As you'll hear in her words and probably sense in her demeanor during our conversation today on Defend the Block,

Michigan women's basketball head coach Kim Barnes-Arico experienced an unprecedented offseason for her.

For so long, while many programs across the country and a lot of sports were heavily impacted by the changing landscape of college athletics,

NIL, transfer portal, all of that.

Michigan women's hoops had been able to adjust and tweak here and there, but in terms of

wholesale changes, not really unless it was because of the old-fashioned way of graduation

and the end of eligibility. Sure, there were roster changes, there were transfers, there

were additions. That happens everywhere.

But Michigan was way down the list almost every year in terms of the number of changes,

just how many they had to make year to year.

That changed this offseason.

Only four players returned from last year's squad, which was not the expected number.

Jordan Hobbs admitted as much with us last month here on the podcast that it was a

tough spring learning about all of these changes while she was trying to decompress a little

bit after the season ended.

Yet, Coach O'Riko and her staff went to work, helping what she called the quad squad, the four

returning players through that unique offseason, while also ensuring that one of the

nation's top recruiting classes and the program's best ever was still all in and also utilizing

the portal to add more than really they'd ever had to before. Now, summer workouts are done.

Fall semester right around the corner and a season opening game in Las Vegas against

the reigning national champion, South Carolina, approaching in a little bit more than two

months.

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