It seems like it was so long ago, when you try to think back.
The thing is, it was only a decade ago when Michigan basketball's 2013 team was in the midst of a magical season that went through a 16-0 start, a No. 1 ranking, the Final Four in Atlanta and ended with a heartbreaking loss to Louisville in the championship game.
Ten years have passed, but looking back, that season began the renaissance of Michigan basketball, validation that coach John Beilein wasn’t just building something, but that the Wolverines were back on the national scene as a basketball power.
In the haze of the Ed Martin scandal and trying to come back from NCAA purgatory, that Michigan team captured the imagination of Wolverines fans around the world. Along the way, there were so many memorable moments, including the iconic come-from-behind victory over Kansas in the Sweet 16, a blowout win against Florida to make the Final Four, and a close call with Syracuse that got Michigan to the title game.
As the Michigan basketball beat writer for five seasons, I got a front-row seat to that transformation of the program. In the previous season, Trey Burke had a promising freshman year, but it ended in a first-round loss to Ohio in the NCAA Tournament.
The next year, things were different.
Michigan started with a No. 5 ranking in the preseason poll, and it didn’t fall out of the top 10 the entire way. That was a loaded team, with six NBA draft picks: Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., Glenn Robinson Jr., Mitch McGary, Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert. Josh Bartelstein is currently an assistant general manager, and Beilein is a senior adviser for player development, both with the Pistons.
This is the first in a series of stories looking back to that 2013 Michigan basketball season. In the coming weeks, I’ll reminisce about several of the significant games and memories from that team, with perspective from some of the players and coaches.
The climb to No. 1
The Wolverines started the season 16-0 — the last undefeated team remaining in Division I — and made it halfway through January before their first loss, a stunner at Ohio State on Jan. 13, in which Burke, an Ohio native, missed a potential go-ahead 3-pointer with 16 seconds left.
With a win, Michigan would have moved into the No. 1 spot, but they didn’t have to wait much longer. After a 74-60 win at Illinois, the Wolverines catapulted into the No. 1 ranking on Jan. 28, for the first time since the Fab Five era in 1992.
The news of Michigan’s spot at the top spread quickly.
“I remember where I was. I had a sports marketing class, and the rankings came out at 11 a.m. I refreshed my computer so many times,” Bartelstein told The Detroit News this week. “I think Jeff Goodman was the first to tweet that Michigan was No. 1.
“The teacher stopped class and he saw the same thing. There was a buzz and mythological feeling of what that meant.
“It’s a moment in time when you knew where you were.”
Michigan was back.
It wasn't a squad laden with experienced players. Senior center Jordan Morgan was playing significant minutes, along with Hardaway and Jon Horford. Stauskas and Robinson were freshmen and had cracked the starting lineup, along with Burke, who was just a sophomore, but was well on his way to becoming national player of the year.
“To be ranked No. 1 and have the talent we had … Michigan had been a football school and people (finally) said, ‘Michigan is a basketball school,’” Bartelstein recalled.
“We were walking down the street and people wanted to talk about it. That was the point we looked around and said we knew were good — as good as anyone.”
“We were walking down the street and people wanted to talk about it. That was the point we looked around and said we knew were good — as good as anyone.”
The showdown
The following weekend, Michigan had its biggest test to that point of the season, going to Bloomington to face No. 3 Indiana, which had its own stable of NBA talent, including Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller and Yogi Ferrell.
"Going to Indiana, we became No. 1 and I don’t know how it happened. (There was) the magnitude of that Indiana game and wow, we’re No. 1," Beilein told The News this week. "You can count the number of pros in that game — I don’t know if you’d see that again.
"I don’t think we’d ever played in a place louder than Bloomington that weekend."
Beilein isn't exaggerating.
The atmosphere in the nationally-televised game on ESPN was one of the loudest I can remember, and that includes Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium and Michigan State's Breslin Center or any NBA arena — anywhere.
That week with the No. 1 ranking was the only one for the Wolverines that season. Michigan lost three of its next four games — at Indiana, at Wisconsin and at Michigan State — and dropped to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll on Feb. 18.
There were plenty more ups and downs to come in Michigan's special season, but the week at No. 1 has its own special place.
