There are plenty of parallels that I could share from Thursday night's loss at Northwestern to Sunday afternoon's defeat at the hand of third-ranked Purdue, 84-76.

Did Michigan play hard?

Yes.

Did the Wolverines show that they are not packing in on the season, despite the fact that Sunday yielded the Wolverines' 20th loss of the season?

Yes.

Did Michigan have to cobble together some really unique

lineups due to circumstances? Yes. But I wanted to take an expanded view of this one because

ultimately sports fans just want to feel, yeah, you want to win a championship, right? But there

are 362 men's basketball division one programs. If you only enjoyed a season, if your team won a national championship or even a conference

championship, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Ultimately, I think what at least allows a fan base to feel fulfilled is if your team

realized its potential, if they had an opportunity to maximize the

potential. I think that's what hurts so bad about the bubble season in 2020 and 2021 because

Michigan lost Isaiah Livers, because Franz Wagner, who's turned into a tremendous NBA player,

one who had a couple of big plays down

the stretch at Little Caesar's Arena in the Magic's win over the Pistons on Saturday.

He had his roughest game ever in the Elite 8 against UCLA.

But ultimately, you just want your team to feel like they had the chance to maximize the talent level, the ability.

And Michigan's roster this season was always going to have some challenges to it.

It was always going to be difficult to reach the types of goals that Michigan men's basketball

fans have had in recent seasons over the last decade and a half.

For this team, though, it has been a very difficult time for them to ever feel like the season

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