Michigan basketball: Top 5 games from the 2016-17 season

The Michigan basketball team got hot toward the end of the 2016-17 season, but what were the top five games for the Wolverines?

The Michigan basketball program has had some up and down seasons lately. A few years removed from the National Championship game, the Wolverines began to slowly slip out of national prominence. The 2016-17 season was a great resurgence into the spotlight.

For most of the season, Michigan was just an average team. The Big Ten wasn’t great aside from the top teams in the standings, and the Wolverines weren’t expected to make much postseason noise.

They finished non-conference play 10-3 without a great signature win. They had wins against SMU, Marquette, Texas, and a bunch of small conference teams. None of these wins were overly impressive. The losses to South Carolina, Virginia Tech, and UCLA (all tournament teams) were missed opportunities to impress.

The Wolverines started the Big Ten season 2-4, with both wins coming at home by less than six points.  Those two wins were against teams that would finish in the bottom three of the conference. They would eventually get hot and would end the regular season winning 10 of their last 12, four against ranked opponents, and two losses of five points or less.

Michigan finished the season 26-12 (10-8) and a tie for fifth place in the conference standings. They entered the Big Ten Tournament with some momentum but that wasn’t the biggest factor for their late season success.

The team rallied together after enduring a plane crash while traveling to Washington D.C. for the Big Ten Tournament. They would go on to win all four tournament games and leave with the Big Ten Tournament title.