When Michigan head coach John Beilein first arrived in Ann Arbor, Crisler Arena left a lot to be desired.
He should have seen it a few years earlier.
Basketball became an afterthought after the Ed Martin scandal neutered the program for a good decade, to the point the motto seemed to be “just don’t embarrass us.”
A few years later — and this is not hyperbole — Michigan basketball has become the model to which programs should aspire.
The Wolverines are in the top 10, have made two runs to the National Championship game in six years, have as many tournament wins as any program in the country in that span (tied with North Carolina at 16) and regularly compete for championships and hang banners.
They’re also starting to draw crowds worthy of their success, especially given Beilein’s standing as cleanest coach in the country (in a landslide, according to his peers).
Michigan’s 12,707 attendance for the home finale with Nebraska last week put the attendance at 225,079 over 18 games, second all-time only to the 1985-86 championship team’s 259,160.
Beilein laughed when he recalled his first Senior Day at U-M, a loss to a bad Northwestern team in front of a few thousand people.
“If you win, they will come,” Beilein said. “I do think this whole change we’ve had here from lighting and restrooms or concessions [has helped]. What we walked into 12 years ago was much different. That’s got to be part of it, too.”
The halftime shows, t-shirt giveaways and timeout entertainment has all added to the experience of making Crisler Center one of the Big Ten’s top environments. More than anything, however, the product on the floor is what fills the seats.
“You can have all those things like crazy, but if you’re not winning there’s nobody there,” Beilein said. “The biggest change I’ve seen is student support. It goes up and down at every university, and that’ based on winning, tradition.
“We’ve established that again; now we want to keep that going.”
They seem to be in no danger of slowing down. Season ticket demand is so high that next year’s allotment is already nearly sold out. Tickets for games such as Binghamton this year started at $150.00 in the secondary market for lower level seats, and $150 wouldn’t have gotten you in the building for the Michigan State game.
"The support that they give us is amazing — the Maize Rage, all the fans, all the love they show for us," junior center Jon Teske said after the home finale. "We bring them energy and they give us energy. We wanted to give them a show and I think that's what we did.”
It’s gotten to the point where they can “feel” the crowd, Beilein noted … and he’s not exaggerating. Even a polar vortex with record low temperatures didn’t prevent a sellout and electric home crowd for a Wednesday night, 9:00 game with Ohio State.
“There were a couple plays in both those games — for some reason North Carolina is standing out where we had some steals and it's a big ESPN, 9 p.m. game — and you really felt the crowd, you felt the atmosphere,” Beilein said. “It was as good as college basketball can get.
“Then when we go through the gamut of the other games we had some really good Saturday, Sunday games and the Ohio State [game]. There were moments in all those games that it was like, 'Man, we're having fun. Our fans are having fun. This is great.'”
With a potentially outstanding team returning next year and several top-flight recruits already in the fold for the years to come, it figures to remain one of the conference’s most intimidating venues.
Fifteen years ago, anyone who predicted that would have been laughed out of the building.
What a difference a great coaching hire can make.
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @BSB_Wolverine, @JB_ Wolverine, @AustinFox42, @Balas_Wolverine, @DrewCHallett and @Qb9Adam.
• Like us on Facebook
