Michigan basketball assistant coach Phil Martelli has been involved in college hoops for the better part of four decades.
A Philadelphia native, most of his career has been spent in Pennsylvania; he was on staff at St. Joseph's for 35 years, first as an assistant (1985-95) then as the head coach (1995-2019). Even then, Martelli knew the Michigan vs. Michigan State rivalry was a big deal because of when the games occurred: usually nationally televised on a playoff football weekend.
But for as much as he'd watched the rivalry from afar, he didn't truly understand just how deep it was until he arrived in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2019.