Get To Know A Marquette Basketball Opponent: Michigan

Name: University of Michigan

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Founded: 1817

Enrollment: 44,178

WOAH. How much of that is law school or something like that? 28,963 undergraduates, along with 15,735 post-graduate students.

Nickname: Wolverines

Why “Wolverines?” It seems that Ohioans used that term to describe Michiganers back in 1835 during something called “The Toledo War,” although I have no idea why someone would fight a war over Toledo. Anyway, it was used by the people of Ohio to be disparaging about Michigan residents and it just kind of stuck as they took pride in being referred to as ornery.

What’s the deal with the football helmets? It’s called a winged helmet, dating back when helmets were leather and there was literally a different colored piece of leather attached to the helmet. Herbert “Fritz” Crisler believed that the multi-colored helmet had tactical advantages in terms of finding teammates down field and brought the winged helmet usage with him when he transitioned from Princeton head coach to Michigan head coach and athletic director in 1938.

Their fight song is pretty famous, isn’t it? Only if you consider John Phillip Sousa calling The Victors “the greatest college fight song ever written.”

Notable Alumni: Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States; James A. McDivitt & Ed White, the crew of Gemini 4; David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James B. Irwin, the crew of Apollo 15 (Scott & Irwin left a Michigan Alumni Association chapter plaque on the moon’s surface); Google co-founder Larry Page; playwright Arthur Miller; actor James Earl Jones; actress Gilda Radner; director Lawrence Kasdan; assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian; Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground; US Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy; Dr. Wallace Abbott, founder of Abbot Laboratories; Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber; attorney Clarence Darrow; Edgar Gott, co-founder and 1st president of Boeing; John De Lorean, General Motors Vice President & designer of the car that bears his name; Branch Rickey; General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers when Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s racial barrier; Ann B. Davis, aka Alice the maid on The Brady Bunch; character actress Margo Martindale; Mark Metcalf, aka Neidermeyer in Animal House & The Master in Buffy The Vampire Slayer; author Brad Meltzer; Sid Meier, creator of the Civilization computer game series; Dr. Gregory House; NFL Network host Rich Eisen; boxing expert Bert Sugar; television journalist Mike Wallace; Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson, & Jimmy King, collectively known as the Fab Five; and a whole mess of NFL players, including Tom Brady, Dan Dierdorf, Jim Harbaugh, Desmond Howard, Charles Woodson, and Crazy Legs Hirsch.

Last Season: 23-13, with a 10-8 record in the Big Ten. They were sent to Dayton for the First Four and advanced to the first round, where they lost to Notre Dame.

This Season: 2-0 with wins over Howard and IUPUI.

Current KenPom Ranking: #36

KenPom Projection: 19-11, 10-8 in the Big Ten

Stat Leaders

Points: Derrick Walton, Jr., 16.5 ppg
Rebounds: D.J. Wilson, 11.0 rpg
Assists: Derrick Walton, Jr., and Zak Irvin, 3.0 apg

Head Coach: John Beilein, in his 25th season in Division 1, and 10th season at Michigan. He’s 484-298 overall and 191-123 at Michigan.

All Time Series: Michigan leads, 13-6. Marquette has won the only meeting since 1990, a 79-65 victory at the 2009 Old Spice Classic.