawkeyes, who then had a man-power advantage. That allowed Iowa to shoot >60% from two, and it also helped that even non-Clark Hawkeyes shot 44% from three. In the process, Clark put up 11 assists to just 2 turnovers, in addition to her 38 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals. Sometimes the other team's best player goes into God Mode, and in a sport like basketball, it's really hard to do anything about it. It didn't help that Michigan struggled to get the ball to Hillmon inside (15 TOs) and though Leigha Brown was finally back, she only played 14 minutes. The Wolverines were not at 100% health-wise for this one, and given the groove Clark was in, they were going to need to be at 110% health-wise to win. 

Caitlin Clark was simply too much [JD Scott]

Which I suppose is the big takeaway from the end of the season: Michigan is going to need to be completely healthy to accomplish their dreams. Michigan is 16-2 this season when fully healthy Leigha Brown is in the lineup and 6-3 without her, or with a limited version of Brown (and three of those wins were cupcake non-conference games). The offense doesn't run nearly as smoothly without her ball-handling ability, forcing Danielle Rauch and Amy Dilk to do more with the ball (often resulting in elevated turnover rates) and the team tends to sink back into the Naz-or-Nothing offense. If Michigan wants to leave Indianapolis with a ring this weekend, and wants to reach the Elite Eight or Final Four for the first time in school history, they need Brown at 100% and the offense firing on all cylinders. Laila Phelia is a promising young piece who has performed admirably for Michigan in Brown's absence, but there is no replacing what Leigha Brown can give this team. 

Ace Anbender over at The Bucket Problem ran the stats on Michigan's lineups and this remains an exceptionally dangerous team when they are fully healthy. Michigan tore through the the B1G contenders when fully healthy, going 6-1 against the upper echelon this season, and that record was flawless when Brown was at 100%. They are good enough to win hardware this weekend and make real noise in the NCAA Tournament. And that's important to remember, even if the last three weeks of basketball have been tough and moderately disappointing. A lot of cosmic bad luck (injuries, snow, etc) conspired to rob Michigan of the regular season crown, but hopefully that's motivation for the postseason. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: NCAAs and B1G]

[JD Scott]

Looking at the NCAA Tournament Chase

We finally got some clarity on the NCAA Tournament picture thanks to the selection committee releasing its mock top sixteen seeds on Monday: 

The final NCAA Top-16 reveal for WBB is out. 👀 pic.twitter.com/6wJv2dv8JR

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) March 1, 2022

The committee slotted in Michigan as the 8th overall seed, which is the fringe between the two-line and the three-line. In the RPI, Michigan remains in fine position, ranking 5th or 6th, depending on which calculation you look at. The NET rankings continue to hold them back a bit, at 14th, but the committee obviously seems to be giving a bit more weight to the RPI (as usual). For what it's worth, ESPN's Charlie Creme continues to have Michigan on the two-line, currently the #2 seed in the Greensboro Regional. That would not be the best draw in the world, as Michigan would be set to face UCONN in the Sweet 16 (lining up with the committee, which has those two as 8/9 overall seeds). The Huskies have not been themselves this season, but that's in large part because of the injury to Paige Bueckers, who has only played 9 games. When healthy, she's a monster, the reigning AP National Player of the Year. And she happens to be getting healthy now. Of all the possible 3-seeds to see in Michigan's region, UCONN is the one you want to see the least. 

A reasonable hope is that there's some tumbling around the two-line in conference tournament week and UCONN tears through the Big East Tournament and is able to jump up a seed rank and go into March Madness as the #2 in a different region. A strong Michigan performance in Indianapolis (like say, winning the tournament) would do wonders to shore up the position of the Wolverines and keep them on the two-line. I'm not sure how much farther up the seed rank Michigan can climb in the committee's eyes (a #1 seed is likely out of the question), but again, crawling just a rung or two to draw a weaker #3 in your region is big when it comes to trying to make the program's first Elite Eight. 

The top sixteen seeds get to host first weekend games in the NCAA Tournament, and as we've been reporting for several weeks now, that looks like a lock at this juncture. Given the way the Big Ten Tournament bracket sets up (more on that in a minute), Michigan is highly likely to play a good team in their first game in Indianapolis, so the chance of some catastrophically bad loss occurring seems unlikely. Even so, I'm not sure a loss to lowly Illinois (which again, is not possible) could drop them three seed ranks at this point. Get hype for the first tournament games in Crisler history (and buy tickets if you live near Ann Arbor!). 

Previewing the Big Ten Tournament 

Here's the bracket: 

Due to the aforementioned misfortune, Michigan is the #3 seed in this tourney. The bottom four teams are all horrendous, while Indiana and Nebraska are likely tourney teams, so I would expect both of them to set up chalky matchups with Michigan and Maryland. Nebraska bludgeoned the Wolverines in Lincoln back in early January in what was the worst performance of the season for the Maize & Blue. The revenge tour starts there. The Huskers are a good team— like I said, scheduled to make the NCAAs— but a fully healthy Michigan team is better. They don't have a star, but rather four players who all average double figures on the season. It won't be a cakewalk, but Michigan is favored to get through that matchup. 

I presume that Northwestern will beat Minnesota, though that's not a sure thing. Iowa will be favored against whoever wins that game, so I'm operating on the assumption that if Michigan is able to get by Nebraska, they will see a rematch with the Hawkeyes on Saturday... possible revenge tour stop #2. Iowa is what we've already discussed: explosive offense, not a great defense, but it really hinges on how "on" they are. If Iowa is clicking like they did on Sunday, Michigan doesn't stand much of a chance. Almost nobody does. But Iowa was clearly helped by the stakes and the massive home crowd (15,000 fans!), which won't be the case at a neutral site in Indianapolis. It's a tossup game if the two teams meet again. 

This season's meetings with OSU have gone pretty well so far [JD Scott]

A potential championship game would very likely be against one of Ohio State, Maryland, and Indiana. The good news is that Michigan went 5-0 against those teams in the regular season. Indiana slumped down the stretch due to injuries, but are always dangerous. Maryland is, I think, the best of those three teams at the moment. I'd probably want to draw the Buckeyes the most,  because Michigan annihilated OSU in two completely non-competitive games both times they saw Ohio State. Then again, they handled Maryland pretty well too. It's like I said earlier: if Leigha Brown is fully back, Michigan is the best team in this conference, and they're going to be favored in every game, despite being the #3 seed. It's just a matter of if they get it done, and how much further Brown's health can progress with four more days off before playing. Would be pretty cool to win the whole damn thing.