WICHITA, Kan. – It took Nicole Munger one recruiting visit to buy into Kim Barnes Arico’s vision for Michigan’s women’s basketball program.
In October 2013, when Munger was a junior at Central Bucks West High School near Philadelphia, she, her brother and her father traveled to Ann Arbor to meet with Barnes Arico, who was coming off a 22-11 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance in her first season with the Wolverines.
The tournament berth was just Michigan’s sixth since it was officially sanctioned by the Big Ten in 1982, and it had never advanced past the second round. But in Barnes Arico’s office with Munger and her family, the Wolverines’ plucky head coach was discussing her plan to reach the Final Four.
“I knew a bit about Michigan’s history and the past, and me and my dad and my brother are looking at each other and are like, ‘Oh man, this lady’s crazy,” Munger told MLive in a phone interview. “But we believed her. That’s what she said then and I committed about two weeks later. I believed in her right from the beginning, and I think that is what is so special about the program. People who come just believe.”
Munger, who graduated in 2019 but remains close with her former coach and current players, said Barnes Arico’s innate ability to motivate and resonate with the team is the primary reason Michigan is one win away from reaching its first Final Four. The three-seeded Wolverines face No. 1 seed Louisville at 9 p.m. Monday at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
“Going into games, we knew she was right on the floor with us,” said Munger, who will be watching Monday’s game from the Canary Islands, where she currently plays professional basketball. “Through her actions and through her words, we know she is fighting right beside us. There is nothing more you want in a head coach and a leader. We could feel her passion at all times.”
Michigan’s starting lineup Monday will feature zero players who were a McDonald’s All-American in high school. Louisville will have four on the floor to open the game.
The Wolverines (25-6) lost the first meeting this season 70-48 on Dec. 2, but they aren’t lacking confidence heading into the rematch. Barnes Arico built her program with players who have embrace challenges and hard work.
RELATED: Michigan more cohesive, confident heading into rematch vs. Louisville
If players were going to buy into her “hardest working team in America” mantra, she strived to be the hardest working coach.
The 5-foot-7 Mastic Beach, New York native played college basketball at Stony Brook and Montclair State and began her coaching career at the high school level.
She moved to the college ranks in 1996 as a part-time coach for Division III Fairleigh Dickinson-Madison before accepting a Division II head coaching position at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1997.
After two losing seasons at NJIT, she guided Adelphi, another Division II program located in New York, to three straight winning seasons, including a 28-3 mark in 2001-02 that ended with a trip to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Her first Division I opportunity came in 2002 at St. John’s, a program coming off seven straight losing seasons, including a 3-24 record the year before she arrived.
Before she accepted the job at Michigan in 2012, she led St. John’s to four NCAA Tournaments and a Sweet 16 appearance her final year.
“I wasn’t a big-time college player, and I wasn’t, a GA (graduate assistant) at a big-time Power Five program,” Barnes Arico said Sunday in Wichita. “I started as a high school coach. I coached Division III and Division II and went to St. John’s when we were rated worst of the worst programs in the country, number 300 and something. I could never have imagined. I couldn’t have written the script.”
Munger was on two of Barnes Arico’s five NCAA Tournament teams at Michigan and witnessed a sturdy foundation being built.
The Wolverines reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament in each of her final two seasons, but the 5-foot-11 guard was confident the program was poised for another breakthrough. Munger was cognizant of Barnes Arico’s track record at her previous coaching stops and believed a similar blueprint was feasible in Ann Arbor.
“When somebody says it and when somebody does it is two different things,” Munger said. “When she said it (the program’s goals), my eyes were like, ‘Oh my God. There was something in her voice and you could see it in her eyes, I didn’t want to miss out and I wanted to be with her instead of against her. I believed in her full force.”
Ahead of Munger’s senior season, Barnes Arico signed her most prolific recruiting class at Michigan. The group was highlighted by five-star point guard Amy Dilk and four-star forward Naz Hillmon, but also included current starters Danielle Rauch and Emily Kiser.
Although Rauch had the lowest recruiting ranking among the group, she said Barnes Arico made her feel just as important.
“What coach is building at Michigan and the culture of Michigan basketball aligned with who I was as a person and wanted to achieve, not only on the basketball court, but in the classroom as well,” Rauch said Sunday. “Coach and I are similar, and we have grown a lot together through the last four years. Knowing that coming in, I knew that that was going to be how it was going to be.’”
Hillmon, the program’s first All-American who ranks second in Michigan history in points and rebounds, said she wouldn’t be the player she is without Barnes Arico’s candid and demanding approach.
“When I came on my first visit, she had a PowerPoint of all of the things that she thought that we could accomplish,” Hillmon said after Michigan’s second-round victory over Villanova. “She always said that it won’t work unless I put in the work and nobody’s going to hold my hand to do it.”
With Michigan making four straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and its first Elite Eight appearance, the program is no longer flying under the radar.
But first-year assistant Carrie Moore still sees Barnes Arico coaching with that proverbial chip on her shoulder.
“Kim is a winner,” Moore told MLive following Michigan’s practice at INTRUST Bank Arena on Sunday. “Coach Val (Nainima) and I both joked after we won the game (vs. South Dakota in the Sweet 16) and said, ‘We walked into a gold mine here at Michigan.’ It’s just incredible to be a part of and just really happy to coach alongside her and learn from her.
“That’s just where she comes from and who she is in terms of starting here and working her way up to where she’s at. Even with the success that we’ve had here at Michigan, people will still call us the underdog. She’s fine with it. She coaches that way. She is that way.”
The Wolverines have dispatched No. 14 seed American, No. 11 seed Villanova and No. 10 seed South Dakota to reach the Elite Eight and are now the underdogs against Louisville.
RELATED: Michigan vs. Louisville: How the Wolverines can advance to the Final Four
This year’s team has already checked off a handful of firsts in program history this season, but Barnes Arico isn’t ready to stop dancing yet.
“You don’t want to just be happy to be here,” she said. “I think that’s something that a lot of you guys are asking those questions (Sunday), and it’s going to be the first thing that I remind our team when we get back to the locker room. It’s great that we’re elite and one of eight teams playing in the country right now. It’s unbelievable. But we’re not done, and we got a chance to keep on going. It’s one game at a time, and anything can happen in one game.
“I know Louisville beat us by 20 in December and I know Louisville has beaten us the last four times I was a part of it. I know all those things. But it’s one game, and who knows what can happen if Michigan comes out and plays like we’re capable of playing.”
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