Basketball Blessings

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Beilein has four proven players returning, and two of these, point guard Trey Burke and swing player Tim Hardaway Jr., have NBA potential. Senior Matt Vogrich (swing) and center Jordan Morgan (a redshirt junior) are also back. Add talented center Jon Horford, out last year with an injury, redshirt power forward Max Bielfeldt, and senior center Blake McLimans, and Michigan looks like a reasonably veteran team.

But the big news is Beilein's recruiting class. For most of the coach's career he has found players under rocks, building winning teams around players like Zack Novak, Stu Douglass, and Jordan Morgan that no one else wanted. This year, Michigan has, many experts believe, one of the strongest two or three incoming classes in the country. The Wolverines' combination of youth and experience earned them their highest preseason ranking in decades--top fifteen in the country in all polls, and top five in some.