I think he's great, except his twitter blitzs'

Could turn out to be the all time scoring leader. In other words, who the hell knows who the most important recruit is?

Clearly it's Trey Burke. I love that kid. Too bad he will probably go to the NBA after this season.

David Brandon.  

If a coach doesn't "recruit" DB, he or she is in for a short and stress-filled tenure.

Bacari Alexander, Jeff Meyer, and LaVall Jordan

Started the new era of legitimacy around the country among AAU types

Mike Farrell

Zach Novak He was pivotal to laying the foundation like you said. He was also monumental in that game at East Lansing which helped to turn our season around two years ago. Don't make the Tournament that year it's possible recruits eye us as a team that will occasionally make the Tournament as opposed to a Tournament regular. Everybody has contributed though.

If you look at 2008-2010 the only recruit with any sort of profile was Morris. If he was a bust imagine what would have happened going forward....

Beilein's first #@%! recruit. (That's how I read it...haha).

 

In all seriousness, Novak. He gave our program its spirit back.

Nathan Brink and it's not close.

No, I'll go with Darius Morris.  For some reason, that felt like the signal to other recruits that it's okay for elite prospects to come here, and without Morris we don't have a 2010-11 season that suggests promise going forward.

D Mo.. Then Burke

One of those two has to be the most important recruit.

Without an adequate foundation, a building can collapse.  If you are not planning on building a foundation for a building then you have to have a lot of money in for perpetual repair work.  

I'm assuming that the vast majority of fans want a program that allows for teams rather than sporadically successful teams.  To build that program you have to start with a foundation.  I don't think that there is any question that Zach and Stu are the most important recruits because they represent the foundation.

Man, it's remarkable that Coach B has had such great consistency. Each class has had at least one guy who has been a program changer, many of them under the radar. My pick for most important is Novak. His grit and determination to bring the program forward made it possible to get some of the bigger prospects Coach is now regularly getting.

Mitch Mcgary.

I think Novak is definitely up there. He's the personification of Coach B's system. The only way I can describe him is as an overachiever. He wasn't the most athletic guy or most talented out there, but he was the toughest and did all of the little things, I almost liked watching Novak take a charge more than draining threes. He's the epitome of how far this program has come.

Novak may be the most important player, but as far as recruiting, I'd have to go with Darius Morris or Tre Burke. Those guys weren't typical Beilein recruits, being so elite, but they were the signal that not only does Michigan have guys like Novak and Douglass, your sharpshooting and hard working guards, but Michigan can attracte elite talent to.

I would say Darius Morris, an NBA talent choosing M combined with the team/Tournament success he led, gave us some needed legitimacy in the eyes of the recruits we're getting now.  

I wouldn't be mad at Novak though (leadership, gave us a leg up in the Mitch/Spike, GR3 relationships)

Trey Burke.

Stu going for 20 against UCLA for our first big win was pretty huge.  Couple that with him being our best perimeter defender, I'd say he has to be in the discussion as well.

This one is easy:  Trey Burke.  Kid is dynamite and was an overall 3-star.  He goes to Ohio if the white kid isn't there.  Played an instrumental role as THE GUY in getting us our first B1G regular season champ since I can remember.

If you are going by classes, however, this year's freshmen class wins hands down.  I can't find the "miss" in this class.

Morgan, Novak would have been playing the center position instead of power forward.  Without him, Michigan probably doesn't win the B1G or make the tournament. I think there's a good argument for Jordan Morgan

Keeping him committed was huge because it allowed for our first NCAA Tourney appearance in forever, and showed guys like Darius Morris and our latest recruiting class that the program was on a upswing.

It's not, but that seems to be the way this thread is going.

To me, it's Morris or Harris.  They really carried a team with marginal talent to overacheive and pushed the program in a positive direction.  I'd give the edge to Harris because he was there longer than Morris and at a more pivital time.

Sam Webb, though, has said that Morris's success at Michigan showed other PGs that they could thrive with Coach Beilein, and Michigan wouldn't have made the tournament in 2010 w/out him...Novak and Douglass did set the foundation, though, so I don't know.  This is like asking me which of my (fictional) children is my favorite!