Michigan's Naz Hillmon: Why the best player in program history is also its most important

When the Naz Hillmon stepped on campus as a freshman, the Michigan women’s basketball team had never reached the Sweet 16.

But her class believed they could create something special. Four years later, they’ve led the Wolverines to their second straight regional semifinal, where they’ll face No. 10 seed South Dakota on Saturday (6:30 p.m., ESPN2) in Wichita, Kansas.

“They have created something incredibly special inside our program,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “That's a credit to all of them. They all stayed the course, they all continued to persevere.”

The senior class is led by Hillmon, who is the first player in program history to be named first-team All-American by the Associated…