Too young. Too inexperienced. The youngest team in this year’s tournament field was supposed to bow out of the tournament by the end of the first weekend. They had limped to a 6-6 regular season finish that included an embarrassing loss to Penn State, a team that finished the season just 2-16 in Big Ten play.

But something magical happened.

Five games into the Big Dance, not once had the unanimous Big Ten and National Player of the Year, Trey Burke, led the team in scoring. Yet they had won every one of them. Sure, he saved the season with an iconic 30-foot three against Kansas, but he hadn’t played like a player of the year for most of that game. Instead, other stars blossomed.

In the opener against South Dakota State, who many picked to knock off the Wolverines, it was Glenn Robinson III who stole the show, matching his season-high with 21 points. Next, it was Mitch McGary’s turn to shine with a 21-point, 14-rebound performance against VCU, another team that most expected to send Michigan packing.

In that Sweet 16 matchup with Kansas, McGary out-performed All-American Kansas center Jeff Withey with 25 points and 14 boards while Burke was held scoreless in the first half. Against Florida in the Elite Eight, Nik Stauskas stepped up, hitting all six of his three-point attempts en route to a 22-point game and a 20-point Michigan win. Not to be outdone, the less heralded of the freshmen, Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht rose to the occasion in the Final Four with eight and seven points, respectively, to help Michigan top Syracuse. McGary led the way once again with his third double-double in four games while Burke was held to just seven points.

The greatest clean block that was called a foul I've ever seen

All five freshmen made major contributions to the team’s improbable tournament run. Fab Five they were not, but they didn’t need to be. Twenty years after that illustrious and polarizing squad took Michigan to the brink of a national championship as sophomores, the Fresh Five did the same. And with the legends in attendance, they took the court looking to do one better.

But it wasn’t meant to be, as Michigan raced out to a 12-point first half lead only to watch it whittle down to one by halftime. In the second half, the lead was gone they were forced to play catch up for the remainder of the game. The youthful Wolverines and the experienced Cardinals went blow-by-blow in one of the greatest national championship games ever played – certainly the first half could make a case for the greatest half ever played.

It was the stuff of legends, a legend so deep that the star of the first half was Albrecht, who averaged just 1.8 points per game all season. The kid who looks more like Frodo than a basketball star, and was only recruited at the last minute last April as a safety net in case Burke went pro after his freshman season, scored 17 points and helped Michigan jump out to that big lead.

It was a legend so deep that at one point, on the nation’s biggest stage, in front of the Fab Five who were all in the same building together for the first time since 1994, John Beilein put all five freshmen on the court at the same time. Burke sat on the bench with two fouls. Hardaway sat to get a breather. Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford sat too. It was a glimpse of what’s to come for Michigan basketball when Burke and Hardaway depart for the NBA, likely as soon as the next week or two. It lasted only but for a minute, but in that moment, Michigan basketball was on top of the world.

Luke Hancock, Louisville’s own unlikely star, a lightly-recruited transfer from George Mason, brought Michigan back to earth. His four straight threes helped cut Michigan’s lead to just one at halftime and he earned the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player award.

In the end, Michigan’s magical run came up just short, but it was fun. The way the game played out was symbolic of the entire season. Michigan struggled all season long with coming out of the gate in big games. In Columbus, the Wolverines trailed 24-6 in the first 10 minutes before a rally came up just short. In Bloomington, Michigan fell behind 26-11 in the first 10 minutes before nearly pulling off a comeback. In this one, Michigan charged out of the gates, confidently seizing a big lead. But this night’s opponent did what it, and Michigan, has done all season – come back from a large deficit – and it was just good enough to hand Michigan defeat.

The 96th team in program history will return to Ann Arbor this afternoon and clean out their lockers. Burke and Hardaway, and perhaps McGary and Robinson III, will contemplate whether their futures are at the next level or whether they can put that off for one more year to make another title run. Whatever choice they make will be just fine. Selfishly, it would be nice if they came back. But if they don’t, what they gave us was a legacy that will be remembered alongside that of the Fab Five, perhaps with even greater reverence because they did it with class and humility right to the very end.

As fans, we will turn our attention to football season, but for the first time in a long time, we will do so with our heads held high. We will do so with an eagerness for the next basketball season to begin because it’s fun again. It’s not just something to fill the time between bowl games and September. Michigan basketball is back and the world knows it. Thank you, Team 96.

Almost exactly two years ago, on January 22, 2011, Michigan dropped its sixth straight Big Ten contest, this time a home loss to Minnesota to fall to 11-9 overall and 1-6 in the conference. The season had begun with high expectations, fueled by freshman [edit: sophomore] point guard Darius Morris, but as January neared its end, many Michigan faithful began to wonder whether John Beilein was ever going to get Michigan back to elite status.

Rewind to the beginning of the 1992 season which Michigan entered with the number one national ranking looking to avenge the national championship game loss of the season before. Year two of the Fab Five saw Michigan hold the top spot all of three weeks, and ultimately lost the title game once again. Beilein, meanwhile was just beginning his Division 1 coaching career at Canisius College.

The Fab Five were the last Michigan team to be ranked No.1

Fast forward ten years to 2002 when Michigan was handed sanctions as a result of four players – Chris Webber, Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor, and Louis Bullock – being found to have received money from booster Ed Martin. The Fab Five era was erased, as were the late 1990s, which included a Big Ten Tournament championship in 1998 and the 1997 NIT title. By this time, Beilein was taking over a West Virginia program that he would take to the Elite Eight a couple years later.

Jump ahead five years to 2007. Michigan hired Beilein to replace Tommy Amaker who had been the safe hire in 2001 to lead the program through the sanctions. Beilein’s first team finished an underwhelming 10-22 and it was hard to imagine a light at the end of the tunnel.

The very next season, however, the Wolverines upset fourth-ranked UCLA and fourth-ranked Duke, won 22 games, earned the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth since the sanctions were lifted, and won the first round game over Clemson. It was the first feel-good moment for Michigan basketball in a long time, and while the team limped to a losing record in the 2009-10 season, it laid the foundation for future success.

That takes us back to late January of 2011. Carrying a six-game losing streak into East Lansing where the Wolverines hadn’t won since 1997 wasn’t a fun proposition, but a Stu Douglass three with 25 seconds left sealed the Michigan win. The Maize and Blue won eight of their last 11, including a regular-season ending 70-63 win over the Spartans to earn a 9-seed in the NCAA Tournament. There, Michigan routed Tennessee and nearly knocked off top-seeded Duke.

Two years to the day after that unlikely victory in East Lansing, Michigan beat Illinois to sieze the No. 1 ranking in today’s Associated Press poll. Monday’s AP poll marks the first time since Dec. 6, 1992 that the Wolverines have been ranked first overall, which means four current Wolverines – Glenn Robinson III, Nik Stauskas, Caris LeVert, and Max Bielfeldt – weren’t even alive the last time Michigan was ranked number one. In fact, if you add up the age of every player on the team at the time Michigan was last ranked first (16 years, 360 days), it wouldn’t even equal the amount of time that has passed since that time (20 years, 53 days). The oldest player at the time was Corey Person at three years and 145 days old.

John Beilein has rebuilt the Michigan program to a level few thought was possible a couple years ago

Following Sunday’s win over Illinois, Beilein downplayed the significance of the No. 1 ranking, saying that no one will remember who was ranked number one at the end of January. And while that’s true on a national level, one can be rest assured that Michigan fans across the world will.

For many current Michigan fans, the fandom started, or at least grew, during that time period from the 1989 national championship through the Fab Five years. It was truly an exciting time. But the abyss that it sent the program into, which it has been clawing out of inch by inch over the past decade and a half, is one most Michigan fans would like to forget. That’s what makes today’s No. 1 ranking so special.

The 1992 squad, loaded with the talent of Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson, changed the culture of college basketball and helped put Michigan basketball on the map. But their stardom and the actions that came with it took Michigan basketball off the map for the subsequent decade-plus. This year’s squad, led by a super sophomore from Columbus that the Buckeyes passed over, a pair of NBA sons, and a lightly recruited sharp-shooter from Canada has achieved No. 1 the right way, ironically, in the same year the Fab Five ban is set to end.

The obvious goal, as Beilein and the rest of the team has harped on all season, is to be number one at the end of the season. But Michigan’a ascension to the top spot has put the Wolverines back on the map and will likely breed a whole new generation of Michigan basketball fans, and it will no doubt help with recruiting. Whether Michigan wins it all this season or not, Beilein’s squad has achieved something only 26 other teams have done in the last 20 years: climb to number one. And for Michigan fans who have bled maize and blue through the lean times that have consumed the past 15 years, it matters.

Michigan’s continued dominance coupled with Indiana’s overtime loss to Butler on Saturday afternoon allowed the Wolverines to move up yet another spot in the national rankings. Michigan began the season fifth, but has steadily climbed to second while those above them have faltered. All except Duke, which remains the only team ranked ahead of them.

The last time Michigan reached second in the rankings was the second year of the Fab Five, the 1992-93 season that remains marred by scandal and erased from the record books. Most current college students have never seen Michigan ranked as high as it is now.

So how far can the Wolverines keep going? Can they supplant the Blue Devils for the top spot? How long will Michigan remain unbeaten? Let’s take a look at Michigan’s upcoming schedule as well as those of Duke and the other remaining unbeatens.

Next 10 games
#1 Duke (9-0)	#2 Michigan (11-0)	#3 Syracuse (9-0)	#4 Arizona (8-0)
Dec. 19 vs Cornell	Dec. 20 vs EMU	Dec. 22 vs Temple	Dec. 18 vs Oral Roberts
Dec. 20 vs Elon	Dec. 29 vs CMU	Dec. 29 vs Alcorn State	Dec. 22 vs ETSU
Dec. 29 vs Santa Clara	Jan. 3 @ NW	Dec. 31 vs C. Con. State	Jan. 3 vs Colorado
Jan. 2 vs Davidson	Jan. 6 vs Iowa	Jan. 2 vs Rutgers	Jan. 5 vs Utah
Jan. 5 vs Wake Forest	Jan. 9 vs Nebraska	Jan. 6 @ USF	Jan. 10 @ Oregon
Jan. 8 vs Clemson	Jan. 13 @ #7 Ohio State	Jan. 9 @ Providence	Jan. 12 @ Oregon State
Jan. 12 @ #25 NC State	Jan. 17 @ #13 Minnesota	Jan. 12 vs Villanova	Jan. 19 vs Arizona State
Jan. 17 vs Georgia Tech	Jan. 24 vs Purdue	Jan. 19 @ #5 Louisville	Jan. 24 vs UCLA
Jan. 23 @ Miami	Jan. 27 @ #10 Illinois	Jan. 21 vs #11 Cincinnati	Jan. 26 vs USC
Jan. 26 vs Maryland	Jan. 30 vs NW	Jan. 26 @ Villanova	Jan. 31 @ Washington

Right off the bat, the main thing that’s apparent is that Michigan faces the toughest schedule in the next month. Eastern and Central Michigan will close out the non-conference slate and the calendar year, while Northwestern, Iowa, and Nebraska should also be victories, leaving Michigan 16-0 heading into the Jan. 13 matchup at Ohio State. That would match the longest streak since the 1985-86 team started 16-0. If the Wolverines come out of Columbus unbeaten, they then head to Minneapolis four days later for another tough matchup. Survive that and Michigan hosts Purdue and then visits currently unbeaten and 10th-ranked Illinois.

Trey Burke's 18ppg and 7-2 assist-to-turnover average have Michigan flying high (Tony Ding, AP)

Duke still hasn’t played a true road game this season, having played Kentucky, Minnesota, Louisville, and Temple on neutral sites. The Blue Devils won’t play their first road game until Jan. 12 at N.C. State and may not face a realistic threat until Feb. 13 against North Carolina. In fact, Duke, N.C. State, and North Carolina are the only ranked teams in the ACC, so the Blue Devils certainly have an easier remaining road to retaining the No.1 spot than Michigan does.

Syracuse is right on Michigan’s heels in the rankings, but hasn’t beaten a ranked team yet this season. Last night, the Orange nearly lost to Detroit. An 8-1 Temple squad could present an interesting matchup on Saturday, but after that Syracuse should cruise into a Jan. 19 matchup at fifth-ranked Louisville undefeated. If they can survive that one, they host currently unbeaten Cincinnati two days later.

Arizona got by No.5 Florida on Saturday and now doesn’t have a currently ranked team left on its schedule. The 9-1 Oregon Ducks could be the team to trip up the Wildcats on Jan. 10 in Eugene. If not, it’s hard to see Arizona losing before Michigan, given the comparative schedules.

Of course, going undefeated is nearly impossible in today’s college basketball, and losing some games and facing adversity may even be preferable before the NCAA Tournament beings. No one expects Michigan to go unbeaten, but it would be fun to see the Wolverines grab the top spot. But even if it doesn’t happen, Michigan has proven over the first few weeks of the season that they’re a force to be reckoned with and can match up with anyone.

Michigan should make it at least three more weeks at No.2, but likely won’t pass Duke unless the Blue Devils stumble big time. Once Jan. 13 hits, Michigan will face big-time opponents pretty much every other game the rest of the season. It will be tough to earn a No.1 seed in the Big Dance, but even with a few Big Ten losses, Michigan should be good enough to earn a 2-seed. But there’s still a lot of basketball left to play.