On the outside looking in, the Michigan basketball team appears ready to turn the corner from NCAA tournament hopeful to postseason mainstay.

But coach John Beilein doesn’t care about the outside. He doesn’t care about preseason polls, expectations or hype.

Entering his fifth season at Michigan, Beilein seems concerned with one thing.

“I’m not looking at if we’re top 10, top 20, top 50,” Beilein said Tuesday during Michigan’s annual media day. “I want to be in the top 68 in March.”

The Wolverines haven’t been to back-to-back NCAA tournaments since qualifying in 1995 and 1996. The quest to make it two in a row for the first time in 16 seasons begins Friday when Michigan conducts its first official team practice of the 2011-12 season.

After winning 21 games and finishing three points shy of the Sweet Sixteen a year ago, Michigan enters this season with 12 players who saw game action in 2010-11 and five who played in all 35 games.

National opinion seems to be leaning toward the idea that this year’s Wolverine squad won’t just be a contender in the Big Ten, but also a Top 25 team and a solid bet for the NCAA tournament.

Beilein? He’s not buying it.

Not yet.

“I don’t think we’re there yet,” he said. “We’re still going to be hunting that every day. (But) I don’t think we’re at that point.

“We were still sweating on Selection Sunday last year."

The team’s biggest question mark this season will no doubt be who steps in for NBA-departed point guard Darius Morris. Morris set a single-season school assist record as a sophomore last season, and he could have turned Michigan into a powerhouse squad this year had he returned.

But he didn't.

And the task of filling Morris’ shoes has fallen at the feet of a pair of freshmen, Trey Burke and Carlton Brundidge, and senior Stu Douglass — who admits that he’s really not a prototypical point guard. Beilein says he’s not sure who takes the starting role at the point yet, as Michigan’s coaching staff has had just nine hours of practice time so far.

But outside of the lead-guard spot, the Wolverines are experienced.

Swingman Tim Hardaway Jr. is the team’s top returning scorer and a member of the John Wooden Award preseason watch list, while Douglass and fellow senior guard Zack Novak return as the unquestioned leaders.

Up front, sophomore Jordan Morgan is back following a breakout redshirt freshman campaign a year ago, while classmate Evan Smotrycz says he’s put on 36 pounds, and is ready to add a low-post threat to his outside shooting ability.

Add in emerging big man Jon Horford and sharp-shooting reserve guard Matt Vogrich, and Michigan, on paper, appears ready for that next step.

But practice hasn’t started, and no one’s ever received a banner for being solid on paper.

“We’re confident in what we have,” Douglass said. “I’m always skeptical of the (preseason) Top 25, because it’s such a hard thing to determine. We’re proud of that, but we haven’t even talked about it as a team.”

Hardaway says that he’s heard the hype everywhere. From the dorm rooms and the streets of Ann Arbor to the powerful annuls of Twitter and Facebook, Michigan basketball is expected to do big things by a lot of people this season.

He admits that the team hears it, but says it refuses to indulge.

“We can’t worry about that,” Hardaway said. “Everything (that matters) happens within those four lines. And you’ve got to go out and play hard.”

The last time Michigan was considered an NCAA tournament mainstay, Burke and Brundidge were 3 years old and Beilein was starting to turn the corner at Canisius.

It’s been a while.

“Any team that says it (doesn’t expect to make the NCAA tournament) is looking forward to the wrong thing,” Smotrycz said.

Hype alone is just that.

But if talk turns into action, Beilein and company hope they'll be watching Selection Sunday without wet palms.

“That’s where we want to be," he says. “Somewhere on that board in March.”

Nick Baumgardner covers Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at 734-623-2514, by email at nickbaumgardner@annarbor.com and followed on Twitter @nickbaumgardner.