A long offseason of turnover for the Michigan women’s basketball team added another wrinkle on Tuesday afternoon with the announcement of center Iuliia Grabovskaia joining the program. Grabovskaia is a 6-foot-5 center who spent last season with Middle Tennessee State and has two years of eligibility remaining.
In her one and only season with the Blue Raiders, Grabovskaia came off the bench in each of her 34 appearances. She averaged 3.3 points and 3.4 rebounds per game.
This is one of the most important moves of the offseason for the Wolverines, as nearly the entire frontcourt moved on from Ann Arbor after last season ended. The results of these transfers and graduating players left a giant hole at the center position for Michigan — simply put, there was no one to fill it until now.
Grabovskaia might not have eye-popping numbers behind her one collegiate season, but she brings some intangibles that a young Wolverines squad will need. Besides the aforementioned size that Michigan greatly lacked, Grabovskaia has more experience than her year at Middle Tennessee State suggests.
Coming from Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Grabovskaia has a taste of the international game as well. According to Michigan’s announcement, she averaged 8.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists over five games at the 2021 FIBA U20 Women’s European Challengers. These stats prove not only that Grabovskaia can handle top international competition, but when given more minutes than she did with the Blue Raiders, she can contribute more in the stat sheet.
With this mid-summer addition, the Wolverines addressed a badly-needed position for next season. Grabovskaia will provide much-needed size for Michigan, and look to be a source of guidance for the talented-but-young players joining the program.
The post Michigan shores up center position with Iullia Grabovskaia appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
Leave a Reply