We’re excited to introduce a weekly women’s basketball column from Megan Smith. Megan, who covered the team last year for the Michigan Daily, will provide weekly updates on Kim Barnes-Arico’s squad throughout the season, recapping the previous week’s action and previewing what’s to come. The Wolverines are off to a 9-1 start this year, with a marquee test in Charlotte this week.
If you haven’t tuned in to the Michigan women’s basketball team (9-1 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) in a while, you’re missing out. You might remember the Wolverines’ Elite Eight run in 2022, with All-American forward Naz Hillmon and the freshman phenom Laila Phelia. With Hillmon now a member of the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA and Phelia transferring to Texas ahead of this season, there is only one remaining member of that team on the current roster.
Michigan is looking for a fresh start after falling out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament in a disappointing overtime loss to Kansas last season.
But now it’s time to reintroduce Michigan: a young, fast-paced group hungry to make a name for itself again in the national spotlight.
Sitting at No. 20 nationally, the past two weeks in the rankings marked the first appearance of the Wolverines in the AP Poll since the end of the 2022-23 season. Michigan started the season hot, only losing its season opener by 6 points to then-No. 1 South Carolina, and rattling off a nine-game win streak since.
With one returning starter in senior guard Jordan Hobbs, only four players remaining from the previous roster, and their do-everything star Phelia leaving the program, Michigan looks mightily different. Before the season began, projected starting lineups were hard to pin down. The assumption was that roster turnover would cause growing pains, and the Wolverines wouldn’t start multiple first-year players in the cutthroat Big Ten conference.
Instead of being disjointed, the Wolverines have been revitalized, and the key to their early success has undoubtedly been their program-best 8th-ranked freshman class .
“If you would have said heading into this season that we would be in the position that we are right now, I don’t know if I would have believed you,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said postgame Saturday. “I think that obviously speaks to our returning kids and kind of how they set the tone, but also the impact that our new people have made. Obviously, that starts with our freshmen, but they’ve really transitioned to the college level pretty well, especially our three starters.”
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