This Saturday is Senior Day for the Michigan men’s basketball team and the final home game Zack Novak and Stu Douglass will play as Wolverines.  This is a BIG deal, particularly for fans of my vintage, who not only have at best vague recollection of UM’s (ambivalent) success in the early-nineties but also attended the University in the midst of the Amaker era, when a strong NIT showing seemed the still-reeling program’s most realistic aspiration year in, year out.

I’m an admittedly odd case, in that it was after graduation that my passion for Michigan athletics really flourished; largely the product, I think, of my staying in Ann Arbor, while college friends gradually dispersed across the Midwest and beyond. Sporting events became natural gathering places—potential mini-reunions occurring on an almost bi-weekly basis. Now this probably would happened regardless of our records in basketball and football those first few years after graduation (see: Rodriguez’s tenure), but as luck had it, the end of my time (as a student) at Michigan coincided perfectly with the beginning of John Beilein’s—a hire that paid quick dividends, not least of all with his overnight recruitment of two unheralded players out of Indiana.

Undersized, white sharpshooters, Novak and Douglass were immediately tagged as “fitting the system,” aka athletically better suited for a mid-major, but hopefully able to hit the open threes created by the intricate rotations in Beilein’s celebrated offense. And it wasn’t long before the pair proved themselves more than capable of living up to that overly modest billing, each hitting crucial shots their freshman campaign in the Wolverine’s out-of-the-blue upsets of two fourth-ranked opponents, first UCLA and then Duke, and ultimately helping the team earn a berth in the NCAA tournament (the first in over a decade) where they advanced to the second round before being run over by some Kia Optima salesman.

Now every coaching change experiences its share of contrition. Still it was a bit of a shock when, just two years down the road, Zack and Stu (still only juniors) found themselves the team’s sole upperclassmen and, by default, its veteran leadership. Not surprisingly—but in the grand scheme, incredibly fucking surprisingly—the two nevertheless led the team once again to the second round of the NCAA tournament, along the way racking up a conniption of grit and several shining moments.

To date, Zack and Stu’s final season has been more of the same—to a degree, anyway. They continue to be the undisputed leaders of a team clearly on the rise. A Big Ten championship stands within reach, and a tournament berth with a top four seed has been all but assured. But the Wolverine’s lone seniors have clearly expanded and improved their games in a way few could have imagined possible four years ago. The Michigan basketball program appears at the tail end of a sea change. On-the-court success is now matched by recruiting that ranks among the nation’s elite—to the point that one can’t help but wonder whether, coming out of high school today, either Zack or Stu could have even earned a scholarship. That hardly matters though, because I somehow doubt any member of this year’s top-15 class will transcend the immense impact the two have had on Michigan basketball. And I can guarantee I’ll be far from the only one at Crisler this Saturday who feels that way….