Maybe lightning can strike the same place twice. Sort of.

Michigan famously won its only men’s basketball national championship without its head coach. In 1989, athletic director Bo Schembechler fired Wolverines coach Bill Frieder at the eve of the NCAA Tournament. Frieder intended to leave for Arizona State in the offseason, and Schembechler sent him packing early.

Assistant coach Steve Fisher was promoted to head coach. The Wolverines won 6 straight and cut down the nets in Seattle as national champs.

Fisher obviously kept the job, and 2 years later recruited the legendary Fab Five — Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson and Juwan Howard.

In 2022, it’s Howard who is playing the role of Frieder. Sort of.

Howard’s fate after smacking Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft isn’t nearly as dismal as Frieder’s. He only has to sit out the final 5 games of Michigan’s regular season.

Winning a national title feels a bit ambitious for this group, even if they entered the season with the second-best odds to do so. Right now, merely reaching the NCAA Tournament is the goal.

But, there is at least a little feeling of similarity to what the Wolverines faced in 1989 compared to today. It’s not a literal win-or-go-home situation as it was back then. However, Michigan probably can’t afford more than a couple of losses the rest of the way.

The Wolverines were 14-11 entering Wednesday night’s game against Rutgers, the outcome of which could tip their season in either direction.

And much like their ’89 counterparts, the Wolverines started their potentially unconventional path to success on the right foot.

Houstan, we have a solution

When Michigan was picked to win the Big Ten in this year’s preseason poll, much of the burden of expectation was placed on freshman guard Caleb Houstan.

Despite never playing a college game, Houstan was named to the preseason all-Big Ten team. But outside of a 3-game spurt against Maryland, Indiana and Northwestern in January, we’ve rarely seen him approach that hype.

It finally happened Wednesday night.

Houstan drained 5 3-pointers, hitting a career-high 21 points in Michigan’s 71-62 win over a Rutgers team that had been the hottest in the Big Ten. Going off on the Scarlet Knights is no small feat. Rutgers is 4th in the B1G in defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com.

Michigan probably shouldn’t expect similar production from Houstan the rest of the way, but the Wolverines don’t need that. They just need a consistent third scorer to rely on.

Center Hunter Dickinson has largely played as expected this season, which is at an all-Big Ten level. Guard Eli Brooks is typically the next-best Wolverine in most games. But Michigan has lost 11 games in large part because there’s no telling which player will be a reliable third wheel.

Houstan personifies that issue. He had 14 points in Michigan’s crucial win over Purdue. But in Michigan’s other 6 games this February, he only averaged 6.6 points per game.

If Houstan can provide Michigan with a steady 12-15 points per game, the Wolverines could certainly finish 3-1 in their final 4 games. Or maybe even win out. Michigan has Illinois, Michigan State and Iowa at home before finishing the regular season at Ohio State.

Martelli’s steady hand also helps

Maybe the biggest difference from ’89 is the experience level of the interim coach.

Fisher had never been a head coach at the college level before Schembechler handed him the keys. Current acting head coach Phil Martelli has done plenty of loops around the court.

Martelli coached 772 games at Saint Joseph’s from 1995-2019 and came up just a buzzer-beater away short of the Final Four in 2004. If any team in the Big Ten could afford to lose its head coach for the final 5 games of the regular season, it was Michigan.

That’s a strange distinction, to be certain. But Martelli is the rare assistant who has had more career success than his head coach. And it isn’t just an Xs and Os advantage. Martelli has the ideal temperament to guide Michigan’s boat through these choppy waters.

He showed why that’s the case right after the game, and not just because everyone made it through the handshake line unscathed.

Martelli’s first words in his postgame interview were in praise of Michigan’s other 2 assistant coaches.

“Saddi Washington and Howard Eisley. America needs to know their names,” he told Big Ten Network. “They deserve to be head coaches. They did this, not me.”

Simply put, Martelli is the perfect parachute.

A show of mettle

If Michigan was going to collapse without Howard, the process would have begun against Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are the scrappiest bunch in the Big Ten. If an opponent mopes against them, that team doesn’t have a chance.

That was a very distinct possibility for the Wolverines. But the opposite occurred. Michigan out-toughed Rutgers, beating the Scarlet Knights on the glass despite playing without No. 2 rebounder Moussa Diabate.

Diabate, who was suspended for the game, will be back for the remainder of the stretch run. He will only enhance the toughness the Wolverines displayed Wednesday night.

For Michigan’s players, Wednesday’s win must have provided a tremendous release after an agonizing 3 days. But with that win, they didn’t just turn a page. They may have started a whole new chapter that doesn’t end until well into March.