Juwan Howard Fired As Michigan Men's Basketball Coach
2.5 years ago, your author wrote a brief post about the news that Juwan Howard had been extended as Michigan Men's Basketball Head Coach. In the intervening time since being given that five-year extension, Howard's Wolverines went 43-55 and today, just two days after finishing 8-24 in the 2023-24 season (Michigan's worst record in four decades), Howard has been fired. Statement:
Michigan AD Warde Manuel:
— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) March 15, 2024
“Despite his love of his alma mater and the positive experience that our student-athletes had under his leadership, it was clear to me that the program was not living up to our expectations and not trending in the right direction.” https://t.co/uwT7s6FXxi
Juwan Howard was hired May 22, 2019, after former coach John Beilein exited for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. Michigan's coaching search was muddled due to a lack of quality candidates, with the search coming a few months after most coaching vacancies were filled nationally. Howard was the consensus option, a program icon as a player from the Fab Five days who embarked on a long and successful professional playing career. After his playing days, he had been an assistant coach in Miami under esteemed NBA coach Erik Spolestra. Howard had no NCAA coaching experience, or head coaching experience of any kind, but was regarded as a talented up-and-coming coach.
Howard's first season was rocky, finishing 19-12 after getting off to an illustrious start. Michigan was only 10-10 in conference play but were headed for (roughly) a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament, thanks to the B1G being loaded in 2019-20. The NCAA Tournament never happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was an okay opening. Howard followed it up with a magical 23-5 season that earned him the extension, winning the B1G Regular Season Championship and a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The team made it to the Elite Eight but fell just short to a Cinderella UCLA team.
Howard brought in an elite recruiting class for 2021-22 and signed the extension shortly into the next season, then holding a 2-0 record. Things got murky after that, the team alternating wins and losses before just barely slipping into the NCAA Tournament as an 11-seed, with a 17-14 record. Along the way, Howard was suspended for five games for slapping a Wisconsin assistant coach during an infamous altercation following a loss to the Badgers in Madison. In the NCAA Tournament, the Wolverines moved past Colorado State and then upset Tennessee, making the Sweet 16 and seeming to salvage an otherwise frustrating year. The team got blown out by Villanova in the next round and the season came to an end.
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]
The wheels came off over the next two seasons leading to the present. Howard's 2022-23 team endured a series of baffling late-game collapses that submarined their season, narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament and then getting bounced from the NIT after another meltdown against Vanderbilt. The offseason saw star Hunter Dickinson transfer out of the program, while Kobe Bufkin and Juwan's son Jett Howard declared for the NBA Draft.
Michigan struggled to fill those holes, as they battled continued problems with the transfer portal. Howard also underwent a serious heart procedure in the offseason, leaving him unable to coach the beginning of the 2023-24 season. The season that unfolded was a catastrophe, starting reasonably well but coming apart by December before losing 19 of 21 games in calendar 2024 to end the year. Along the way another incident unfolded, an altercation with strength coach Jon Sanderson, leading to Sanderson's exit from the program and recent hiring by Illinois. Michigan finished last in the B1G for the first time in over 55 years and were easily bounced on Wednesday night from the Big Ten Tournament by Penn State, ending their season.
Despite frequent discussion of whether Howard would return, from a bird's eye view Michigan had no choice. The conditions of the program had deteriorated so severely that only one choice could be made here, coming on the same morning that The Athletic published a piece about cultural problems in the Michigan program. The candidates to replace Howard are not yet obvious and the next few days will see people, including AD Warde Manuel, assemble a list of targets. We will have coverage on that in the near future but for today, the news is simply that a long-needed change has been made.
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It's his tic, and he does it pretty much once in every football game summary during the season.
But, in fact, it is not a "more polished" way of writing. In fact, most writers think you should just say what you want to say. For instance, "that's when the team started to struggle." Not, "in this writer's opinion, that's when the team started to struggle."
March 16th, 2024 at 12:32 AM ^
It is self-deprecating in that he is affecting formality in a subtly ironic way. It’s how he points out, winkingly, that he is still a young sportswriter cutting his teeth. The turn of phrase feels right at home with the zany, esoteric style of MGoBlog.
While we’re at it, my hot take is that Alex is the best writer on the blog. Every staffer here does a great job (and Brian is the OG, obviously), but Alex has the most talent, in my opinion.
Can we really trust Warde to get the next selection right?
Can you really trust *anyone* to get a head coaching hire right? They're pretty much crap shoots, and by all accounts at the time Warde got the past BB hire right in Juwan. There's probably only a couple ADs at a given time with a decade+ of some mix of leadership, respect & success who can be fully trusted.
I'm sorry it came to this, and I wish it could have worked out. I'm sure the Michigan fan base still loves Juwan Howard, and this move will make it easier to continue loving him. It's best for everyone that he move on. I wish him only the best.
I think the majority sentiment on this board, and rightly so, is that people really wanted to see Juwan Howard succeed at Michigan. It looked for a little while that it would happen consistently. I am sad to see him go but it was also the right decision. I’m hoping he lands somewhere in the NBA as an assistant and eventually a head coach position, as that is what his coaching style seems more suited for.
Whoever the next coach will be, they will have to deal with the NIL and xfer situation at Michigan, which is a much less than optimal situation and one that may deter a lot of coaches from even considering coaching at Michigan.
I'm glad Juwan has been fired, but I am sorry that it did not work out.
Et tu, Warde?
He probably should have let his sons go to other schools.
Finally...good guy bad coach
Congrats to all the villagers with their pitchforks and torches. You slayed the monster.
In 2024 you will have a 1st year head football coach. 1st year head basketball coach. 2nd year head baseball coach. 2nd year head hockey coach.
Anyone else notice a pattern here with the athletic dept.??? I can name the consistency if you're not noticing it.
When a guy inherits a team coming off consecutive 30-win seasons and winds up 8-24 once his predecessor’s players are gone, it doesn’t take an angry mob to fire him.
Good move. Now Ono needs to fire Warde
I really do not understand how this went so bad. JH was a rising star in the NBA, and he seemed like a natural fit for Michigan. Guess you never know if a guy can handle being a head coach until he has done it successfully. Shame.
The first sign of trouble was bringing his kids here. That's hard enough to manage in kiddie leagues, but it greatly complicates things at this level. I thought that was a head-scratcher from the start, though I convinced myself it could work if he ran an unsullied meritocracy.
Turns out the opposite was true? And sure enough, it eventually led to the Sanderson incident, and not so much the event itself but the circumstances that create such is the kind of shit that can shred locker room chemistry.
I think his temper issues were surmountable. His NBA resume was impeccable. He spent unreasonable effort chasing transfers without bothering to check Michigan's notoriously stingy policies, but if he learned his lesson it'd eventually just be water under the bridge. But yeah. . . if you're playing favorites and using your own program to set up your kids, you lose literally everyone else.
That's a little unfair. Lots of coaches kids play for their parents — most of them, in fact, I think, though I have no data on that. And suggesting that Juwan was "playing favorites" by starting a first-round NBA draft pick in Jett (remember, he never started Jace) is not quite fair, it seems to me.
The biggest problem was simply not coaching them, or anybody else, up. But I probably would have stated Jett too, honestly.
Just because something is common doesn’t make it a good idea. In fact the opposite is often the case.
And Michigan was a visibly and measurably worse team with Jett on the court. Dude put in so little effort he should’ve been benched until he grew up but instead daddy kept starting him to boost his draft stock. That kind of shit gets under a teammate’s skin.
The Sanderson incident got out, but that shit don’t happen in a bubble. It’s one event in what likely was an extremely toxic locker room for many months.
At this point, NBA and NCAA basketball may as well be different sports from a coaching standpoint. They're played entirely differently, the players, particularly as shooters, are on an entirely different level, the role of coaches is entirely different (much much less roster management in the NBA). As a result, they require almost entirely different coaching skill-sets.
I'm sure Beilein agrees with you.
Between the months of hand wringing and angst over this decision, and all the fear about a mass exodus of football players in the portal that never came to be - I think this is a case study learning how to not worry about events out of your control. Geez.
Many were calling for Harbaugh to be fired after the COVID year.
He wasn't, and went on to deliver a string of victories over OSU, 3 B1G championships, and a national championship.
In the light of that experience, Howard too deserved a chance to turn things around. It didn't happen.
You win some, you lose some.
But I personally wish him well and am grateful for his many contributions to Michigan basketball, as a player and coach.
Thanks, JH, and Go Blue.
March 16th, 2024 at 12:53 AM ^
From 2011-2022, Michigan played in every tournament but one. Won three B1G titles, two BTT's, made six Sweet 16's and two Final Fours. 2023 was the first team to not make a tournament since 2015.
This past season was his chance to turn things around and he failed.
Failing is fine and not an indictment on one's life. He'll have an opportunity to learn and in the future, succeed.
Howard's tenure will always be a what if for me. What if Livers doesnt get hurt for the tournament run? What if one of these transfers made it through admissions? What if one of their early NBA departures (or HD) stuck around? Obviously all those things did (or didn't) happen and we're here -- but it's not hard to squint and see a different ending.
It's a sad day, even if it's the right choice. I hope people remember that before they go stomping on graves.
With a healthy Livers we probably would have made the Final Four (we really should’ve beaten UCLA as it was) but don’t think we’d have beaten Baylor.
The handwringing over admissions and early departures doesn’t do it for me. That’s life. You can’t pin all your program’s hopes on one guy. Good programs have a plan B and keep moving. Beilein lost a ton of guys early (and to transfers) and his program didn’t miss a beat.
UM should look at Princeton's Mitch Henderson. I like his background. Worth a chat imo.
Eh, I think the true litmus test would have been if they had won the PSU game or shown some other dead cat bounce sign of life. Put another way, I now have confidence WM wanted to keep his job by doing the bare minimum but still don't have confidence that he will bat above the Mendoza line for an AD in other stuff.
Not grave dancing, but this is the news we needed to see today.
in reference to the last couple sentences, I hope warde already assembled a list of replacements. This move was on his mind and he should have a start on it already. Time will tell
Very few things need be said here.
This had to be done. Now, Warde must nail the hire and get MBB back on the road to national prominence. He should be judged going forward on that basis.
Lastly, everyone should watch and support the women's team.
Warde’s redemption arc—just what everyone predicted
Thus ends the J.H. era of Michigan athletics.
This is a small nit to pick, but calling Villanova's 8-point victory over Michigan in the 2022 tournament a "blowout" seems a bit unfair and feels like piling on. That was a defensive struggle (much like Michigan's loss to UCLA the year prior) that was within reach for most of the game, Michigan just could not buy a basket. Michigan actually cut the lead to 4 with 3 minutes left.
I don't have faith in Warde being able to conduct a search for a new coach. I actually have more faith in Santa Ono than Warde...
Disappointing how it turned out with his tenure, but glad the decision was not further delayed. The uh, good news is, nowhere to go but up
Time for a rebuild. Buckle up!
I still think they should have kicked him upstairs, given his long time allegiance to Michigan.
Thanks Juwan for loving Michigan and for giving us great memories as a player, and for a short time, as a coach. We wish you well.
Go Blue!
It came down to Warde or Howard and only one could fire the other so it had to be done quickly or the other would have been fired for inaction - it’s just that simple. Sad it had to get here.
Wishing him the best, it’s a shame it had to end this way. Go Blue.
Wish it could've happened earlier so we could've kept Sanderson, but I understand why Warde wanted to wait until the end of the season.
Ya know, I’ve wanted Juwan Howard gone for a while, but I gotta say; I feel bad for the man and his epic failure.
Reading the things about Jett and Juwan’s interactions is truly sad. I can see why Jett seriously considered Tennessee. He’s had to live with his father’s volcanic temper eruptions for a lifetime
Very sad that it didn’t work out with Juwan, but this was unfortunately the correct decision. Things got worse year after year and the final results just weren’t there. Just like when the AD fired Hoke after 2014. Both Michigan men, but it was just time to part ways with both of them.
After a promising start, too bad it did not work out. All the best to Howard in his future endeavors. Hopefully the AD will hire a good coach who can rebuild this team.
Glad the shit show that was Juwan is finally over!
Juwan is gone. The rest of the shit show needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.
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