Bufkin to the Draft
Coach Howard has his work cut out for him next season.
A question for those who follow hoops - both college and NBA - closely.
Michigan will most likely (and, perhaps it's a guarantee) - lose Kobe and Jett. (I'm not sure if either / both are evaluating the move based on feedback from NBA, or if they are "gone, gone".)
Do you think Jett will be drafted? If so, first or second round?
Do you think Kobe will be drafted? If so, first or second round?
I ask this because - recent players have been drafted - and, in the second round - really means you may have a two-way contract - spend some time playing in the League - and, the rest of the season playing "G".
I have no respect for the NBA. Their talent agents will say : "Yes, we want you and will plan to draft you in the first round" - then, a shinier object they didn't think would be available when their turn comes up to draft - they drop the verbal commitment - the player falls to the second round -and things change significantly.
For Jett and Kobe - I wish them well, and - hope they get good advice.
Howard and Kobe both projected between 15-30. Pacers, Heat, Lakers are all teams to look at that night select either.
It's incredibly hard to make it in the NBA. The best bet is for players to slog through at least 2 to three years and move on. I can't think of many one and done players making it. When was the last time you heard about Moussa Diabete or Caleb Houston? I can guarantee you they make a big difference had they stayed...
Caleb actually gets a good bit of playing time for the Magic. He's not super productive as of now, but I can see him sticking.
What's a good bit? I've looked at quite a few box scores where he was DNP
Both will be drafted 1st round. Jett is a sniper shooter and has great size and you take him and hope he cares about rebounding and defending when he is 3 years older. Kobe is literally everything the modern NBA is about. Much better at creating his own shot than Jett. I see both in the 15-25 range in just about every mock.
This was basically 100% after he didn’t play in our last game. He’s a top 20 pick, smart decision. Good luck to him.
Enjoy football and hockey, cuz basketball is gonna be in the cellar.
I’ll take my lumps here. I heard he planned to come back and be the alpha. Should have known when Howard kept Jaelin and brought in Nimari.
Why can’t Juwan convince anyone to stay an extra year?
Houstan, Diabate, Hunter, Kobe, Jett
Do players feel like they won’t develop under Howard? Or perhaps he is a difficult personality in practice? Convincing them to stay is part of the job too.
Also the fact that Howard has had 4 NBA first rounders on the roster in the last two years and seriously underachieved with them is not encouraging. If you have two first rounders, and an all Big Ten center you should always make the tournament, and yet he failed.
Howard has underperformed with a surplus of talent the last two years. Next year he will have a talent deficit for the first time as coach. I’m not expecting much from the team.
Howard can sell to recruits that he sent players to the NBA quickly. Sending 2 every year is a great recruiting pitch.
Idk how you sell getting two extremely highly-touted recruits into the 2nd round of the NBA draft when they would have at least gotten to that point, regardless of the coach/program they went to. If anything, that feels like something an opposing coach could use to sell a player against going to Michigan.
The only guy under Howard that I can think of who’s really doing something is Franz Wagner - who actually looks like he may have a very good long career.
Maybe his son will be a lottery pick since outside of 1-2 guys, this is the worst draft since 2013 or 2006. Selling 2 lottery picks in 3 years is a nice pitch at surface level, at least.
Selling them on a second round NIT exit?
It could be but he's not selling it well. We have the 32nd ranked recruiting class and there's a fair chance Papa Kante never plays for Michigan.
It's also sort of crazy that if Bufkin and Howard both get drafted in the first round that may well be the sum-total of Big 10 guys drafted in the first round this year. I've read Hood from IU might sneak in but that's sort of it unless Jackson-Davis blows up.
Howard is (somewhat) a victim of his own accomplishments getting guys to the league seemingly every year.
Getting guys into the league is great for those players, but it doesn’t really mean shit when they don’t win college games. People on here laugh at programs with 7th year seniors, but those teams tend to make the tournament.
Well, those 7th-year seniors don't necessarily win you anything of substance either. PSU made it to the Sweet 16 with the oldest team in the country - congrats, but nobody hangs a banner for that.
The best teams are a mixture of talented guys with NBA upside and good college players. And showing "hey, we get guys to the league" is a selling point when you are trying to nab those 1/2-and-done types.
Made the Sweet 16… congrats but nobody hangs a banner for that
Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind the next time someone talks about Michigan’s last season as a success or uses Howard’s multiple Sweet 16 runs as evidence of his being a good coach. I had been thinking that it was a pretty good accomplishment, but I guess your expectations are higher. We’ll see how many banners Howard hangs in year five.
Okay, just so I get this straight winning basketball games and making it to the Sweet 16 is important when evaluating other teams but when Michigan does it with Juwan Howard that isn't as impressive?
Also, Howard hung a Big 10 regular season banner a mere 2 years ago, but that didn't count for some reasons than I'm sure you'll be happy to list.
Lol, you said making the Sweet 16 wasn’t a big deal because you don’t hang a banner for it, not me. I think that’s a stupidly high standard. I was pointing out what happens if you really take that banner or bust standard seriously: Howard is going to have a hell of time meeting it. He’s only done it once and next year doesn’t look good.
I think it’s silly to argue that having a veteran team isn’t desirable because PSU “only made the Sweet 16,” but that’s what the prior post suggests, so I’m just working with that.
This is the totality of your post:
Getting guys into the league is great for those players, but it doesn’t really mean shit when they don’t win college games. People on here laugh at programs with 7th year seniors, but those teams tend to make the tournament.
My counterpoint, which was only 2 paragraphs so perhaps you missed the second one, is that while having an old team maybe wins you a couple more games it's not some recipe for long-term championships aspirations. And of the 25 most experienced teams per KenPom this season, about half of them made the tournament (12) and half of them didn't, and that includes teams like ND, Seton Hall, and preseason #1 UNC.
You need a mix of talent and experience, and my glib "you aren't hanging a banner for making the Sweet 16" was in reference to the fact this entire thread has been about how just making the tournament isn't enough and this program was a top-10 outfit before Howard showed up.
You have created this strawperson who is arguing that Howard is beyond reproach, which at no point have I even eluded to and in fact have repeatedly said he needs to address issues both on his staff and the team generally. By all means keep having that conversation but stop acting like I'm part of that talk.
“entire thread has been about how just making the tournament isn't enough and this program was a top-10 outfit before Howard showed up.”
I’m making up strawman? Where the hell are you seeing an entire thread on how Howard needs to start doing more than just making the tournament? This is pointless
Banner or bust! Got it. Let's remember your argument next year.
Jackson Davis has a college game not NBA game. He will be mid to late 2nd. Great college player and 25 years ago would have been a lottery pick.
This is the same thing people said at the end of JB with players like Poole. It’s a different time, not a Juwan problem.
Beilein won games with those guys before they left.
Were you going to pay Kobe? I know Kobe's family and you think that,"you could keep him from providing for his family?" Well if you weren't going to provide for him. Just shut the @!&! Up! What you want Juwan to do that Michigan's NIL fund won't do? It's pay me first. Open one of your eyes.
Convincing them to stay is part of the job too.
No, it isn’t. Putting your own selfish interests above the interests of the players does not a good coach make. His job is to win games while preparing the players for the rest of their lives.
Next season might be a season where it’s time to stop watching by mid-December lol
Make or break for Juwan next year. Rebuild year not making it easy. He needs to make the dance and win a game or it is time to move on
Is that a thing that fans do, stop watching their team when they suck? News to me.
Only hope is that the Houstan Rockets come calling and Juwan leaves. Michigan is not a school that can build through the portal. You can’t get everyone you want.
Who knew Caleb Houstan bought the rockets?
When his play picked up mid-season, I wondered if NBA was a possibility. When I heard the talk in the media that the NBA showed interest, I thought he would test the waters. When he sat out the NIT, I figured he checked out and was gone (a gut feeling - I do not pretend to know the extent of his injury).
As with any player who commits to play for the University of Michigan, I wish him well at the next level.
I am looking forward to next season - no one wants a repeat of the past season. We fielded a lot of talent but the team had no chemistry and little leadership. Jett and Kobe wanted to be in the NBA. I'm not sure where Hunter wanted to be.
Dug and Tarris will have a year under their belts. We are getting some blue chip freshmen coming. Baker and Llewellyn supply experience. We will see if Jace and Cheddar can assume bigger roles. Fill in some gaps through the portal. And hope Twill stays and makes the contribution we all hoped for this year. And hope most of all that someone steps up to be the team leader we need.
The 2023-24 team is undefeated - Go Blue!!
It's kind to know about these blue chip freshman coming in.
On the plus side there is currently no NBA talent on this roster (please don't @ me with Reed). So we shouldn't lose anyone a year from now unless they are disenchanted.
/silver lining
Lots of boo birds coming out in this thread. Kobe leaving is no knock on Juwan, quite the opposite. You help develop a player to become a 1st round pick, that's a good thing. This is more of an NBA issue taking all the young undeveloped talent away from college and leaving them buried on the bench for 1-2 years - if they ever make it as pros at all. As college fans, we'd rather have that extra year.
And that's where NIL comes in, hopefully Michigan gets there someday. But it's extremely difficult to afford to pay guys who could be earning multi-million sitting on the bench for those 1 - 3 years in the NBA. Kobe is going to be a very good player in the pros, good luck at the next level young fella.
It’s not a good thing to have two first rounders on our roster and make the NIT. Sorry, that’s an indictment on coaching not a success story.
“You help develop a player to become a 1st round pick, that's a good thing.”
That can be a good thing, but when you don’t win many games while developing them, and then you don’t win many games after they leave, you aren’t succeeding. Players developing into pro prospects is only valuable insofar as it helps with winning games.
NIT. Enough said.
hope for a 10 seed in the NIT next year.
That elusive 10-seed in a tournament with 32 teams arranged in four quadrants.
a 20th seed on the Dance is better?
I was supportive of Juwan when he was hired but roster construction is his responsibility. If you can't make the tournament at Michigan, a better coach can be found. Next year they will go from being "unlucky" to being blown out.
All the Howard hate is misplaced. The teams in the final four sort of prove that the Portal and NIL have completely changed the game/strategy in the past two years. Having kids with potential in college works against you as the NBA will snatch them up. Now you got to recruit kids who can ball, but are too short or too slow or too something to play at the next level. Get a bunch of grinders and a couple of transfers who need a year on a bigger stage.
"All you need to do is" and "we can just copy everyone else" aren't good solutions or justifications when everyone else is supposedly doing it but you're not.
You're missing a T in your name, because all you do is post scrambled,"stuff!" All day long. You couldn't do it and most coaches especially in the BIG10, have failed. One such team almost had a Unanimous player of the year on their team and they lost in the first round. GTHOH. It's not a Juwan thing. It's a NCAA thing.
Your right: the measure of the success of the men's basketball coach at the University of Michigan is whether I could do a better job. And you're wrong about the coaches in the Big Ten. Eight B1G teams made the tournament this year. That's most. And Michigan, which did not make the tournament just lost its three best players. But please, tell me about how no every other team in the NCAA has a problem yet plenty of brand name schools have better teams present and future.
Zero surprise here. If your metric for success in college basketball is the number of players that declare rather than the number of games won, the program is in great shape.