In preparation for one final trip home to Chicago before his career as a collegiate athlete drew to a close, Nimari Burnett did the only sensible thing: he put on some Kanye West.
Specifically, the graduate guard for the No. 1 seed Michigan men’s basketball team listened to a track titled “Homecoming.” West, a Chicago native himself, wrote the song as a heartfelt ode to the city that raised and shaped him, expressing his desire to return to where it all started.
Burnett’s own “homecoming” last weekend served a similar purpose.
“It feels really full-circle for him,” Diana Kannan, Burnett’s fiancé, told The Michigan Daily after the Wolverines’ defeat of No. 6 seed Tennessee in Chicago Sunday. “For him to be from Chicago, the journey he’s been on from (Texas) Tech to (Alabama) to here, and now getting to a Final Four in Chicago feels like a big homecoming.”
Kannan and Burnett, who got engaged last April, would play West’s song together in the week leading up to the NCAA Tournament second round as a playful way to express what the reunion meant to Burnett. In fact, the song was only one part of the excitement the hometown kid was feeling. Kannan also recalls one night her husband-to-be couldn’t fall asleep out of excitement, comparing him to a kid the morning before a class field trip.
But it’s the song’s catchy opening lyrics, performed by West and Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, that captures the moment best:
“Chi City, Chi City, I’m comin’ home again. Do you think about me now and then? Do you think about me now and then? ‘Cause I’m comin’ home again.”
That’s especially fitting for Burnett, who had just had a homecoming two weeks prior for the Big Ten Tournament. Michigan lost its chance to cut down the nets then, but corrected things with its 95-62 walloping of No. 6 seed Tennessee on Sunday.
This time around, Burnett hoisted a trophy on the same floor he used to watch his childhood heroes do the same. And that meant the world.
“To be playing in the United Center, I remember growing up as a kid and dreaming about playing on a high level,” Burnett said Saturday. “Being here, watching Derrick Rose when I was growing up was always amazing. But being here, playing for a Final Four, I think nothing tops that.”
Before Burnett’s college career began with the Red Raiders, he was the starting shooting guard for Morgan Park High school in the Windy City. Burnett helped the Mustangs to a state championship as a freshman, contributing 20 points of his own in the championship game. He had to admit, though, that Elite Eight win Sunday felt better.
“No offense to Morgan Park and that time as a state champion, but I’m going to have to put this one No. 1,” Burnett said Sunday.
It was during his time at Texas Tech that Burnett first met Kannan. She’s witnessed his entire collegiate journey, from seeing playing time in just 12 games with the Red Raiders his freshman year all the way to contributing 10 points and seven rebounds as a starter in a Final Four-clinching Regional Championship with the Wolverines. And for that reason, the emotions were hitting her Sunday as well.
“Oh my gosh, so proud of him,” Kannan told The Daily. “Like, even where he started at Michigan, then for (Michigan coach Dusty May) to come in, and then they won in their first year, and then to be here right now. It’s like, you can’t ask for anything better, especially as a senior like to go out this way is the best.”
Thanks to Michigan’s dominant performance Sunday, Burnett’s college career isn’t over yet. He’s still got two more games to win to hoist the trophy everyone in college basketball is vying for. But it certainly felt like he closed a chapter Sunday night.
As Burnett left the United Center for the last time as an athlete with a Final Four hat on his head, he left his hometown, and all those watching him the way he used to watch Rose, with something special — something that would make them think about him, every now and then.