Michigan Wolverines

Team History

Michigan has won one NCAA Championship, two National Invitation Tournaments (NIT), 15 Big Ten Conference championships, and two Big Ten Tournament championships. It has also won an NIT title and a Big Ten Tournament, both of which were voided owing to NCAA sanctions.

Michigan has produced 35 All-Americans, who have been chosen 48 times. Cazzie Russell (twice), Rickey Green, Gary Grant, Chris Webber, Trey Burke, as well as Harry Kipke, Richard Doyle, and Bennie Oosterbaan (twice), who the Helms Foundation retrospectively picked, were all unanimous All-Americans.

At least two-time awardees include twelve All-Americans. Russell was the only player to earn three All-American honors.

Professional basketball players from Michigan have had a lot of success.

Seventy-two players have been drafted into the NBA, with twenty-nine of them being first-round choices, including Russell and Webber, who were both drafted first overall.

Rumeal Robinson was taken 10th, Loy Vaught was chosen 13th, and Terry Mills was chosen 16th in the 1990 NBA draft, making Michigan the third of just eleven schools to have three or more players selected in the first round in the same draft.

Five players have won the NBA championship nine times, while eight players have been in the NBA All-Star game 18 times. Rudy Tomjanovich coached the NBA Finals champions in 1994 and 1995.

Glen Rice is one of just thirteen basketball players in history to win a state high school title, an NCAA championship, and an NBA championship.

Championships Won by the Team

Michigan has won one NCAA title, two National Invitation Tournaments, 15 Big Ten Conference championships, and two Big Ten Tournament championships. It has also won an NIT title and a Big Ten Tournament, both of which were voided owing to NCAA sanctions. Michigan’s NCAA title came in 1989, and their non-vacated Big Ten tournament wins came recently in 2017 and 2018.

Michigan won the conference regular season title last season in 2021.

Important Team Events

Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson were the Fab Five, a 1991 recruiting class of five freshmen starters. They were renowned for playing in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament title games as freshmen and sophomores in 1992 and 1993.

They started the fad of wearing baggy gym shorts, which Michael Jordan subsequently popularized, and were known for wearing black sports socks.

The records from their 1992 Final Four appearance and the entire following season have been forfeited due to the Ed Martin controversy. Even though Webber was the only member of the Fab Five who was formally involved in the controversy, the group’s reputation has been harmed as a whole.

All-Americans in college basketball were Webber, Howard, and Rose, and both King and Jackson were named to the All-Big Ten team. With the exception of Jackson, they all played in the NBA.

They were the subject of Mitch Albom’s book Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, and the American Dream, which was developed as a made-for-television film by Fox Television at one time. The documentary Fab Five, which aired in March 2011, was ESPN’s highest-rated program ever.

Top Players

Glen Rice led the Wolverines to their sole NCAA title in one of the greatest NCAA Tournament campaigns in history.

In the 1989 NCAA Tournament, Rice set a tournament record with 184 points. He was a member of the Wolverines from 1985 to 1989 and is the all-time top scorer. Rice is also 17th in assists and sixth in rebounds. He is the only player to have finished in the top 25 in all three categories in school history.

Cazzie Russell’s scoring average of 27.1 points per game is the best in Wolverine history. Russell was selected College Basketball Player of the Year in 1966 after averaging 30.8 points per game. His number 33 jersey has been retired, and the Crisler Arena has been called “The House That Cazzie Built.”

Every year, he improved his scoring average from 24.8 to 25.7, culminating in his 1966 season. He would have been the most prolific scorer in school and maybe NCAA history if he had played four years. He now ranks seventh in scoring and 17th in rebounds in Michigan history.

Rudy Tomjanovich was one of the finest Michigan Wolverines of all time before becoming a championship-winning NBA head coach. As a dominating scorer and rebounder, he was inducted into the Michigan Athletic Hall of Fame.

From 1967 to 1970, he was a member of the Michigan basketball team, where he finished sixth in scoring and first in rebounding.

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