Basketball Snowflakes

My basketball snowflakes is that we got hit by a blizzard today and Juwan seems clueless.

It appears my routine of looking at the halftime score and then deciding if I will watch the game or not that I started about game 10 this season has saved me from wasting two hours today. 

I just don't understand why this coaching staff does not attempt to draw up easy, close to the basket looks. Juwan seems to be able to get guys "open looks", but they are usually long twos and midranges (which are lower quality shots than open back cuts at the rim), which he doesn't have the shooters to consistently make. Sometimes you have to adjust your approach based on what you've got on the roster. How about running the fast break more, hitting some back cuts, doing some more rolls to the rim? This staff has been characterized by trying to stubbornly fit a square peg into a round hole 3 out of 4 years (2021 was a square hole fortunately)! 

Warde has bigger fish to fry:

1. find own butt cheeks with own two hands…

2. Literally everything else an AD is supposed to handle but Warde doesn’t…

You know even when some of us were saying fire beilein at times (guilty) we never looked like worse than amaker complete doo doo. Juwan can leave now. 

bye, hunter.  time to go.

We have a mediocre role player starting at the 4.  If Frankie hadn’t chickened out, and if either of Houstan or Diabate had stayed, this would be a nice looking squad.  

I already can’t wait for all of the excuses again next year when we have a young/inexperienced team…..

Good God.. Enough about Matt painter

Howard should absolutely not be fired after this year…but. 

The lack of effort is shocking. So I’ve watched all but two games and in all of those games but 3 the announcers have mentioned michigans lack of effort at some point or another. 

I really don’t like when people call out players for being lazy because it can be hard to tell as a spectator and as a general rules, athletes play hard. But holly crap there is something to it. This is the lowest motor, softest Michigan team I can remember. It’s glaringly bad. You can really see it on defense. Sad to see. 

I hope there can be more of a discussion besides “fire Juwan” though I admit to being skeptical at this point.  Some things to consider:

• its odd to say but the number one recruiting class last year was a net negative. Barely accomplished anything last year, and then early departures has cost this team dearly this year.
• along those lines, one of diabate or Houston comes back and this team is totally different. Even putting that aside, Llewyn doesn’t get hurt and M admissions doesn’t shoot itself in the dick with Terrance Shannon and the current team is also totally different. 
   

i don’t know how much blame you can assign Juwan for the items above - yes, it is his team but this team rolled snake eyes back to back to back to back. If just one of the things above happens (or doesn’t happen in the case of Llewyn) - I think this team is in a fine position. 
 

i do think Juwan deserves some blame for his rotations / lineups and roster construction, but I also don’t know what he could have done differently with the current roster. At the time, every move he made was applauded.

For me, as much as it sucks to say - I’m willing to give Juwan a mulligan for this year, but he needs to make some noise next year or the hot seat talk becomes real.

It's almost baseball and softball season. Both should be pretty good! And never forget our women's gymnastics team. They're ranked #5 despite the tough loss to Sparty. Hopefully...Howard can get this turned around, uh...next year?

It's a developmental year. They're crazy young. They'll be bigger and deffer next year.

This is a young team and a bad staff. Let Howard make changes this off season and if this team still looks like this next year, then fire him.

Next year will be the year , not now, but my eyes are officially looking at JH with a “ooo not sure this is working” look.  
 

and when i say next year i mean he has to show growth, pg development, and pick the the right players to fill the gaps. And win of course.  
 

tall order , program is so far from what it was as of very recent memory. 

Beilein could no longer deal with the shitshow that NCAA basketball has become, and that was before the NIL and transfer portal craziness. Howard is having to deal with all of the old BS, plus the new BS, all while getting his feet wet as a first time HC. Maybe give him a bit to figure things out. Look around college basketball right now. The Big Ten outside of Purdue is awful. Maybe that's a coincidence, but I think it has a lot to do with teams navigating the new rules and roster construction.

I can't be overly critical of Howard being bad when he just lost multiple blue chip recruits and struggled to bring in new ones with Michigan's NIL lagging. He tried to fill gaps with transfers but one got screwed by academics and the other blew his knee out. What is he realistically supposed to do? Even on hot shooting nights, Baker and Williams are below average players. McDaniel is clearly a guy who needs time to develop. Bufkin is an adequate player who is developing but isn't a finished product. Hunter is athletically and defensively limited, which is why he's still in college and not in the NBA. Jett has been solid and has already played his way to being in the lottery conversation. We can question why Tschetter doesn't play more minutes or whatever other miniscule coaching gripe, but this collection of players wouldn't be a contender with any coach in the history of basketball coaching. 

Howard will not and should not be fired this season but next year he is on the hot seat. Miss the tournament and he should be let go.

He gets a mulligan this year. All decent coaches do. But you only get one.

It is a pipedream to offer Matt Painter or Mark Few. Juwan could clean house with his coaching staff after this season ends. There are no good options. This is the season that started out as it could be but then is never was. It has been obvious since the CMU loss that this team had an uphill battle to qualify for the NCAA Tourney. There have been no Quad 1 wins. The chances are so slim on winning the Big-10 tourney as a last hope.

It's easy to have strong negative reactions after this blow out loss to Penn State but I have been told by several die hard Michigan basketball fans that this team has been hard to watch nearly all season. Let's hope this team can win their remaining home games and save face, if not, then we are entering a dark time in Michigan Men's Basketball. The team is mostly young but bad loss can snowball. The 2022-23 season will be one to forget.

Substitute Ono for Warde in your post above. 

Painter played for Gene Keady at Purdue so that ain’t gonna happen.If this is still a topic of discussion in 2 years Juwan will probably take an NBA job when Jace is done.Jett probably enters draft this year.No need for firing Juwan,be patient.Team is different if 2 starters from last year hang around for this year.

1. The hyped recruiting class last season wasn't worth the squeeze it seems. Little value last season and sort of set us back going forward.

2. Juwan needs to find his "Yaklich" hire. Gotta find a DC to come in and have the team buy-in.

3. Juwan needs a roster managment consultant.

4. Losing Shannon to Illinois cost us several games and a postseason opportunity. 

Juwan has zero experience being a head coach. Beilein had tons before he came here. You have to recognize that the product on the field has had no cohesiveness and no development to win big games, let alone average games in the big ten. His success in 2020-2021 was with guys having a ton of development done by others coaches.