matt haarms

[waves hand]

You did not see this post hit the front page for two minutes earlier today right as Nojel Eastern announced his transfer plans.

Ari Wiggins Commits to WBB

The commitment video of Indianapolis Heritage Christian guard Ari Wiggins, who made her announcement earlier this week, is well worth a few minutes of your time.

Wiggins is the #12 overall 2021 player and #4 point guard on Prospects Nation and #30 overall on ESPN; both rate her as a five-star prospect. ESPN also gives five stars to Michigan's other 2021 pledge, Cincinnati guard Laila Phelia. Prospects Nation likes Wiggins a great deal whether the 5'8" guard is running the point or hunting shots:

Wiggins looks and plays vastly more mature now than she did when we first saw her as a freshman. She's a dynamic option who likes to get downhill off the bounce. Wiggins is super explosive in that regard but also showed here the ability to knockdown the open 3-pointer. A left-handed dominant guard, Wiggins gives Michigan a potential threat on or off the ball.

ESPN's robust women's hoops scouting service has three camp reports of similar ilk. They see her as an explosive combo guard:

Boo Williams Invitational-April 2019: Athletic combo-guard explodes off the dribble, brings attack mode in transition game; handles in transition, changes pace; rises on jumper in mid-range game, emerging deep threat arsenal. (Olson)

The 5'11" Phelia should also bring athleticism and scoring ability to the table, according to ESPN:

Classic-in-the-Country Challenge-January 2020: Athletic guard manufactures shots, knocks down jumpers at the arc; executes in half-court game, creates into the defense, rises over defenders and delivers in mid-range game; competes on both ends of the floor; among the elite guards in the class of 2021. (Olson)

This class follows a four-signee class of 2020 that includes ESPN five-star Cameron Williams and three others rated as four-star recruits by Prospects Nation, topped by their #40 overall recruit, guard Meghan Fiso. (I wrote plenty more on that class in my early look at the 2020-21 season.)

Kim Barnes Arico is putting together a program with the talent to make a serious run at the top of the Big Ten and a chance to make some noise nationally. The 2021-22 roster, which is projected to be led by senior versions of Naz Hillmon and Amy Dilk, looks particularly loaded. We're already pretty much there—this is looking like the golden era of Michigan women's basketball. There's ample room on the bandwagon.

[Hit THE JUMP for a couple MBB transfer possibilities, Matt Painter's bad quote, and more.]

It's not your imagination. That was the biggest basketball recruiting nut punch of ALL TIME (alllll time):

At a 91 percent favorite, Michigan just had the biggest miss on a top-10 recruit in the history of 24/7Sports' Crystal Ball. pic.twitter.com/r8VtAQFWNi

— Eli Boettger (@boettger_eli) April 14, 2020

Michigan manages to appear twice on this list despite almost never recruiting top ten talents during the existence of the crystal ball, and this doesn't even cover the Tyus Battle/Josh Langford double whammy. If you've obliterated this from your memory: when Battle committed, Beilein dropped Langford because he refused to oversign by one, Langford committed to MSU, and Battle flipped to Syracuse.

At least this debacle had a silver lining:

Michigan scrambled for Ibi Watson in the aftermath. Watson was indisputably the best of the three in 2019-20, because Langford sat out with injury (again) and Battle was in the G-League after leaving Syracuse to go undrafted.* You could argue that he's actually the best player of the three after a 20% usage, 121 ORTG season with Dayton. Even if that's… uh… aggressive, Watson would have been a heck of a consolation prize if Michigan had stuck it out with him.

So let's survey potential consolation prizes? Michigan's options follow.

*[Battle is a classic example of a guy who probably would have stayed in college if he had his name and image rights since "Syracuse star senior" is probably more lucrative than "Iowa Wolves rookie".]

[After THE JUMP: screw it get the Dutchman?]