Zavier Simpson's Michigan Legacy

The winningest player in program history, with 117 career victories to his name, point guard Zavier Simpson will be feted tomorrow night when the Wolverines honor their three seniors - Jon Teske and Austin Davis have appeared in 12 and 57 fewer wins, respectively, than Simpson but will deservedly be recognized also.

Undersized and disrespected, Simpson has quite often been diminished for what he is not - a good shooter, especially from three (a .311 career success rate from behind the arc) and at the free throw line (59.7% for his career) - instead of lauded for what he is: a ferocious leader, an elite distributor of the basketball (he has ranked in the Top 20 nationally the past two years in assist rate and is U-M's all time leader in assists by 60, 651-591), while he crafted a hook shot and has an ability to get to the basket that have largely been responsible for 620 of his 1,047 career points.

In the last decade-plus, since the arrival of John Beilein for the 2007-08 season, Simpson has been one of the program's 10 best players, a notion that most Michigan fans recognize as true.

#TrueFalseTuesdays: Zavier Simpson is one of the Top 10 players of the Beilein/Howard era.
— Michael Spath (@MichaelSpathITH) March 3, 2020

Simpson still has at least four games - two in the regular season, one Big Ten tournament contest and an NCAA tournament game - to add to his legacy, but presently, he's in the 7-10 range for the program's best during this Beilein/Juwan Howard era.

The golden tier belongs to Trey Burke and Nik Stauskas, undoubtedly a duo that stands above the rest. Caris LeVert is third, and who knows where he might stand if not for the injuries that sidelined him for 14 games his junior year and 21 his senior season.

After that trio, there is some combination of Derrick Walton, Tim Hardaway Jr., Moritz Wagner and Darius Morris that occupies spots 4-7.

Simpson belongs in that last third of the Top 10, a debate which would also include Manny Harris, Iggy Brazdeikas, Jordan Morgan and Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, but looking at the entire body of work, he should rank eighth, ahead of all those Michigan greats.

If Simpson can lead his team on one more great run, he could jump into that second group. He'll never shoot or score the basketball as well as those guys, but if he captains the Wolverines to another 5-8 wins this year, perhaps then we can finally recognize Simpson for what he is and not for what he lacks.