Beilein Era Begins with Win

The John Beilein era of Michigan basketball got underway last night with a 78-40 win over Ferris State in an exhibition game. It may have just been Ferris State, who is a very, very inexperienced team, but at least Michigan won the game by a solid margin.

True freshman Manny Harris led all scorers with 15 points and was followed by DeShawn Sims, who had 14, and Ron Coleman, who had 11. As a team, Michigan turned the ball over a whopping 19 times, which is something they will obviously have to improve on. It is expected that the team will struggle with turnovers early on considering they are still adjusting to a new offense, but hopefully this problem won't last too long.

The most notable difference from last night actually wasn't the new coach. Instead, it was the lights at Crisler Arena. Remember how Crisler always used to be dark and seemed dingy because of that? Well, that won't be the case any longer as a new $800,000 light system was finished being installed earlier this week. The new lights take Crisler Arena from being below the NCAA standard to almost being at the NBA standard. I'm am thankful this change was made as that was always the one thing that I couldn't stand about Crisler. To see the change in brightness check out the video above (also do that if you want highlights).