The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/315684
2014 BASKETBALL RECRUITING ISSUE The Wolverines aren't just reaching college basketball's Promised Land, either. When they get there lately, they're still going places. Elite Eight appear- ances for two straight seasons — including a trip to the champion- ship game in 2013 — captured the imagination of a fan base that had begun to despair over any sort of meaningful March. Beilein and his staff of Jeff Meyer, Bacari Alexander and LaVall Jordan have also guided the Wolverines to a pair of Big Ten championships in three sea- sons, washing away a drought that stretched back to 1986. Had a last-second shot in 2013 not trickled off the rim in the Wolver- ines' regular-season conference finale, it would have been three straight Big Ten titles. Beilein notched his 700th ca- reer victory toward the end of this past campaign, in a college career that began at Erie Community College, and weaved through Nazareth, LeMoyne, Canisius, Richmond and West Virginia, before winding up with a per- fect pairing in Ann Arbor. He ranks in the top 10 in victories for active Division I head coaches, and appears to be at the top of his game right now. The man former U-M athletics director Bill Martin brought to Ann Arbor be- came a finalist this past season for the Naismith Men's College Coach of the Year and the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year awards. The media dubbed him Big Ten Coach of the Year, and he garnered NABC District 7 Coach of the year and USBWA District V Coach of the Year honors. In July 2013, Michigan extended Beilein's contract for three years, taking him through the 2018-19 campaign. He received a significant bump to $2.45 million per season in total compensation. Beilein said he'd like to keep coaching as long as he's "excited and enthused" about it. Recent seasons infused plenty of excitement into everything sur- rounding Michigan basketball, and there's no end in sight. — John Borton Beilein was hired in April 2007, coming to the Wolverines from West Virginia, and over his first seven seasons he has built the men's basketball program into one of the best in the nation. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN