The Michigan Wolverines had an insane week before even reaching the NCAA Tournament. John Beilein and his team survived a terrifying and perilous situation when their team plane skidded off the runway and crashed on Wednesday. As if that wasn’t wild enough, the Wolverines then made it to Washington D.C. just moments before tip-off of their first Big Ten Tournament game, won it, and proceeded to run the table on the way to the conference title.
With that as the backdrop, Beilein visited with The Rich Eisen Show on Tuesday and spent more than five minutes recapping the crazy week. Throughout the interview, it is clear that Beilein presented the type of even-handed behavior that any college program would love to have in his position and the way that he outlined the plane colliding with a fence and a ditch while indicating “Thank God we didn’t flip” was moving in and of itself.
Beilein deserves credit for his actions and, to be sure, the rest of the Michigan program acted in the best way possible during the event. The veteran head coach said “We’d win a Final Four if we could execute everything like that” about the way the team exited the plane with haste and order and, from there, it was all about logistics (including a refusal to travel later on Wednesday), operations and a way to get to Washington D.C. for what became the team’s crowning on-court achievement of the season.
Michigan may not make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament and, because of their talented opponent in Oklahoma State, there is a chance the Wolverines’ stay in the field is actually quite short. Still, the program just wrapped up a week that no one will soon forget and Michigan fans are lucky to have John Beilein at the helm given the way he handled it both privately and publicly.
