The regular season for Michigan men's basketball is still a few months away, but the last six

weeks or so helped to start laying the foundation for the upcoming season. The staff, the returning

players, the newcomers, they all merged in Ann Arbor. They all came together to start building

for the upcoming season, one filled with, not just locally, but nationally for this

program. Over the next couple of weeks, the team will be a part in advance of the start of fall

semester, and it's the final lengthy stretch of time that this team will not be together between

now and Michigan fans hope a Monday night in April.

That's the goal, Associate Head Coach Phil Martelli set when he came to Ann Arbor

more than two years ago to help Michigan get there to the pinnacle of college basketball

with Joanne Howard leading the way.

And Martelli knows better than anyone that these last six weeks or so

that just ended late last week, that stretch is vitally important. It's also just the beginning.

Coach Martelli will join us here this week on Defend the Block, and he gives us a progress

report on the team, his impressions of the seven freshmen, and a whole lot more.

And as I'll talk about, the offseason is about getting players comfortable with new roles

for the returners, new voices for the emerging leaders, new surroundings and lifestyles,

not just for the incoming freshmen, but any of the players who were here last year,

but experienced the uniqueness

of a college experience during a pandemic. And of course, the vocabulary for any player

that was not a part of this Michigan basketball program a season ago. Again, it is a start.

This is very early in the process. But once you hear from Coach Martelli, I think you're

going to be optimistic about the early phases of this season, one that again, Michigan fans, hope

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