a 73-67 victory. <\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWhat an amazing basketball game,\u201d Barnes Arico said postgame. \u201cI think the fans made a difference for us in the fourth quarter, and it\u2019s great to keep growing that fan base. But what an incredible basketball game. A game of runs. They\u2019re a really good team that we couldn\u2019t stop in the third quarter, but then they couldn\u2019t stop us in the fourth. I thought our team really stuck together in that fourth quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since arriving in Ann Arbor, Barnes Arico\u2019s program has been a model of consistency. The Wolverines reached the 20-win mark in 12 of her first 13 seasons and qualified for the NCAA Tournament eight times. <\/p>\n
But this year\u2019s group has a chance to reach new heights. Sunday\u2019s win puts the Wolverines at 17-3 overall and 8-1 in the Big Ten. They are a top-10 team in the country and looking to finish higher than third place in the Big Ten for the first time in program history. They currently sit third behind Iowa and UCLA, who are both 9-0 in conference play. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said this throughout my time coaching, but (UConn coach) Geno Auriemma said to me a long time ago, \u2018It\u2019s easy to get to be a top program. The hard part is staying there year in and year out. You can be a one-time thing and then fall off,\u2019\u201d Barnes Arico said. \u201cI was a young coach when he said that to me, and that\u2019s something that always stuck with me: \u2018Can we be a consistent program year in and year out?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when I heard 300, I did the math and was like, \u2018Wow, that means that we\u2019re pretty consistent. Obviously, we\u2019re trying to win championships, so we still got a lot of goals to accomplish, but it means we\u2019re heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of Michigan\u2019s youth, Barnes Arico believes the team is still on the rise. The team\u2019s three leading scorers are all sophomores, and the trio played a pivotal role Sunday. Olivia Olson had a team-high 24 points on 10-of-20 shooting, while Mila Holloway had 13 points, six rebounds and a team-high eight assists. Syla Swords had 10 points and four steals. <\/p>\n
Fifteen of the Wolverines\u2019 victories this season have been by double digits, but they haven\u2019t fared as well in close games. Two of their losses, against top-five teams in UConn and Vanderbilt, were decided by three points. <\/p>\n
Against USC, Michigan persevered in a close game in the fourth quarter. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s just time we\u2019ve put (in) together,\u201d Holloway said of closing out USC. \u201cWe have a phenomenal core of three sophomores, and (junior) Ashley Solifkanich came up big. Playing with each other and being able to stack practices and days with each other helps. We\u2019ve come back from a lot of games, and we haven\u2019t been able to turn that page. I think a lot of that just goes with maturity and experience because coach has really been challenging us with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Barnes Arico, the challenge this season has been balancing the quest for perfection versus gauging progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that I reflect on every single day,\u201d she said. \u201cAre we getting better and where are we getting better and where do we still need to improve? My assistant coaches are phenomenal. They\u2019ll say to me, \u2018There\u2019s a lot of teams that are at their ceiling right now.\u2019 We are a team with our young people, with our people that are new to our program that is going to continue to get better throughout the season. For me, that\u2019s so exciting. I\u2019ll leave practice sometimes and I\u2019ll be like, man, we\u2019re not a great team. Then I look and I\u2019m like, we\u2019re 17-3 and ranked No. 7 in the country. Then I\u2019m like, \u2018but we need to get better at this, this, this and this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many things that we can continue to get better at, but our work ethic and our talent and our passion and our drive, all those intangible things are there.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing Barnes Arico, a New York native, knows for certain is that she made the right decision nearly 14 years ago to leave the east coast and come to Ann Arbor. She remembers learning to detest the colors green and red. She recalls the moment she met her first Michigan team \u2013 a group that finished 22-11 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, helping set the foundation for the program. <\/p>\n
\u201cMoving my three children and my husband across the country was a huge risk for me and a huge commitment, and I didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Barnes Arico said. \u201cBut the Ann Arbor community and that first team, I can\u2019t thank them enough. It speaks volumes to the University of Michigan and the people in Ann Arbor. It\u2019s rated one of the best places to raise a family. It\u2019s rated one of the greatest universities in the world. It has all these ratings because the people are absolutely incredible. I didn\u2019t know what it was like to go to the supermarket and have someone in line want to talk to you for 10 minutes. That wasn\u2019t something we did on the East Coast. But I just think I was so welcomed by that first team, it made my life so easy, and it made my transition to Ann Arbor absolutely incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANN ARBOR \u2013 Kim Barnes Arico made a life-changing decision in April 2012 when she accepted the Michigan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,2340,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-560899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-connecticut","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115958679057467277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}