accurate description of Michigan mens basketball situation
https://www.si.com/college/2023/03/09/michigan-wolverines-ncaa-tournament-out-big-ten-loss-nit
2023 for Howard < 2020 for Harbaugh?
I think you said enough in this thread, matey-boy
Is that rag still a thing?
Yeah, once a month.
This is such wishful thinking. Harbaugh won everywhere he'd ever been before the 2020 season and the criticism he received wasn't that he was having bad seasons, it was that he couldn't beat our main rivals.
Juwan is so far the exact opposite. His one good season was the COVID season where he had a very experienced team.
The most damning aspect of Juwan this season was the way he handled Jett. It's hard to imagine any coach worth his salt just letting his play throw his arms up in the air after once again watching his lack of hustle or playing basic basketball cost his team in a crucial moment.
https://twitter.com/JasonKingma/status/1633899935950094356
This is stuff middle school players do, including throwing their hands in the air.
I don't think he deserves to be fired, unless you have a can't miss alternative available (which *is* similar to Harbaugh 2020). But it is much harder to give Juwan the benefit of the doubt.
Fairly obvious....if we have another year like these past two regular seasons then Howard will be on the hot seat in 24/25
Howard is gone after next year good or bad
March 10th, 2023 at 12:00 AM ^
Seems very similar to the Patrick Ewing situation, accomplished alumni player who had a few years experience as a NBA assistant but who could not sustain success at a major program.
UM may very well wait 6 years to rectify its mistake like Georgetown did. Ewing had a much worse record but inherited a much worse program.
I would take JH as a coach over Ewing for sure. Low bar tho
March 10th, 2023 at 10:04 AM ^
Ewing has won 13 games in the last two seasons. You could not be more far off with your comparison.
The youth argument is legit. My concern is how coach Howard tries to fix it. May not be a quick fix.
Many of Beleins best players were pretty awful as underclassmen. Mo Wagner as a freshman, Caris Levert, Eli Brooks, Simpson, Teske, DJ Wilson etc. Every one of those guys at some point had us wondering if they should be playing, but fortunately they only had to play support roles early on. Then they blew up as upper classmen. The guy I wish we had on this team is Jaylen Wilson at Kansas. Howard couldn’t keep him aboard after Belein departed, but he’d be the upperclass forward this team is missing.
Don’t tell Matt D that. He thought last year Wilson doesn’t change Michigan’s team at all. Completely laughable statement
Nobody and I mean nobody makes more baseless excuses than a Michigan fan.
We are blaming the portal and NIL for Howard’s issues?? Laughable. He didn’t know he couldn’t get Shannon in? That’s on fucking him. He wasted all that valuable time on a kid who couldn’t come. Demar Dorsey anyone???
JB left because of Portal and NIL. Boo hoo old JB. He didn’t want to figure it out and that’s his problem. He left Michigan at a terrible time too to go utterly fail in a job that everyone knew he’d utterly fail at.
March 10th, 2023 at 10:07 AM ^
You seem like a fun guy to hang out with.
March 10th, 2023 at 11:21 AM ^
You’d have the best time of your life if you hang out with me my man.
March 10th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
Yeesh, that last paragraph is a bitter, bitter take.
March 10th, 2023 at 11:24 AM ^
Last paragraph is not bitter at all. It’s the truth. My father was inducted in his university’s hall of fame this year. My father is 78. The former girls basketball coach at the school and his former teammate said point blank the portal will kill college basketball. It’s an old persons hot take. JB is no different.
I don't disagree with your point on the portal. I was just referring to what seemed to me like an unnecessary bitter dig at JB. Someone who coached extremely admirably at the college level for 40+ years (including the resurrection of Michigan's program) and then decided to take a shot at the pros. Maybe he also knew he was unlikely to succeed, but wanted to try. Not sure why that would produce harsh feeling for Michigan fans.
For the record, I upvoted your reply regarding being a fun guy to hang out with. I appreciate the humorous (and perhaps accurate) response to a harsh comment.
And congrats to your dad!
The Harbaugh and Howard comparisons are pretty stupid. The only similarity is that they both played at Michigan and are now coaching. Roster management is distinctly different in each sport. The coaching situations that preceded each are dissimilar. Their coaching resumes prior to M are not comparable. Find better comps to each if you're looking to formulate an argument.
Couldn’t agree more
... and received intense criticism from the fan base after overseeing what many believed to be an irreversible downward spiral despite promising initial results.
That's why people are comparing them. And, while I agree Harbaugh had a longer track record before coming to Michigan, that does not mean Howard can't pull out of it the way Harbaugh did. I agree, it means we have fewer data points to base our hope on. But so what? Unless you're saying it is somehow literally impossible for Howard to right the ship, regardless of the players he brings in, changes he makes to the coaching staff, and even changes he makes to his own focus and mentality -- and why would that be true -- why not give him the same opportunity we gave Harbaugh, and hope for the same results?
Ok so let’s look into this deeper. I understood what Harbaugh was trying to do. And he re committed to his roots of a running game, with a dominant OL, mixed in a PA West coast passing game. And listen his use and recruiting of WRs is still sub par imo and is next step to winning in playoff
Now someone explain to me what Juwan looks for in his guards and wing players when he recruits them? Loves small PGs? Loves wings who can’t distribute to anyone else? Doesn’t valve rebounding or athleticism(Juwan didn’t have great athleticism btw Webber did). How’s the 3pt shooting been since JB guys left? What in the actual hell does he value in a 4? We have a bunch of them and none of them do anything well.
Besides dump into a big man what does Howard want? Hell we rarely even cut to the basket after Hunter gets doubled. He totally abandoned his pistol sets this year why I don’t know. My man has been scouted, figured out, and he didn’t adjust.
I'm saying that comparing a basketball coach and a football coach doesn't make any sense. One has 15 players on the roster and the other has 100 plus. One post season tournament has 4 teams and the other has 68. I'm not advocating for anyone to lose their job. The fan base criticizes everyone, always wants someone fired and is very bipolar. Pretty easy to tune most of that out and focus on logical points.
They are about as stupid as the Howard/Beilein comparisons. Those two, other than both coached/coach Michigan basketball, have nothing in common. JB had head coaching experience before ever coming to UM. Beilein was able to do what RR could never do with Michigan football, and that is adapt to the changing of the game and the type of player he could get in here as opposed to W Virginia. We had to hear about Pittsnoggle all of the way up until JB had better players than that. Juwan is going to have to adapt as well, or he won’t be in the college game long.
March 10th, 2023 at 10:47 AM ^
The primary concern I would have with Howard is that I have no feel for how he envisions his team and what his core philosophies are. That's mostly due to his lack of HC experience. He has had a lot of coaching influences throughout his long NBA career, but I'm not sure what he wants the foundation of his program to be. The Beilein comparison is tough because JB had spent years fine tuning his system and recruited styles that would compliment it. There are plenty of styles in which you can build a successful program in all sports, but the important part is to establish that ideology first and see it through if you're going to sustain success.
Two notes:
First, to a large extent, Howard is a victim of his own success. People roast him for having so little talent on this team, but he did get the talent, through both recruiting and the transfer portal, and then they left (or got injured). I agree, he's going to have to adapt to the new reality, but damn, you can't simultaneously roast a guy for recruiting so many players that the NBA wants ... and for not having a talented team. It's crazy how quick people are to rip him for recruiting players that are too talented!
(But, yeah, we're going to have to figure something out -- perhaps by recruiting less talented players (though I note how many people are already bitching that our incoming class isn't as exciting as the one last year)).
Second, there are some teams that have essentially created highly competitive teams almost entirely through the transfer portal. I'm not saying Juwan should do that, but people are talking like it's impossible for us to improve quickly, and ... well, honestly, they sound like they want that to be true. I'm sure Juwan and his staff are already hard at work looking to upgrade this team for next year, and I'm excited to see it happen.
March 10th, 2023 at 10:19 AM ^
It’s more accurate to say he was a recipient of an excellent core roster than he is a victim of his own success.
Juwan is a 15 loss per year coach and mediocre big ten program without Beilein’s guys. If you think that’s acceptable with your excuses then fine but Steve Fisher and John Beilein have proven that Michigan basketball has the ability to be alot better.
Beilein was an awesome coach and had some amazing players, but we always felt scrappy. Underrated recruits who blossomed into something more. The runs to the title game felt like destiny, but I don't remember feeling like we were necessarily dominant. We also had ups and downs. There is a lot of Howard hate on the board, just like there was a lot of Beilein hate his first couple of years and during the lull between title runs. 2014-15 when we went 16-16 and the first round lost the year following despite a decent record and getting into the dance. Howard definitely needs to make the NCAA tournament next year, but his roster wasn't great this year and it wasn't all his fault. (Injury, Shannon not being admitted, half the team going pro or transferring.) Some of it is, but c'mon man.
My JB hate in that time frame had everything to do with his lack of attention to defense and rebounding! It’s was criminal how little value he put on both. That changed for the better and he gets credit for changing. But don’t think for a second he wasn’t a stubborn mule about changing.
There was a joke that went around high school coaching clinics in the state of Michigan about JB. JB always said he’d give you anything you wanted to know about his offense(and he would) but defense was off limits to ask him. The joke was he had nothing to give you that’s why!
They have two guys (Jett and Kobe) who are talked up with legit NBA potential, but there are plenty of instances where they don't play like it, or just disappear altogether. Hunter is never talked about as an NBA guy, but for as phenomenal as he was during his freshman season, he's regressed every year since. Now in his defense, how much of that (especially this year) was teams keying in on him and making Michigan beat them with anyone else, I don't know. That could very well be a big part of it.
But still, the issue is that this team has no one you can rely on when its gut check time and the game is on the line. Your starters disappear for long stretches of time, you've got one position (the four) where there's no one on the team that can bring any semblance of value to it, and then your bench is largely devoid of anyone who can bring anything to the table. Reed could turn into something, but Cheddar doesn't look like he's close to ready, and then Baker's and T-Will's results this year speak for themselves. I'm sure they're good guys who work hard and don't cheat their coaches or teammates out of a single day of practice, but they don't bring much on-court value right now.
That's on Howard. At this point, this is his team.
He's got another year. The Big Ten title season bought him some time, but my guess is that next year is it for him. Make or break. The problem for him, though, is that depending on what Kobe, HD and Jett all decide to do, his fate may sealed before the season even starts. If those three guys leave, all of which are a distinct possibility, then there is almost no scenario where next season isn't even worse. He deserves the chance to get the ship righted, but if those guys are gone, I don't see how he doesn't go down with the ship. That team would be near unsalvageable.
I'm going to just chill out and see how things unfold before I hit the panic button on next season. There is so much up in the air now that will determine the success of next year.
There is no way to know what Hunter, Jett, and Kobe decide to do next year. Those will be big parts of the equation, but there are also other factors we need to wait and see on. Maybe we land a big name or two in the transfer portal. How different would this year have been if Shannon was actually allowed to come here?
Then you have to factor in the development of other current players. I think being forced to play Dug so many minutes this year is going to benefit him big time next year. Reed is also someone I'm expecting a big leap from. He has all the tools to be a great player, just needs to polish his game some, but I can see him being all Big Ten caliber.
Then there is the possibility of someone unexpected becoming a solid contributor. You can't tell me last year anyone was pointing to Kobe as someone that was going to be a stud on the team this year.
I know a lot of people want to get caught up in the worst case scenario and anticipate next year to be a complete dumpster fire, and maybe it will be, but there are a lot of ways this could play out. I'm at least holding out hope we can right the ship, and next year at this time we'll be discussing what kind of seeding we will get and matchups we'd like to avoid, rather than how soon can we fire our coach.
March 10th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
I don't know what exactly to think of Howard. Maybe the NBA would be a better spot?
he does run some great pro sets but without a high caliber guard yet. I do believe Isaiah Collier would have had a huge year next year but...
I don't think he thought he would lose Moussa and Caleb, Obviously not Frankie.
A lineup with say Hunter, Caleb, Jett, Bufkin and Collins looks pretty good. A bench of Reed, Williams, Baker and Dug looks good too.
Howard got unlucky with Shannon. Having two elite wing defenders in Bufkin and Shannon would have helped...
He had a horrible recruiting year for 2023. He is Juwan Howard, he should be pulling in some high caliber recruits.
Next year xould be a mess with departures but I think he deserves two more years. Then he should either be fired, off to the NBA, or running a tourney team
March 10th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
There's a lot of whatever in this article, perhaps not a surprise given it's written by the desiccated corpse of SI, but this line stuck out to me as one of those "sounds bad out of context, irrelevant in context" statements.
Michigan will finish the season under .500 against opponents in the first three quadrants of the NCAA’s team sheets.
That sounds bad! Like, what a travesty of basketball competence. Well, here are the records of the Big 10 teams against teams in the top 3 quadrants:
- Purdue: 21-5
- Maryland: 12-11
- Indiana: 15-10
- MSU: 15-11
- Illinois: 13-12
- Rutgers: 12-13
- Iowa: 14-12
- NW: 12-10
- PSU: 14-12
- OSU: 9-17
- Michigan: 13-14
- Wisconsin: 12-14
- Nebraska: 9-15
- Minnesota: 4-21
So yeah, basically every team in the conference not named Purdue, OSU, Nebraska, or Minnesota were within a game or 2 of .500 against the top 3 quads. That makes sense - this conference is mostly full of mid-level teams. Michigan being about .500 against most of college basketball makes sense - they're around .500 for a reason. But so are Illinois, Iowa, NW, PSU, Wisconsin, etc. It's sort of a useless stat, and that isn't even getting into other conferences.
Anyway, this was a disappointing season but I am looking forward to a week or two from now when people go back to forgetting about basketball until the team does well again and then act like they never stopped paying attention.
I'll be absolutely shocked if the B1G does ANYTHING in the tournament. Maybe the other conferences are filled with .500 teams, but that seems to fit what i saw this year from the B1G. As bad as Michigan was, and they were terrible, they were one shot against Indiana from being the 2nd seed in the B1G. That says a lot more about the conference than it does about Michigan.
March 10th, 2023 at 11:43 AM ^
One thing I find odd is I haven't enjoyed 1 Howard team over any of JB last 6 or 7 teams. Not just from a win or lose stand point,but from having fun watching the team play and the players.
I can understand the last two seasons, but the one before that where we won the Big Ten and earned a 1 seed was pretty damn enjoyable. That’s on you if you couldn’t enjoy that one.
Oh yes the team still half full of JB players, yeah that was a fun team, BUT not as fun as some teams prior to that.
Of all the people we lost, Brandon Johns may have been the most important loss after all. Having him at the 4 would have solved many of our lineup problems. Tschetter would have sat a year, and TWill would have had limited time, Reed would have split time between the 4 and 5.
I enjoy how much we all like yelling at each other about things that are so subjective, and by their very nature matters of opinion. "It's Juwan's fault, and he's responsible, and it's all gone to hell!" vs. "It's not Juwan's fault, and we just had bad luck, and things'll get better next year!"
Of course, one side or the other will turn out to be correct, and then they'll be allowed to scream "see?!" But they could just as easily be wrong as right. ("No, we're clearly correct, for reasons x, y, and z!" they're screaming now).
We all understand the nature of our disagreement. Both sides have articulated it really well. I hope we can agree we hope the more optimistic group turns out to be correct. Either way ... let's start working the transfer window hard and practicing practicing practicing for a more improved 2023-24 season.
After we win the NIT, that is. :-)