ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The thumping music, the fireworks crackling overhead and the smell of singed upholstery could mean only one thing: a national championship celebration in a college town.
Michigan fans spilled into the streets after the Wolverines beat UConn 69-63 to win the men’s basketball national championship Monday night. College kids, being college kids, got a little rowdy. “Dusty wants us to have fun!” one fan shouted amid a throng of partiers in downtown Ann Arbor. Signs of fun were all around.
The skeletal remains of a loveseat smoldered in the intersection between two fraternity houses as a firetruck pulled up to extinguish the last of the flames. In the downtown bar district, fans shimmied up trees and light poles and overtook the streets, returning almost immediately after a line of police officers shooed them back to the sidewalks.
Noah Griffith and Tori Katke, Michigan fans who live nearby, came downtown to watch the game and take part in the postgame revelry. They agreed it was a wild scene, but not quite as wild as the party after Michigan won the 2023 football national championship.
“If you’re going to call the ’23 championship a 10, this is an eight,” Katke said.
“I was going to say football was a nine and this is a six,” Griffith said.
“If we’re comparing it to, like, Philly,” Katke said. “The guy got all the way up on the light post.”
With two national championship celebrations in three years, Michigan fans are enjoying a run that fans almost any school would envy. The only school that’s had similar crossover success in recent times is Florida, which won football national championships in 2006 and 2008 under Urban Meyer and basketball championships in 2006 and 2007 under Billy Donovan.
Deep tournament runs in men’s and women’s basketball, a trip to the Frozen Four in ice hockey and the hiring of football coach Kyle Whittingham have Michigan fans channeling Jim Harbaugh and asking, “Who’s got it better than us?” The answer might be nobody, at least if you block out what happened to the football program in December.
This much is certain: No one had a better men’s basketball team than Michigan in 2026. The Wolverines authored one of the greatest seasons in Big Ten history by finishing 37-3 and ending the league’s 26-year championship drought while obliterating virtually every team in their path.
There were many nights when this team, assembled with a near-perfect mix of skills and personalities, played a transcendent brand of basketball. Monday was not one of those nights. With star Yaxel Lendeborg fighting through a knee injury and Michigan’s 3-point shots not falling, the Wolverines labored all night before closing out the win.
All national championship victories are beautiful, even the ugly ones. Michigan fans know that all too well after waiting 37 years to hang another banner alongside the one commemorating the Wolverines’ 1989 NCAA title.
Jim Sorensen began attending games at Crisler Center in the early 1990s, when the Fab Five was creating a new generation of Michigan basketball fans. That team played for national championships in 1992 and 1993 but lost both times. John Beilein’s Wolverines also lost twice in the national championship game, to Louisville in 2013 and Villanova in 2018.
“I’ve seen some great moments, and I’ve seen some heartbreaking moments,” said Sorensen, who attended a watch party for staff and students Monday night at Crisler Center. “This one is up there. Our football (championship) was awesome, but this is an equally great moment for us.”
Blazing couches: 1 pic.twitter.com/s3z5VOb8il
— Austin Meek (@byAustinMeek) April 7, 2026
Allan Greig came from East Lansing, of all places, to attend the watch party with his 11-year-old son Micah. (His wife, a Michigan State fan, didn’t join in.) Greig, a Michigan grad student, started coming to games after doing a group project with an extremely tall classmate who turned out to be Vlad Goldin, a starting center on last year’s team.
Goldin invited Greig to come to a game, and since then Allan and Micah have become big Michigan basketball fans. Next to being there in person, watching the Wolverines win a national championship inside a noisy arena was about as good as it gets for a father-son experience.
“It’s been fun for me as a dad, seeing it through his eyes,” Allan said.
Some fans wait a lifetime to experience a national championship. Michigan fans have celebrated two in three years. As proof that Michigan fans have it as good as anybody, there’s a chance the Wolverines will be throwing another championship celebration before they’ve had time to clean up from this one.
“We’re also a hockey school,” Sorensen said. “Don’t forget, next weekend we could be doing this all over again.”
