BUFFALO, NY — Nimari Burnett couldn’t help but shake his head as he thought about it.

As he sat in front of his locker at KeyBank Center, after Michigan rolled over Saint Louis to return to the Sweet 16. before the buses returned, he realized he’d be playing a former team one way or the other. His two former programs, Alabama and Texas Tech were set to meet in the NCAA Tournament second round. The winner would head to the Sweet 16 to face Michigan basketball at Chicago’s United Center, with a spot in the Elite Eight on the line.

The team on which he made his college mark, playing against a squad where it didn’t work out, in his hometown, the place where he became a freshman All-American, before he transferred to Prolific Prep and took the next step of his journey.

“It’s an exciting feeling,” Burnett said. “I was talking to my family about it the other day. “Just can’t wait to see who we’ll play.”

On Sunday night, the Crimson Tide and Red Raiders squared off in Tampa, Florida, with XXX prevailing, xxx.

And now, Burnett’s basketball journey will get a full-circle moment, on Friday

But it will be just one of several big moments for him.

‘I’d be making a dumb decision’

A year ago Nimari Burnett, his now-fiancé, Will Tschetter and his girlfriend all went out to lunch at Cafe Zola in downtown Ann Arbor.

had been eliminated in the Sweet 16 about a week earlier, and the two longest-tenured Wolverines wanted a well-earned time away from the game to enjoy some food, friends and laughs.

Burnett had just finished his fifth year of college basketball and all season long, he’d been telling his teammates it was likely his last.

In fact, Burnett didn’t go through U-M’s senior day activities in March 2025, because he’d done so the year before, under the previous staff, and didn’t want to make the moment about himself, given he’d already had one.

But on that late March afternoon, Tschetter couldn’t help himself — he had to know.

“I remember straight up asking him, ‘What are your thoughts on next year?’” Tschetter said Saturday in Michigan’s locker room at KeyBank Center. “That was when, I think, he’d made his decision, he was like, ‘Yeah, I think I’m going to pull the trigger and come back.’

“All year he’d been saying, like, ‘Nah, this is my last year.’ We were all getting the ‘Unc’ jokes in, because he was a fifth-year. But yeah, I mean we were all super, super happy when he made the decision. It’s been a great ride with him.’

Burnett made his return to the Wolverines official less than a month after that lunch, on April 21, 2025. He was optimistic, based on the roster coming together — transfers Elliot Cadeau, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara were already in the fold, with the possibility of landing Yaxel Lendeborg — that the 2025-26 season could be a special one. 

The staff’s message and vision only convinced him further.

“I felt like last year was the best year of college, until this year,” Burnett said, his eyes almost reflective, as if he was processing it all in real time. “My collegiate career has been long, been through a lot of ups and downs and so I was uncertain of the future.

“But just trusting the staff, understanding they had high hopes of winning and they know how to recruit. I was like yeah, I’d be making a dumb decision [to leave].”

Of course, Burnett didn’t know all that would follow. But after everything he’d gone through to that point, he was more than willing to take the chance.

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The winding journey

A McDonald’s All-American coming out of high school, Burnett began his collegiate career at Texas Tech. After one injury-shortened year in Lubbock, Burnett didn’t like the fit, so he opted to transfer to Alabama.

The move to the SEC brought a world of changes. In the months leading up to the season, Burnett tore his ACL, which sidelined him for the entirety of the 2021-22 season. His next season wasn’t much better, playing fewer than 15 minutes a game, with a mere nine starts.

Michigan hockey has its NCAA Tournament path to the Frozen Four, and it will be a tough one, as announced by the NCAA on Sunday, March 22.

The No. 1 overall seed Wolverines (29-7-1) – who are No. 1 in the USCHO poll and won won their first Big Ten Tournament title since 2023 on Saturday night – are headed to Albany, New York. U-M, making its record-tying 42nd NCAA appearance, will face 4-seed Bentley, the Atlantic Hockey champs, in the first round on Friday, March 27 (5:30 p.m., ESPNU).

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Who else is in Michigan hockey regional?

The bottom half of U-M’s region should have some appeal to NHL prospect watchers, as well: Potential No. 1 overall pick Gavin McKenna and Penn State will face Minnesota Duluth in the second game. The Bulldogs are led by Detroit Red Wings prospect Max Plante; the second-round pick in 2024 has 24 goals and 25 assists for UMD to sit fifth in points nationally.

Dusty May knew immediately. Or at least the first time he saw his team in a gym last summer.  

He knew his men’s Michigan basketball team would be good. Final Four good. Title-worthy good, and certainly the best collection of talent he’d ever … well … collected. 

Kim Barnes Arico wasn’t so sure. The Michigan women’s coach also gathered her team last summer. She also looked out over the gym floor and saw the best collection of talent she’d ever recruited to Ann Arbor. 

Her talent was younger though, highlighted by three sophomores in Mila Holloway, Olivia Olson and Syla Swords. But it wasn’t just the youth that gave her pause. 

“Dusty’s mindset is a little bit different,” she said Saturday, March 21, at Crisler Center, ahead of her team’s second-round matchup with North Carolina State on Sunday (1 p.m., ABC). “I always am, ‘Are we going to be good?’ I’m always questioning how good are we really going to be. I think that’s the coach in me.” 

Oh, don’t get her wrong. She knew she had talent. Even as freshmen, she admitted, the trio of Holloway, Olson and Swords “were just different.” 

“When we headed into the first game of their college career in (Las) Vegas against South Carolina, I don’t know (whether or not) people expected us to lose by 30. We were in a one-possession game at the end of the game. At that point, I realized we had something special.” 

Still, did she see her group would be a No. 2 seed not even two years later? Hosting first- and second-round games? Pulling into the Crisler parking lot and seeing students waiting to get in? 

Swords, her star shooting guard, sure didn’t. 

“There was like a line of 10 people waiting to get in two hours before the game,” she said. “That seems like a small thing, but we were all staring outside the bus, [like], ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s a lineup to get in!’ Just special like that to make us feel like we’re connected with the student body and make us feel like we have their support.” 

Consider that a step. One of several Swords and Holloway and Olson and Barnes Arico want to take. Think they are ready to take, now that they are here, a victory from the Sweet 16. 

They’ll have to get through a much tougher opponent to get there than the one they beat Friday evening in the first round. Holy Cross was happy to be in the tournament, and said as much after losing by 35 to the Wolverines. 

North Carolina State isn’t happy to be here. They have a legacy, not to mention more size and physicality than Holy Cross. The Wolfpack employ two bigs – 6-foot-6 Tilda Trygger and 6-2 Khamil Pierre, the team’s leading scorer and a walking double-double.  

U-M has length but not that kind of length. Or size. But they’ve got skill – everywhere – and are favored for a reason. 

Michigan, as a program, has only been to the Sweet 16 two other times – 2021 and 2022 – so making it a third is no small thing. Yet it’s not where Olson and Swords and Holloway are looking to stop.  

“We want to raise the program to another level,” said Olson.  

They’ve done that all season, game by game, earning that 2-seed and homecourt in the first two rounds.  

Did Barnes Arico see that last summer? 

“Did I realize that we would be a top-10 team all season long? No. Did I realize that we would play some of the best teams in the country, the No. 1 and the No. 2 team in the country, to a one-possession game, with a chance to tie the game in both of those games? No. But I think sometimes this team, this group of young women … they continue to surprise. … I would have hoped that we would be pretty good,” she said, “but I’m really happy where we are.” 

Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.