Breezy non-hostile discussion of Michigan basketball under Juwan Howard
I know there have been a ton of posts about Juwan and Michigan basketball lately. Nearly all of the discussion results in a breakdown of takes that is precisely “fire the bum” or “give him another year.” That is ground trust has been covered.
However, I watched Juwan’s press conference from a while back after Rutgers. If you have not watched it it is worth a view. No, not linking it cuz I’m bad at stuff.
Two things jump out to me. 1 - Juwan is not checked out. He is taking this losing personally and it is not rolling off his back, and 2 - Juwan genuinely feels like there is a lack of true effort from the players themselves in terms of effort and pride.
Juwan also offers a full throated defense of he and his staff regarding results. He persuasively points to BIG championship, Elite 8, Sweet 16, as recent anecdotes to support his system and his methods. I will admit, I was somewhat persuaded.
So, with these ideas above in mind, has the anti-Juwan movement gone too far too fast? Are the first-half performances we are seeing this season indicative of a young team that has pieces that will eventually mold? We lose a couple of key contributors next year, but get a couple young pieces as well and presumably Dug will be eligible. Reed and Tschetter are promising ball players. The portal is there.
Additionally, who is Michigan going to get instead? Who wants this job? Who is going to more successfully recruit for this program? John Beilein ain’t walking through those doors.
So, just to discuss. Why is this team as bad as it is? Is it maybe more of a one-off than we have collectively concluded? What is the direction of the program if we look elsewhere and start over?
Happy Tuesday.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:38 AM ^
He is not a good head college bball coach that is why the team is bad. He needs to go, period.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:47 AM ^
"He is not a good head college bball coach. ."
The simple, stark proof of the statement is that Phil Martelli remains on staff as a babysitter. The initial story was that Martelli's hire was to help JHow "acclimate" to the college game. Apparently this has yet to happen, and Martelli's presence is still required.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:50 AM ^
Even if Howard were to somehow return, I think there is close to a 0% chance Martelli does. I have not seen he and Juwan speak to each other this season.
February 20th, 2024 at 4:35 PM ^
Pure anecdotal conjecture.
February 20th, 2024 at 8:48 PM ^
martelli's usefullness has passed
February 20th, 2024 at 8:34 PM ^
He was the acting head coach at the beginning of the year! Juwan even made him HC again just for that game in Philly.
If Howard returns, there's no chance Martelli does because almost no one will. If he returns he needs to blow things up and start over.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:24 AM ^
Martelli is an assistant coach. He remains, because he's an assistant coach. He wasn't brought in just as some temporary coaching Sherpa.
If anything Martelli gives me less hope for the Michigan program as a whole. He was basically running the ship all offseason and non-conf season bc of Juwan's surgery, and the team had the same problems. You can say Juwan can't coach, but Martelli has a proven coaching history. He wasn't able to get more out of them than Juwan.
Honestly, Michigan could fire Juwan and bring in any coach in the country -- even the Lord and savior John Beilein himself -- and I wouldn't be confident in sustained success for UM Basketball. You have to be able to pay "transactional" players and fill gaps with transfers to stay competitive in this version of college basketball. The University doesn't want to facilitate that. I think you could still have good seasons and hit on some recruits here and there -- but year over year success is impossible if your University's policies are working against you. Even Izzo is struggling, and he has way more resources than a UM HC will ever have.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:50 AM ^
Nebraska, Iowa, Northwestern, etc. all face the same constraints and are doing better than we are.
Our performance is disgusting.
February 20th, 2024 at 12:50 PM ^
Good point when comparing Michigan to other B1G teams, especially Northwestern as they pride themselves as a high standard academic university.
This Michigan BB program under Juwan has been trending down for the past two seasons and the bottom has fallen out for this year.
To be fair, I like Juwan but a change needs to be made in the offseason.
February 20th, 2024 at 1:31 PM ^
Nebraska's last 4 seasons: 16-16, 10-22, 7-20, 7-25
Northwestern's last 4 seasons: 22-12, 15-16, 9-15, 8-23
Fran McCaffrey: 4 tournament wins in 13 seasons at Iowa. Zero sweet 16's in his career.
Juwan: 5 tournament wins. Elite 8, two Sweet Sixteens. Last 4 seasons: 18-16, 19-15, 23-5, 19-12
None of those programs are doing better than Juwan at Michigan. If anything, it just reinforces my hypothesis that it's basically impossible to find sustained success with the constraints Michigan has (if you believe those programs have the same hurdles as UM).
February 21st, 2024 at 8:32 AM ^
Howard made those runs with John Beilein developed players, though. Show me his stats since those guys have graduated.
February 20th, 2024 at 8:39 PM ^
No, they don't face the same constraints. From everything I've seen they have no trouble bringing in transfers. The admissions problem is mostly about transfer credits, which isn't at all about whether someone is smart enough to get in at Michigan.
Having said that, Juwan could still have a better roster. We all basically knew the stuff in Alex Drain's nice piece on the program recently, but one thing I wasn't fully aware of was how even the 5 stars Juwan missed on have so far looked very underwhelming elsewhere. Hunter Dickinson is basically the only Juwan recruit who has turned out well.
February 20th, 2024 at 9:31 PM ^
Dennis, a once in a great season for Nebraska and Northwestern and Michigan should be all firing our coach. NW and Nebraska have made the tournament how many times in the schools history? 8 total in their schools history. Michigan had more wins in the tournament then those schools combined since Juwan has been the coach. So GTFOH. As for Iowa they have always had a good basketball program so mentioning them is pretty stupid.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:59 AM ^
Even we get Jay wright ?
February 20th, 2024 at 3:04 PM ^
Why do Michigan fans keep mentioning him as a realistic possibility? To my knowledge he has absolutely zero ties to Michigan and has said repeatedly that he does not want to even coach in college again.
February 22nd, 2024 at 6:51 AM ^
Many college and pro sports fans everywhere operate under the benign delusion that it's easy for their preferred team to procure any and all players or coaches. If they're free agents, all it takes is a lot of money; if they're already under contract, the team that holds their rights is willing to trade them to us, usually for whatever unused players we have on our bench.
There's also the less benign, delusional corollary that, simply because a player or coach didn't sign with our preferred team, our team automatically "failed" or "didn't try hard enough" to get that person to sign. More often that not, a team isn't going to release a list of all of the players or coaches that it considered and/or reached out to but didn't sign.
February 20th, 2024 at 12:06 PM ^
I get that Michigan's NIL and admissions policies aren't Top 20.
But not Top ~45? (The approximate cutoff to make the Big Dance.)
I find that hard to believe.
February 20th, 2024 at 1:40 PM ^
For admission of transfers, we're probably closer to 100 than we are 45 (if such a thing could be ranked). We've rejected 3 players from P5 teams (one B1G team) -- Eastern, Shannon, and Love.
For NIL, our own NIL assessment for football was "Tier 3" with at least 15 teams ahead of us. Who knows where that leaves us in basketball. Apparently not in a good enough position to retain a clear star in Hunter Dickinson. Also, the policy of "transformational not transactional" is much more damaging in basketball. With one and dones, it's almost entirely (if not completely) transactional.
February 20th, 2024 at 6:15 PM ^
I think we all would like to live in a world that is transformational, but the reality is transactional.
time to live in the real world? I think so.
February 20th, 2024 at 4:37 PM ^
The NIL is a huge deal in basketball mainly due to the one-and-done option + fewer players than in football. It's hard to field a consistent team without it now.
It should be a priority for the University no matter who is coaching the hoops team.
February 21st, 2024 at 4:29 PM ^
1) Beilein was perfect for Michigan because he was first in on players who had basketball skills but may not have been the most athletic and he developed his players better than anyone.
2) Phil Martelli got a lot of good publicity based on one Final Four run. His coaching acumen is far from perfect.
3) Juwan, on top of having questionable coaching methods/strategy, was at his best with Beilein players. His roster building and attempts at certain players have persisted in spite of what should be common knowledge about admissions. All coaches are stubborn, but that presser showed that Howard is unwilling to change in spite of dwindling results. His predecessor adapted. I haven’t even mentioned the off court bullshit.
In summary, best year may be bad regardless, but I’d rather give a new coach a chance to build something from the ashes than let this train continue to careen off the tracks. Warde doesn’t care so Juwan will likely get another year to embarrass the program.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:39 AM ^
The portal is there.
Is it tho? Wasn't for Terrance Shannon or Caleb Love.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:44 AM ^
Seems fixable to a degree. If Howard now realizes that admissions is not f-ing around, he can tailor his approach to what he is looking for in the portal.
Also of note, the NIL limitations are going to be there regardless of who the coach is.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:42 AM ^
I agree on tailoring the approach to the portal. I just googled "top mid-major freshman" and came across this list which seems like a great starting point. All of these guys look solid and should be early enough in their careers that the transfer credit thing should be less of an issue.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:39 AM ^
Worked when he got Chaundee Brown, Mike Smith, DeVante Jones. It goes both ways
February 20th, 2024 at 1:32 PM ^
My understanding is that Mike Smith and Devante Jones were grad transfers, which is a different scenario than Shannon and Love were trying to do.
February 20th, 2024 at 2:53 PM ^
And it’s exactly who he should be hunting is grad transfers.
February 20th, 2024 at 9:36 PM ^
We work from a portal of 100 players where ever other school gets to work with the 1000s of players. That is the Michigan difference. We get about a 90% reduction in players then go add in the quality of player then go in and add who is going to pay better then we are down to very few who can or want to come to Michigan. No matter who the coach is, they will always be behind the game. And before any of you guys say but JB did this and that. Remind you them game was 100% different and JB had some bad seasons where the whole blog wanted him fired. The last part is the game became so bad to JB he would rather quit the game he loves be suse he can't stand the way it is played now. Not talking about on the court people
February 21st, 2024 at 12:01 AM ^
I'm just so tired of people on here complaining that things are unfair for Michigan without acknowledging that we can point possible recruits to our many many Final Fours, the incredible exposure they'll get, and a degree that will actually open some doors (if the athletes want them). This constant whining about how unfair things for us -- would you trade our position for Penn State's? Maryland's? Minnesota's?
Our coaches just need to get out there, get some good players — not "stars," just solid players who are fully committed to winning (your Zack Novaks, your Stu Douglasses, your Spike Albrechts, your Trey Burkes) — and coach them.
Everyone talks about how much different it was when Beilein was coaching, but he managed to find players like Nik Stauskas and Trey Burke. They're out there. It may take a little more work than some coaches need to do to find them, but they're paid enough to work hard. Damn I'm tired of whiny Michigan fans complaining that everyone hates us and everything is unfair, from referees to the Big Ten to the NCAA to our own admissions people, all conspiring to keep our virtuous and wonderful sports teams from winning. Jeez.
We've won before and we'll win again. If Howard can't do it — and I haven't yet given up on him, but if we pull the plug I'm ok with that too — then let's get someone who can. Stop with the excuses.
(By the way, this actually isn't directed at Howard. To his credit I haven't yet heard him whining about the admissions standards. Only the people on this blog).
February 20th, 2024 at 10:42 AM ^
8-18 overall, 3-12 in conference play. That is flat-out abysmal under any circumstances. Dug is an academic risk at this point (otherwise he wouldn’t be suspended for 6 road games, which is ridiculous itself). I do not see great roster improvement next year.
It’s really hard to justify bringing him back after a 10-25 type season, which is what we’re looking at. Regressing to .500 is one thing. This is a complete implosion.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:54 AM ^
I would be pleasantly shocked if Dug is still at Michigan next year. He’s a talented experienced college PG. He could go to a number of schools and not worry about having to miss half of the conference road games.
February 20th, 2024 at 12:23 PM ^
If he goes we will need a guard transfer, as we are so thin there. As talented as he is, his height is such a liability, and I wanna see a big 6-6 to 6-8 guard again like Rose. Rose truly was a unicorn. Haven't seen anyone like him since.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:58 AM ^
This is where I am at. I think if the team was merely "bad" you could make the case he deserves another year - but we just completely fell off a cliff this year. You would be finishing the year as one of the worst power 5 teams, if not the worst. I don't think any coach could come back from this.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:33 AM ^
I have to agree with this. I'm willing to forgive an occasional bad season; Beilein had a few. Yet other than his first (10-22), Beilein's worst seasons were at .500 or just below (15-17 and 16-16).
There's also been a clear downward trend as Beilein's players have moved on and the team has become Juwan's.
February 20th, 2024 at 11:48 AM ^
If this team was right around 13-13, or something resembling .500 in B1G play, I could be compelled to look the other way on a whole lot of this. But this is an unmitigated disaster, with one of your best players borderline-ineligible. And yes, the trend is not good at all.
The bigger issue I see here is that this is so bad that a sizable improvement next year is still going to produce an unacceptable season. And I’m not sure that improvement is coming, if Dug jumps ship and Reed lights out for greener pastures elsewhere.
February 20th, 2024 at 12:00 PM ^
Another good point. In Belien's "down" years, there was generally a clear mitigating factor - ie, the year his starting PGs went down - and you could point to clear expected improvement the following year. This team, however, has nothing in the pipeline. If you run Juwann back right now, what gets you excited about next year?
February 20th, 2024 at 12:27 PM ^
If Juwan really was working towards the future this incoming class would be 6 kids. We are replacing 10 potential players leaving with 4 incoming freshman in 2 classes.
February 20th, 2024 at 4:40 PM ^
It has been a terrible season for sure. Looking at Manuel's track record, he seems to be a bit conservative with money. Likely he lets Howard ride out the last year of his contract with an ultimatum similar to what he did with Harbaugh. (As opposed to a big buy-out and $$ search).
When Bielein and Harbaugh struggled they both blew up their coaching staff, so I predict a similar situation here should Howard be retained for the last year of the contract.
February 20th, 2024 at 9:40 PM ^
Same people who were wanting JH fired and JB fired during bad seasons. We are way behind in everything for basketball due the the admissions, and transfers and not paying for players. Or we get fucked over by the NCAA or they fuck over a player for a $90 grocery bill to feed himself. Until Michigan gets right with basketball no head coach is going to come in and be the savior.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:45 AM ^
It's a collection of things:
1. Coaching
2. Administrative, blocking player transfers
3. One and done players
This isn't all on Juwan, although he is a part of the issue.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:55 AM ^
I maintain that CBB has turned into an even bigger dumpster fire than CFB due to NIL, transfers, and one-and-dones. Those things have definitely led some coaches to retire early, and other "good" coaches have evidently struggled.
That said, Juwan is handling this rough era of CBB seemingly worse than most, and that's not even getting into the fighting with Sanderson and opposing coaches (though spiritually I have a hard time saying slapping Gard is wrong, that guy is an asshat).
February 20th, 2024 at 12:08 PM ^
It wasn't Gard, it was an assistant who pushed TWill and got slapped for it.
February 20th, 2024 at 12:44 PM ^
Well I stand by that too. Wisconsin basketball has been ugly and unnecessarily rough for as long as I can remember.
February 20th, 2024 at 9:56 PM ^
you sure you're not an OSU fan?
February 20th, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
Part of the issue? Was Brian Ellerbe part of the issue?
February 20th, 2024 at 2:44 PM ^
No, the roster is fine. We had 3 NBA draft picks last year and couldn't make the tournament (or even win a single game in the NIT!)
This year we have more talent than teams like Northwestern and Rutgers. Or are you saying Northwesterns admissions is easier and NIL is bigger than ours??
No we don't have the talent this season to make a run in March, but we have bubble team talent. There's no excuse for being in the discussion for worst team in the P5.
Stop blaming the roster or admissions, we are doing far less with more than most of the teams in the conference.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:46 AM ^
Last year: 2 NBA first-rounders, HD, = no big dance
Scraps with opposing coaches and Sanderson
This year: defense...rebounds...turnovers...2nd half folding...
February 20th, 2024 at 11:35 AM ^
I take issue with your assertion. We had plenty of bad defense and 2nd half collapses last year as well!
February 20th, 2024 at 12:04 PM ^
the D has been a 3 year downward trend since wagner, brown and simpson moved on. it is now awful.
February 20th, 2024 at 10:51 AM ^
I mean, this was kind of predictable coming into this season. Not that anyone expected this level of cratering, but there wasn't much reason for optimism.
Two straight years of underachieving (over-seeded in the tournament and getting to a Sweet 16 is not proof of much). Then looking at this year's roster coming into the season, it was decidedly worse than last year's. And it's not just the talent level, it's the general makeup of the roster. There's literally one ball handler on the team.
I pretty much see a downward trend with not much that's positive in the way of program management.
Fire him, don't fire him. I don't care. But I'm not resetting my expectations until I see something different.