Monday night’s National Championship game between Michigan and Louisville was a classic. It was an uptempo game with lots of story lines that Louisville eventually hung on to win. The game ended and Louisville cut down the nets and celebrated. As it should be, much of the talk after the game was on the greatness of their team.
What about the losers though? How did Michigan handle the loss?
I would highly encourage you to read this article from Grantland about the Michigan team following the loss. Below are some excerpts:
In the hallway outside the Michigan locker room, we the media huddled on the far side of the retractable dividers, a mass of cameras and notebooks and digital recorders. Inside, head coach John Beilein had a few minutes to speak in private with his players after they’d lost the national championship game to Louisville. When he was done, the players took their turn. Glenn Robinson III went first, which surprised the others because of his shyness. The theme of his speech and those that followed was constant: This was a great season, we’re brothers for life, we should be proud. When everyone had finished, they sang the fight song together. It was a postgame tradition normally reserved for a win, but it felt like the right way to end the season.
[…]
Trey Burke: “It’s definitely difficult; it’s definitely tough. But as a Michigan man — the type of character you have for yourself — you have to be able to handle that. You have to be able to lose with pride and win with pride. That’s what we did. After losses like this, it definitely hurts. But you have to be able to talk to the media and get it off your chest. You know, not really express your emotions that may be in your head. You can’t really — you might be mad, you might be sad, things like that — but you have to reflect on the season you had, you have to think about the good times and things like that. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to grow from it and learn from this experience.”
[…]
John Beilein: “What is really unique, not only they love the coaching staff, the coaching staff loves them; they love each other. The word ‘love’ was used over and over and over. Two 19–year–old guys said, ‘I love you.’ That’s pretty deep stuff.”
