Well, I Guess We Have To Talk About Basketball Some
Michigan played Michigan State yesterday, and in the past this has been a spur to post some Content on the Internet. I have to confess that I am ill-placed to talk about this game, however. This is because I did not watch it. The fact that it was on Peacock, which I do not have, contributed to this decision. But I was in an airport on January 7th, saw that Michigan was up ten against Penn State, put it on my phone, saw Penn State go on a 7-0 run out of halftime and said "welp, that's enough for me."
Penn State would go on to win that game by six; Michigan won one game in January. The football team won two.
At the moment I'm not particularly interested in angst about anything. I am still randomly remembering that Michigan won the national championship and going "aw, cool!" So I haven't had a whole lot to say about Harbaugh leaving, or taking Herbert with him, or concerns about this and that for 2024. That's Sherrone Moore's job. My job as a fan is to wave a little flag that says "2024 National Champs" until… uh… August? February 2025? I don't know.
One consequence of this is that I have barely paid attention to the basketball team once it was clear they were very, very bad. I'd seen enough through December to know that observing this team play was not going to be good for the whole, like, you know, vibe, man. I'm in a vibes-based economy currently.
BUT!
I think a couple things have become clear and will now state them on the internet.
[After THE JUMP: the suspsense is killing you]
Juwan Howard ain't getting out of this pit. Warde Manuel famously made a previous decision not to fire a guy that worked out fairly well, and recently provided the Vote Of Confidence to Juwan Howard. Sort of, at least?
“I have not spent one moment thinking about anything but supporting Juwan and this team,” he said. “I haven’t thought about the evaluation of the season. All that stuff comes at the end of the season. I’ve done it in my career but it is extremely rare for me to make a decision in the middle of the season. Something has really got to be off.
“I haven’t thought about it, I haven’t talked to him about it, we haven’t had that conversation. All that happens and will happen at the end of the season. My focus with Juwan and each of our teams is to support them to have success.”
Unfortunately for Michigan and Juwan Howard, these situations are not at all similar. Harbaugh inherited a Brady Hoke roster that he immediately improved. He narrowly missed a couple of wins over Ohio State before a disappointing few years with QB injuries and a COVID 2020 that was, in retrospect, not real. He was already a proven winner at Stanford and the 49ers.
Howard inherited a John Beilein roster. He went 19-12 in the COVID year (Kenpom projected them as a 6-seed, FWIW) and his one-seed the following year featured Franz Wagner (who technically committed to Howard but was recruited by Beilein and his brother), Isaiah Livers, and Eli Brooks in starting roles. Since then it's been an arrow straight down.
There are a three things that might mitigate this situation. They are Terrance Shannon, Caleb Love, and heart surgery.
I find all of these unconvincing when Michigan is 188th in defensive efficiency in year five. Tarris Reed replaced Hunter Dickinson in the starting lineup. Michigan imported two key contributors from last year's #1 and #3 teams in defensive efficiency and they are now one spot ahead of… yup… Long Beach State. I don't think you can be that bad at defense and also be a competent head coach. John Beilein, who notoriously did not coach defense never finished worse than 129, and that was his first year. His worst D other than that was 100th in 2015.
It's year five. Howard's miserable roster construction—there are two guards and one center on the roster—is all on him at this point. Yes, it is very frustrating that guys like Love, Shannon, and Papa Kante never actually arrived on campus. But it is the job of the head coach to understand the environment he is operating in.
Speaking of the environment: in the context of the #188 defense it's impossible not to think Jon Sanderson is right when he thinks Michigan's culture sucks. It has to suck. If the culture did not suck they would be 100th in defense or something.
I've been wrong about firing guys before, of course. This one feels extremely far gone. Michigan football had a 8-5, 10-3, 9-4 run where they never dropped below 12th in SP+. That is miles away from basketball being dead last in the Big Ten with a 7-14 record while playing five seniors and three sophomores.
Michigan needs to get serious about what college athletics is these days. Two years ago I said that it would be a massive failure if Hunter Dickinson could make more money playing basketball somewhere other than Michigan, and he duly returned for his junior year. Last offseason, he found out that he could make lots more money playing basketball somewhere other than Michigan.
I've generally refrained from laying Harbaugh's departure at Manuel's feet. Dickinson is all him, though. Warde Manuel's Queensbury rules approach to NIL…
"We don’t own any players. We don’t buy them, but we do provide resources for our student-athletes. They have my full support and I love NIL and what it does for our student-athletes. But I don’t want us talking about what we have to buy student-athletes and inducing student-athletes. We need to talk about what we can provide, short and long-term, for the rest of their life. For me, NIL is about teaching kids how to use who they are for the rest of their lives.
“For me, it’s not a transactional thing. It’s a life commitment between Michigan and our student-athletes. And the short term is that they get some resources provided to them. The long term is that they can make money over their lifetime because of Michigan and what we teach and experience with being a student-athlete.”
…is stunningly naive, and Hunter Dickinson in a Kansas uniform is proof positive. I imagine that the transfer issues are above Manuel's head, but if he doesn't understand the new reality that college football and basketball are professional sports then Michigan isn't going to be a major factor in basketball unless they hit on another genius like John Beilein.
This is going to get worse and worse until someone finally admits it. The attorney general of Tennessee just filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA because Tennessee got donked for some NIL violations. When they NCAA loses that case, because they always lose every case, the fig leaf that NIL can't be used for recruiting inducements will be gone and we will be in a full-on, no holds barred employment era. (I almost used the words "pay-for-play" but stopped myself because you would not use the words "pay-for-work" in a pejorative fashion.)
If Warde Manuel isn't preparing for this he should be fired. If Warde Manuel thinks this would be bad, he should be fired. It is sort of unbelievable that Michigan has a black former athlete as their athletic director and he is still saying stupid garbage that Dave Brandon would have said.
Maybe he is doing this. A lot of college administrator types spend their careers defending indefensible things and then transition as if they'd never said anything at all. Bill Hancock famously asserted that a playoff would crush college football and then was the spokesman for the literal playoff. Maybe Manuel is really prepared for what's to come behind the scenes. I doubt it, though. Manuel stumbled onto the only standout decision of his Michigan tenure by declining to act, and it seems like that's his go-to move in all things.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:22 PM ^
8-23 is what we would finish with if the next 10 end like the last 10.
2022/23 - No tournament
2023/24 - No tournament 8-23 not even NIT
2024/25 - No tournament 14-17 not even NIT
Sign him up for another go round!!!
I dont know man. I sure hope this isnt Warde's burner account. Or better yet his replacements.
January 31st, 2024 at 10:52 PM ^
You can rebuild a roster really quick now and turn things around quickly. This roster is bad, and one of the worst teams in a conference that also isn't very good. The idea that you give him another year to get back to around .500 team like the last 3 teams is just insane to me.
Take your losses, fire him and hire a new coach. The fact that Howard is a Michigan alum should not mean he can suck for multiple years with the same issues that continually get worse and worse.
January 31st, 2024 at 5:34 PM ^
It's year 5 and we are worse off, in every measure, than when he started. I admit that I am surprised he is so bad. I did not see a floor so low.
January 31st, 2024 at 5:42 PM ^
So who is our next coach? Chris Collins ? Pinkiell? Calipari ? I'm listening.
January 31st, 2024 at 5:58 PM ^
Jalen Rose.
Lame list, lame answer reply.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:42 PM ^
I certain understand the difficulty of finding the perfect candidate. The perfect balance of young coach, recruiting success, NIL compliance (good freaking luck), Michigan connection if possible.
Not really sure what the list will look. Does not change the fact that we need a new coach.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:51 PM ^
Warde wont pay for play so no coach who doesnt have his head up his ass is coming here knowing most programs do. Kansas will have an NBA ready roster every year while rock chalk jayhawking while warde faps daily to some college coach from 1930. Enjoy.
January 31st, 2024 at 10:56 PM ^
This and the fact in the portal era we are not playing on a level field in regards to admissions.
It seems like Juwan has lost the team and lost his own passion.
It makes you wonder what went down with Sanderson and if this fractured the team somewhat.
we have some talented players out there but everything reeks of apathy.
January 31st, 2024 at 5:48 PM ^
I'll be honest, at the beginning of this season, I was fooled into thinking we'd be pretty good this year. That St John's game had me thinking "huh, this could be something," but how wrong I was.
This team has no identity, no culture, no motivation, no nothing. This roster isn't crazy talented, but there's enough there to not be at the bottom of the B1G. What this roster doesn't lack is weirdness. How is this team so bad on defense when on paper they should be great defensively? What is happening with Dug McDaniel? How do we keep losing large leads?
January 31st, 2024 at 6:04 PM ^
I am having acute flashbacks to the Tom Goss and Brian Ellerbee period.
I am interpreting this as not a good sign.
February 1st, 2024 at 8:43 AM ^
I'll be honest, at the beginning of this season, I was fooled into thinking we'd be pretty good this year. That St John's game had me thinking "huh, this could be something," but how wrong I was.
I was exactly the same. I am on record, in this blog, for stating pretty much this after the SJU game. Then we inexplicably lost to LBSU by playing zero defense. I thought LBSU was just a blip after we gave Memphis a hell of a scare. But no, we've won only 4 games since the SJU game on Nov 13.
It's Juwan's responsibility to right the ship and he hasn't done anything resembling that.
February 1st, 2024 at 9:47 AM ^
I had lower expectations going in, but I thought they would struggle offensively particularly with shooting. When that turned out to not be the case I revised upwards, especially after the 3-0 start. But wow I did not see the defense being this bad.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:28 PM ^
Michigan won one game in January. The football team won two.
HOLY.FUCKING.SHIT
They had 8 total games in January.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:31 PM ^
I am a Black man with a rather large number of friends who were college athletes and I fully cosign what you said about Warde re: NIL. A few years back, a friend of mine who coached at ND said that Michigan’s old guard power players “have some shit with them.” The way that some in the UM sphere talk about NIL aligns too uncomfortably with the things he shared.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:20 PM ^
Ann Arbor is known today for its counterculture, but the deep roots of this town are very conservative and that hasn’t changed.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:31 PM ^
Even adding Pac12 teams won’t help. Right now we’d not even make the Big 10 Tourney in its 24-25 format. I would hope someone is getting feelers out to have next coach ready to hire before March Madness is done.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:34 PM ^
I feel bad about basketball because:
A) I played in high school (admittedly at a low level) so I have always wanted Michigan to have a good program.
B) I want Juwan to work out because I like him and felt the Fab Five was done wrong in a lot of ways.
The fact is that even when Juwan was successful there were signs that it wasn't sustainable, and this team is a travesty on all fronts. I honestly would have fired him as soon as the Sanderson conflict came out, but as Brian pointed out Warde is a coward who almost always takes the path of least resistance. I find it frustrating that having reached unfathomable heights that Michigan institutionally is so dysfunctional that it can't seem to resist attempting an implosion. What happened to Santa? Anyways, fire Warde and Juwan ASAP.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:35 PM ^
I agree that Howard has made these issues via roster construction and (seemingly) not really fielding a good defense. I'm not sold the culture is bad in the sense the guys don't get along; they all seem to try hard out there and I haven't seen them quit as much as just not be very good as games progress. That might be a difference without a distinction though.
I will push back against the idea that Dickinson going to Kansas was because UM wouldn't pay him. What makes way more sense is that UM and KU could pay about the same but KU also gave Dickinson a shot at a national title while UM looked like yet another rebuilding year. He didn't go to Illinois, Maryland, USC, etc., all schools I assume could pay him well. He went to a school with a recent title and a long history of success. Given that it makes sense why he'd jump, and why I expect others to do the same.
What hurts UM basketball is that it will always play second fiddle to the football team at UM. Kansas is a basketball school, same with UK, Indiana, and Duke and to lesser extent schools like MSU. Beilein elevated the program to national relevance but for most of UM's history it was a good-but-not-great basketball program and while the current state of the program is unacceptable a Beilein-type run also isn't likely in the cards forever.
Dylan at UMHoops had a good article about this but mostly he came to the conclusion that there simply hasn't been that clamoring both vocally and with the money to maintain an elite basketball program, and that's as much a cultural issue as a logistical one. I'm not sure any AD can really change that at UM, and I certainly don't think Warde would. But there's a level of sustained success that UM should be able to maintain with the available resources that Howard has failed to meet for a couple years now. That has to change.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:59 PM ^
I don't understand. So UM is a football school that fails to set aside the same resources for bball as bball schools do, but you also think that UM spends as much as KU on bball?
And I don't think it makes sense that UM could pay as much as KU. I thought we all agreed that UM pays less NIL than other schools (even for football). I acknowledge that UM pays established players more than freshmen, but I still don't think we can touch KU or UK or Duke.
Hunter is a great college bball player who was coveted by a lot of teams. He went to a top-5 program for a lot of money, I imagine. This is not hard to understand, right? Frankly, he should have gone a year earlier.
As for the actual team, I agree that body language still looks OK. But it's hard to argue with the defensive numbers.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:07 PM ^
My point was that the money was likely reasonably close for Dickinson; he's an established star and I have to imagine KU didn't drop, say, double the amount he was making at UM. If they did then good for him and he should take that. But I'm fairly certain that KU also spends a ton more on the 5th, 6th, 7th guys on that roster compared to UM, and more generally KU athletics is driven by KU basketball in a way UM's athletics is run by football. Bill Self has a lot more sway than Lance Leipold, and as we've seen at Kentucky with Stoops and Calipari the latter tends to get what he wants while the prior has consistently complained. It doesn't mean they don't spend money; UK still gets guys in football for clearly non-football reasons, but they are clearly behind their brethren in the SEC on that front.
The football team seemingly pays decently well, or at least to a level that a lot of guys don't want to leave. As has been shown a number of times, what people think these athletes get tends to not be close to what they actually receive. I've not seen exact numbers but most guys are making mid-50 figures, and maybe the top guys are making over a million but there are relatively few of them.
My point about Dickinson is that Brian and others assume it's purely about the money, but as you noted he went to a top-5 team that had money, and my guess is the "being competitive for a national title" meant way more than whatever incremental increase in his payout for 1 year he received. Plus, both Terrence Shannon and Caleb Love were desirable transfers who seemingly planned on attending UM because they looked competitive on the court. It's telling that Dickinson only entered the portal once it became clear Love wouldn't be transferring in. If it was purely about money he'd have bolted earlier.
But more generally Michigan's not going to ever appeal to guys purely looking for the biggest payday, but what they've failed to do under Howard is thread that needle between getting guys who are good enough to compete at the top level but not command huge money up front. And historically there just hasn't been the push within the fanbase or the AD to elevate basketball above second place in the pecking order (and when Red was here possibly third), and so UM's basketball got to be a bit more creative and judicious in their allocation of resources.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:07 PM ^
I will push back against the idea that Dickinson going to Kansas was because UM wouldn't pay him. What makes way more sense is that UM and KU could pay about the same but KU also gave Dickinson a shot at a national title while UM looked like yet another rebuilding year.
This gets under appreciated, I think. Hunter missed the friggin tournament in 2023 and it was pretty clear they would be at best on the bubble in 2024. There is no way that didn’t factor into his decision.
Also, the state of the team matters to how much a program will pay. Even assuming Michigan and Kansas were equally invested in NIL, Hunter was worth way more to Kansas. For Michigan, Hunter was a key piece in a team that MIGHT make the tournament. For Kansas, Hunter is a key piece on a team with decent odds at a national title. No sane program is going to pay huge money just to stay on the bubble, but it makes sense to drop $$$ for a national title.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:32 PM ^
UM was hands down the top program in the State between Magic and the Cleeves rollover accident. Roughly 20 years.
Izzo wouldnt be Izzo if Michigan didnt fuck itself into oblivion.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:38 PM ^
I do believe that heart surgery is a mitigating factor. My relatives who've had heart trouble were not nearly as fit as Coach Howard, but even "mild" heart trouble and the subsequent surgeries were life-altering. Even in the best cases it took a year before they were as back to their old selves as they were going to get.
That kind of trauma is debilitating. It is incredibly scary to go to sleep and not know if you'll wake up. It can be especially agonizing for a former top athlete, whose body has always been up to any task, to have to deal with this kind of recovery, especially if there is any hitch or complication. If Manuel has a similar experience, he might give him more time than the more vocal components of the fan base would like.
That said, the arrow is pointing down, and if Coach Howard is not up to the task of getting the team where we all want it to be, then changes will be made.
February 1st, 2024 at 12:48 AM ^
Then he should've sat the whole season out and came back next year ready to roll. No one sane would've thought the lesser of him for it.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:43 PM ^
The downfall of the program is mystifying. I expected Howard to be an A+ recruiter and grow into the HC nuances. Also mystifying is the seemingly great assistant coaching bench for this team - if Howard had some coaching or recruiting blind spots, you'd expect the assistants to compensate. In spite of the disappointing on court results and off court stuff, I still wish him the best and want him to succeed. Just a bummer.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:35 PM ^
It is a bummer. And your point about the assistant coaches & Juwan not making it work is I think one of the major problems with their culture. Do you ever see Juwan defer to his assistants in a timeout, or visiting with them on the sideline during play? He's always standing away from the bench, he never looks to his assistants, doesn't talk with them in an open way during the entire game. I know folks harp on Martelli as needing to go, but the team played their best ball in the early part of the season when he was coach. They played free, they were an uptempo team which allows them to cover up some things on defense.
I'm not saying Martelli should be coach, I'm saying Howard is a rigid in-game coach & that inhibits the performance of the team - especially in the 2nd halfs of games. It's been going on for 2-3 years now where they fade down the stretch. NIL won't fix this coaching malpractice, nor will firing the assistants & bringing in a new staff. Coach Howard just needs to go. And yeah, sucks to write that.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:10 PM ^
He has kind of been a grade "A" recruiter from the NBA's perspective, judging by how they were drafted.
From the college perspective it is basically a C+ in recruiting, judging by how they actually played in college.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:49 PM ^
Michigan won one game in January. The football team won two.
The situation is even more shocking when you put it this way. Also, It makes me wonder if any other team has ever achieved this low point.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:24 PM ^
Georgia was pretty bad. Maybe them.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:26 PM ^
21/22 year
January 31st, 2024 at 6:56 PM ^
Your general point - that college football and (men's) basketball are de facto professional sports, and Michigan must adapt to the new reality - is going to play a big part in any coaching choices those teams make.
However, it is still against Michigan state law, Title IX and against the rules of the dead-clade-walking NCAA, for the University to pay (male) athletes directly. Even if we ignore the shambling-corpse-in-the-room, and amend Michigan's NIL law, Title IX would require that any University money going to these male-only sports be equally matched by money into women's sports.
But that's a huge commitment from the University, and not something that the AD can make happen. That will take the President, the Regents and the AD, and most importantly the will to act.
Even if that were the best thing for college sports, that might not be any good for the University. And frankly, if you were to propose dumping millions into sports programs, but not halting the rise in tuition, improving graduate assistants pay, delaying fixes on housing and cost-of-living issues for the students, etc. you'd be doing a really lousy job as a Regent. The sports exist to enhance the University, not the other way around.
TL,DR: Firing Manuel wouldn't fix our NIL issues or approach, and if the President/Regents don't want to change the NIL approach, they won't fire Manuel for not changing it.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:10 PM ^
if you were to propose dumping millions into sports programs, but not halting the rise in tuition, improving graduate assistants pay, delaying fixes on housing and cost-of-living issues for the students, etc. you'd be doing a really lousy job as a Regent
I don't fully understand and would love for someone to explain to me how this works. I am always reading that the Athletic Department exists as a separate financial institution from the University itself. To me that implies a regent would have no ability to draw funds from the athletic department in order to pay grad assistants, etc. Any help explaining is appreciated!
February 1st, 2024 at 8:59 AM ^
I've been making this point ceaselessly that paying players as employees is NEVER going to fly in a Title IX world unless you pay all athletes of all genders in all sports equally, which doesn't address the issue at all. No one on this site want to hear it though, they just love shouting "PAY THE PLAYERS" as loudly as they can.
And you can't play male revenue sports players differently than female athletes or you violate Title IX. In short - college athletics will never be the same if you pay players - So if you asked for this don't bitch about it.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:18 PM ^
I have to think Howard sees the writing on the wall and calls it quits at the end of the season to preserve whatever pride he has left. As Brian alluded to, there is mediocre to meh metric results that can be rectified and then there is a downright bad trajectory with little hope to grasp onto. This team, and frankly Howard’s legacy at UM, falls into the later category.
Warde’s demise seems to be his affinity for inaction when the answers are so clearly visibly to everyone else around him. His inability to embrace NIL and player compensation is surely a sign that he believes that athletes are only motivated by their undying love to a university/team and that love alone is all you need to bring in the top recruits or transfers. This old world thinking likely set both football and basketball squads behind the curve by 4-5 years and has a direct link to the lack of recruiting success with top recruits or transfers.
Im thinking maybe Warde and Howard might both be on their way out within the next year or two albeit for vastly different reasons.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:54 PM ^
LOL
Juwan will demand a 4 year extension for $8M plus and Warde will do it. Get real.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:26 PM ^
The biggest indictment of Coach Howard is that he isn't responsible for any positive player development over his tenure that we can pinpoint on his coaching. Dickinson was an All-American for basically 3 years, and Franz was already on his way when he got here. All the 1 & Doners have been bad at the next level, and left at the first opportunity.
Also - what are the areas on the floor that Coach Howard has made his mark with this program? Running an NBA style offense, well yeah - it's incredibly repetitive lacking player movements that put the defense in conflict, relying on individual attacks to be successful. And the defense is now optional on this squad - a team with Tarris Reed, Nimari Burnett & Olivier Nkamhou. Even Dug has regressed on defense. If Warde doesn't fire Coach at the end of the season, then fire Warde & have the new AD bring in a basketball coach.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:49 PM ^
I will give him Austin Davis - he developed some fantastic low-post moves. I'm guessing he wouldn't have developed as well under Beilein.
Maybe Eli Brooks, although Beilein churned out a lot of good guards, so maybe it was coming anyway.
February 1st, 2024 at 12:38 AM ^
Love me some Big Country - agreed. But I wonder how much of that was just given the opportunity in the post-centric offense? Eli Brooks was already the guy he was courtesy of Beilein - incredibly fundamentally sound.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:34 PM ^
FWIW, the women’s team isn’t lighting the world on fire but they’re at least projected to make the Tourney.
Michigan has two b-ball teams and one is unwatchable. If you’re still watching the men at this point, that’s on you.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:36 PM ^
I was strongly hoping that Brian was going to end the article after the "welp" line as one of his mattress-esque flights of art.
On a more serious note, Juwan's heart surgery feels like it will inform the timeline here, and it seems likely that he will get another year. It also seems likely that the recovery damaged his ability to coach, because even from the perspective of decline, the drop from last year to this year is wild, precipitous.
As I have said for two years, there needs to be a much better staff up and down. Phil's coaching was no better than Juwan's, and seems to have left little to build on. When Beilein had heart surgery in 2018 (the year before ghosting us), Yaklich was the D coordinator and leading practice with the other assistants. Martelli clearly played no such role.
January 31st, 2024 at 10:56 PM ^
Haven't you heard? We're not allowed to mention Yaklich or people lose their sh*t about how he did nothing to help the program win and quite convincingly I might add.
January 31st, 2024 at 7:42 PM ^
I am not watching a team as listless and unmotivated as this one. It’s a waste of time.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:05 PM ^
One of the reasons JB left is because the entire landscape of college basketball shifted. It's funny when people say "We want JB back" when he was public about not wanting to deal with both NIL and the transfer portal. Moreover, I know a lot of people on here point to Coach Harbaugh and the football team as testimony to adapting to new NCAA dynamics. Basketball is wildly different. When it's 10 guys on the court instead of 22 guys on the field, talent and roster management become crucial.
As a UM alum, I'm not in favor of reducing our academic admissions to win some games. On the same token, I'm not super pumped about hamstringing our coaches with restrictions that impact the playing field. Yes, people can complain about in-game decisions and team culture - and those would be correct. Simultaneously, I hope those same people realize we would have a wildly different team if the institutional barriers that Coach Howard faces - that few if any top tier programs also face- were different.
I don't think Coach Howard all of a sudden forgot how to coach. I do think his strategies for building a team need to change....and that's not going to come from mimicking Coach Harbaugh. Coach Howard is either gonna have to crack that nut or figure out a new way...and I don't think firing him is somehow going to alleviate our biggest problems for recruiting, portal, etc...
January 31st, 2024 at 9:38 PM ^
This is an important point, and it doesn’t fall entirely on Warde, though he’s clearly a major player. Is the university setting its coaches and players up for success or not?
There’s a big difference between having high admissions standards—which is requiring athletes to perform at a high level (academically)—and refusing to keep pace with standards in compensating athletes—which is expecting them to perform at a low level (financially). They’re fundamentally, philosophically, and morally different, even if there’s a parallel effect in reducing the pool of available players.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:17 PM ^
I am a more casual/fair weather MBB fan whereas I will watch Michigan Football even when it's excruciatingly painful to do so (have even had season tickets to do the latter, fun times).
So, I don't want to say fire Warde or fire Juwan, but I would like to have a basketball team worth watching again. Can be fun in March when we're good!
January 31st, 2024 at 8:21 PM ^
Manuel seems to want to pay his coaches less than they need to stay at M, so I won’t hold my breath on him shelling out for the players.
Hopefully Elston, Clinkscale (not Herbert), and Hart don’t depart. But it seems likely at least one is gone before long. Hope I’m wrong.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:31 PM ^
...hey I've got some bad news for ya bud...
January 31st, 2024 at 9:59 PM ^
Dang, you scared me until I realized I accidentally typed Herbert instead of Clinkscale lol. Must have subconsciously typed out the easier name
January 31st, 2024 at 8:33 PM ^
JOhnny2x2x2x2sx and 90% of RCMB said Martelli has run this team for 5 years and all success was due to Phil while Juwan was a Tugger type figurehead - yet they are shockingly quiet now and want Juwan to stay forever even though Phil has run the team for years on end. It's so weird. A dichotomy in fact.
January 31st, 2024 at 9:07 PM ^
Fire Juwan
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