Michigan eager to established a refined identity

With the Michigan women’s basketball team’s first game of the season less than a month away, much of its situation is set in stone. The Wolverines are going to be young, inexperienced and, thanks to the makeup of its roster, centered around small ball.

So, leading a faster, more athletic and shorter roster, Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico is redefining the team’s identity.

That’s not much of a surprise after a turbulent offseason in which the Wolverines lost nearly all of their starting players and brought in three transfers and five freshmen. Tasked with the challenge of translating Michigan’s highly touted recruiting class to a competitive team on the court, Barnes Arico is working to control what she can.

“We always say we’re going to be the hardest working team in America, which means we’re going to do all the intangible things,” Barnes Arico said at Big Ten Media Day Oct. 2. “We’re going to take charges, get on the floor for loose balls, rebound, try to out-rebound all of our opponents. So we’ll always play on the defensive end.”

While it may sound cliche, an emphasis on team identity makes sense for the Wolverines. Michigan doesn’t have a bona fide star like it’s had in past seasons; it doesn’t even have an experienced center. What the Wolverines do have is an incredibly talented incoming class — a group that might benefit from some preseason culture building. For Barnes Arico, building that identity begins with effort on both sides of the ball.

Apart from diving for balls and crashing the boards, Michigan is also looking to take advantage of its speed and stamina. In these few weeks of preseason practice, veteran returners have already been impressed by their teammates’ pace.

“I think we’re gonna be able to run for sure,” senior guard Greta Kampschroeder said. “We got players that are in great shape, super athletic. We have a couple freshmen who I think should probably be on our track team. I mean, I think we can run teams out of the gym.”

Last year, running out of steam before the clock hit zeroes hindered the Wolverines during the most important stretch of the season. In crunchtime, their offense hit a wall or their defense got sloppy. 

If that speed from practice can make its way to the court this season, Michigan will at least give itself a chance against opponents that outmatch it on paper. With a fast team that wants to shoot a high volume of threes, the Wolverines could pose a challenging and unique matchup for bigger and more post-dependent Big Ten opponents, such as UCLA or Minnesota. 

“We certainly are going to be young,” Barnes Arico said. “But I think we’re also going to be loose, and we’re going to be fun, because our young kids aren’t feeling any pressure.”

Michigan’s youth could be a double-edged sword, but Barnes Arico hopes that a high effort, scrappy, “hardest working team in America” identity can ease the inexperience of the Wolverines’ eight newcomers. With Michigan’s roster fully stabilized after an unsteady offseason, Barnes Arico turned to what she can control.

She doesn’t have time to fill the gap at the Wolverines’ ‘5’ spot. She can’t control how high Michigan is ranked, or if the team is ranked at all. She can’t directly control how many points the Wolverines score each night.

But with the first regular season game less than three weeks away, Barnes Arico is focused on what she can do — establishing Michigan’s identity.

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