Column on structural issues ailing Michigan basketball
This column's conclusion overlaps a bit with Alex's diagnosis at the end of his tour-de-force piece on the decline of men's basketball, but I thought the line that this wouldn't be a competitive team with Mike Krzyzewski "behind the bench" was interesting. Basically, he points out that with the transfer portal, lack of NIL support and Michigan's hostility to transfers (my understanding is that Love and Shannon were both admitted, but simply couldn't get enough credits honored) Michigan has significant structural issues impeding its ability to be competitive. I'm not suggesting that these issues justify this team's historic failures, but just that a run like we enjoyed through much of the last 10-12 years won't be easy to recreate.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:05 PM ^
Thanks. The rare pithy and well-constructed Message Board offering. All very welcome.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:09 PM ^
Many alums and fans are apathetic at this point. It will take quite a bit to fix this shit show called Michigan Mens Basketball
February 17th, 2024 at 4:40 PM ^
Michigan fans were apathetic before, at the end of the Amaker years, and then came back in force once Beilein put teams in the tournament. And there was plenty of discontent and (relative) apathy in the dark days of Hoke and Harbaugh. We should know from experience that nothing is permanent and we will likely cycle back to the top with good moves as a program.
February 17th, 2024 at 8:59 PM ^
Point the money cannon at Matt Painter. Its actually a pretty easy solution.
February 18th, 2024 at 9:35 AM ^
So we can lose to a 15 seed in the 1st round?
February 19th, 2024 at 8:27 AM ^
Michigan fans love thinking they can poach coaches away from their Alma Mater. Next up will be people thinking you are getting McDermitt
February 17th, 2024 at 3:09 PM ^
Yet it doesn't seem to be an issue with all the other teams at Michigan. 🤔
February 17th, 2024 at 3:11 PM ^
I believe it has affected the football recruiting. We were blessed to have the kids and coaches we did for the past 3 seasons. Going forward, it will be interesting.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:06 PM ^
Harbaugh figured out pretty quickly it wasn't worth bothering with unless they were grad transfers. Unclear why Howard hasn't figured this out.
February 17th, 2024 at 4:18 PM ^
More than one thing can be true, right? Howard and his staff are not coaching well, and men’s basketball is a different animal than every other D1 sport—including subtle differences with football, the only other significant revenue sport in NCAA:
1) Smaller rosters make for more glaring weaknesses—harder to fill with fewer spots.
2) Flooded, absolutely flooded, basketball portal based off NIL dreams and desire to start.
3) Howard cannot control UM granting credits to players, and if they are upperclassmen who’ve proven themselves, UM makes it harder on those without a degree.
4) Recruiting blue chips is harder when there’s less pay for play…
5) Male basketball players, in general, are pretty egocentric more so than any other sport. Many of them want the bag, think they’re going to the NBA, and/or have a Dug-like devotion to academics.
Top tier basketball transfer players have more leverage than any other student athlete, and with UM’s deficiencies—losing Dickinson (best player in portal) and then losing Caleb Love also lost them chances at other top guys who committed elsewhere by the time Hunter and Love were gone.
With Hunter and Love, this roster would’ve been top 10 potential, but losing them made them thing at center and wing.
The team is absent enough talent this year. You don’t lose the best player in the nation, two first rounders, and then miss out in the replacement dominant NBA prospect scorer and thrive in one of the top conferences.
If Howard is fired, that will do very little on its own—because Michigan’s basketball issues are systemic to the institution. He’s got a better class coming in next year and one last chance, to me, to get Michigan administration to help fix portal and NIL. If he doesn’t bring in better assistants and get some good transfers, and perform next year, then moving on is a guarantee.
And I’m not even going to say he should be kept this year—just that there are many reasons why the basketball team’s roster construction issues are singular.
This isn’t women’s ice hockey. If it is Howard or someone else, a coaching change alone isn’t going to turn the program around.
If Howard is fired, expect us to lose the 2024 class. Don’t expect a quicker turnaround by getting some guy like one of the Millers or the VCU coach. Wouldn’t expect a Miller with how the university operates NIL.
February 17th, 2024 at 6:58 PM ^
Fred Hoiberg has Nebraska on the verge of a NCAA tournament berth. Chris Collins is about to take Northwestern to the tournament for the 2nd year in a row. Do we think these places have better NIL for basketball than Michigan, or in the case of Northwestern more lenient transfer restrictions? Come on. Juwan is trying to build his roster with guys that Michigan won't let in, a lot of that's on Michigan but a lot of that is also on Juwan. That may be how Juwan thinks he can win, but clearly other coaches are able to build winning teams via other methods. So no, Juwan's failures to build a competent roster wouldn't necessarily carry over to the next coach.
February 18th, 2024 at 12:08 PM ^
Nebraska whole team is almost all transfers. So that doesn't fly and Northwestern has a super senior who decided to come back and Northwestern and Nebraska have sucked at basketball for the past 2 decades a season here or there is a blip. So those schools hold no weight IMO.
February 18th, 2024 at 12:54 PM ^
"Do we think these places have better NIL for basketball than Michigan, or in the case of Northwestern more lenient transfer restrictions?"
Hard to know for sure, but there was an article fairly recently saying yes Michigan is in more of a Nebraska/Iowa type tier in regards to NIL. We just lost Sabb to NIL. And yes, why is it crazy to think NW has a different rule in regards to transfer credits? Again, we've seen a lot of articles saying this is specific to Michigan. Never seen anyone report it's the same at Northwestern. It's not about how smart the kid is.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:12 PM ^
I will say this. If Love and Shannon are on this roster Im guessing we are a completely different team. Your standards being well beyond what Duke or North Carolina would do has got you an 8 win season. Congrats I guess.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:19 PM ^
I guarantee Duke ain't letting anyone in who couldn't get in here. Under Schembechlerwe were the recipients of a number of players who couldn't get into Notre Dame.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:25 PM ^
If Terrance Shannon wanted to play there and they wanted him he would be in a Duke uniform right now.
February 17th, 2024 at 4:24 PM ^
says person with zero personal knowledge--zero
February 17th, 2024 at 4:28 PM ^
please point out any suspicious transfers on Duke's team.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:53 PM ^
Here is a Duke blog with most of the hardcore fans worried about them not being academically eligible for the tournament. These are MGOBLOG equivalents who would probably be more apt to sugar coat things then to make their program look (unjustly) bad.
I don't see how you can fault Scheyer for a four year average that just barely makes the cut.
This is very disappointing.Yes- Duke is in danger of not making a tourney for academic reasons. That would be something.
I should have listened to the pod first probably. It's actually WORSE than I thought because the horrible 830 score (or whatever it is) from the most recent year is what gets used in the four-year rolling average going forward, so future Duke teams (including this one) need to be CONSIDERABLY above 930 to keep the average above 930.
And, yeah, given this all occurred before Scheyer came to the helm of course it's not his fault. If you're going to "blame" a coach, it'd be the head coach at the time of the horrendous academic year -- Coach K. (I'm not necessarily "blaming" Coach K, merely pointing out that he was in charge of the program over the course of those 4 years. This year isn't included in those numbers at all).
February 17th, 2024 at 4:18 PM ^
I'd pretty much guarantee you're wrong. Coach K went to the mercenary model many years ago and was fantastically successful (at least at recruiting). No way were all those guys Duke-level scholars ...
- - -
Regarding ND vs. UM, their standards have historically been a little higher, yes, but not leaps-and-bounds higher.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:55 PM ^
Yeah read above BH. Perfect case in point.
February 17th, 2024 at 8:27 PM ^
Hat tip for doing your own research, rice4114. Good job.
February 18th, 2024 at 12:45 PM ^
And of course he is nowhere to be seen. Um Um Um is right.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:13 PM ^
I think the issues come at three levels.
The Board of Regents and president/AD/and Juwan. At the top of the chain, the university's transfer requirements are insane and elitist. Myles Hinton had trouble getting his credits to transfer from Stanford. This goes beyond just athletics but if a normal student transfers in from WMU, the university should honor their chemistry credits because we are supposed to still be a public university and serve the people. There was some hope that Santa could fix this but he doesn't seem to have the power to do so or he is unwilling.
At the AD level, we need to acknowledge that NIL is a thing and these are basically professional athletes. We need to help them secure deals and do what we can to compete with the other universities at the top of the game.
As for Juwan, he is probably most at fault. He just isn't cut out for this. He needs to step down or be fired. It's time to find a coach has more experience in the game. The guy from Iowa State would be a good choice. Hopefully, OSU doesn't snag him first.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:18 PM ^
Is Iowa St our new West Virginia?
February 17th, 2024 at 4:55 PM ^
Isn’t that where we snagged Johnny Orr from?
For you youngins, he coached in the ‘70s.
Scratch that, we got him from UMass.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:05 PM ^
He left U-M for IA St.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:13 PM ^
i'll give juwan all of that, but that still doesn't explain the incredible slothfulness, lack of organization, plan, execution and hustle at either end of the court. you can get that out of your buddies in the YMCA league, and you can sure as heck coach that up on a hoops team with as much athletic talent as our MBB has. that's on juwan. for instance, if our other JH (now with the chargers. funeral dirge in the background) coached hoops, they might not have all the great plays but they sure as heck would be pounding the boards and keeping the bad guys out of the paint.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:15 PM ^
This has been my take on Juwan. Whether he can coach or not, even coaches who we know can coach (Izzo, Holtmann, etc) are struggling in this new college basketball environment -- and they have more resources and fewer obstacles than what come with the Michigan HC job. Anyone who coaches at Michigan will be fighting with an arm tied behind their back.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:26 PM ^
I do think Juwan should be 6th or 7th in the Big Ten this year if he was getting everything out of his players that he could.
February 17th, 2024 at 4:33 PM ^
I don't see it. This team has as little talent as some of the bad Ellerbe teams, and the roster construction is... not ideal. Either way it doesn't speak well of Howard, I guess.
I'm still trying to process how this team beat Marquette in a secret pre-season scrimmage.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:27 PM ^
This team looks a lot different with Shannon and Love. And if Shannon comes, does Dickinson leave? He was heavily involved with getting Shannon here. And there was also Nojel Eastern.
I guess you can say it's Juwan's fault for not knowing whether or not those kids could get in, but does anyone know who can get in? We aren't taking about community college transfers. These are P5 transfers. One was from the damn Big Ten. Then there's Papa Kante and Lee Aaliya as recruits.
I dunno. To me, Juwan is trying to build teams like teams are built in 2024, and Michigan just doesn't allow it. It's on the school as much as it is the coach. Maybe more. The reason I say that is because I could see Juwan regularly making the tournament at schools with less red tape -- just by his ability to attract talent. However, I don't know of many coaches who I could confidently say could take Michigan's transfer policies and struggling NIL and consistently make the tourny.
February 17th, 2024 at 4:39 PM ^
I think the other Holtmann comparator is that both Michigan and OSU are fundamentally football schools first. Each dollar OSU has thrown at their football team this off-season is a dollar they can't spend on basketball NIL. The same is true at Michigan. The well is deep but not bottomless, and at a certain point, donors have priorities. And businesses that use NIL as intended for advertising purposes will realize that, at least where Michigan and OSU are concerned, their dollars go farther signing football players.
February 18th, 2024 at 2:57 AM ^
Michigan is not spending anything on NIL. They're trying to have everyone else flip the bill....noway are they allowing 1 cent of their donor dollars go near the players.
My understanding is that this is what puts us in the 3rd tier NIL rankings. Most top teams are looking at the NIL rules and finding ways around it to spend big Michigan is using the rules to save money.
Michigan future football teams will no longer have any top 100 recruits let alone a couple of the annual 5 stars we use to land. I mean we are already down to just a few after Sabb's departure.
Then we will have post just like this regarding the fall of the football program. But hey we landed a few more fake NIL partnerships this week to try and offset them knowing Sabb leaving would rock the boat.
February 17th, 2024 at 6:45 PM ^
Holtmann in 13 years as a head coach (3 different schools) has never won a conference title. That includes both conference tourneys and regular season titles. Is he really that good of a coach?
February 17th, 2024 at 7:09 PM ^
Do we know Holtmann can coach? He was fine but not spectacular at Butler in a less challenging Big East, I'm personally not surprised he flamed out at OSU. And Izzo's decline well predates the NIL and portal era, Cassius Winston just kept things afloat for a few years. There are still ways to build a roster through recruiting and development and bring in complementary players through the portal, Juwan is going the Mel Tucker route and trying to build the whole thing from transfers.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:15 PM ^
Are there issues that hinder the bball program?…yes
Is that a reason to be the worst team in the B1G?…absolutely not!
February 17th, 2024 at 3:23 PM ^
Hey Juwan? Why are you bringing in 4 scholarship recruits in two cycles where you are losing up 10 players.
Even if they arent that great we should have 6 guys coming in the next class. The fuq is going on?
February 17th, 2024 at 3:43 PM ^
Maybe there are only four guys who would consider joining this Michigan team?
February 17th, 2024 at 6:16 PM ^
That is kind of humorous but the all stars of the MAC recruits would all come here. All of them.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:45 PM ^
This is reminding me of the end of the Amaker era. Michigan then was lagging behind in terms of facilities (Crisler was outdated and there was no practice facility) and this was blamed for some recruiting losses during that time. It probably was true that was a hindrance for recruiting, and had Amaker won some of the recruiting battles he lost, we may have been better on the court. But that didn't explain the coaching issues we continually witnessed - disorganized offense, boatloads of turnovers, and regular late-season collapses. Even if the facilities issues limited our program's ceiling, we were not reaching that ceiling with what we had.
Today, we may face some challenges relating to the portal and NIL, but that doesn't fully explain why this program lost 15 and 16 games the last two seasons while producing four NBA draft picks, or why it's 8-17 (guh) now. It doesn't explain why the team is shockingly terrible defensively (despite having players who came in from strong defensive programs) or why we've had a Scott Frost-like record in close games over the past few years.
February 17th, 2024 at 4:14 PM ^
Nimari is one of the guys from a strong defensive program. He was 9th on that team in minutes played at 14.7 MPG. This year, he’s been forced to play 31.3 MPG because we have no guard depth. Maybe he is a good defender if he can go all out for 4 minute spurts, but forced to play major minutes, his defensive limitations are exposed.
Tray was 14.6 MPG for Seton Hall. He was brought in for depth. That doesn’t make a lot of sense considering the only position we have a surplus of guys is forward. (I don’t think Tray is a PF. He’s only 205 pounds. Where is the power?) But they needed someone to use up a scholarship so fine.
Nkamhoua has been OK on defense.
The defensive limitations stem from Dug’s lack of size, Nimari’s lack of quickness, Llewellyn’s lack of a healthy leg, TWill’s lack of quickness (for a 3) or height (for a 4), WillT’s lack of mobility and elevation, and Tarris’s inability to defend pick and roll. I’ve said this before, he switches way too easily leaving huge matchup problems for the players he switches with.
It’s really ugly all around. Hoping that transfers bring defense with them was fool’s gold.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:35 PM ^
Last year we were 47th according in KenPom in adjusted D. We lost a subpar defender (Jett Howard), an average one at best (Dickinson) and one good one (Bufkin).
We brought in the three transfers and got Llewellyn back. The thinking going into the season was that we might struggle to score, but our D should be good enough to keep the team afloat. As it's turned out, our offense has been shaky but not a disaster (69th) but the D has been historically bad (182th). Up to now, our worst defense in the KP era (2002-present) was the 01-02 team that finished 150th.
Maybe we expected more than we should have from Reed and some others, but there is no explanation for the team to be this bad at that end of the court.
February 17th, 2024 at 7:18 PM ^
I agree. It’s baffling. There’s a lot of new players on the team. The defensive chemistry isn’t there. It’s like a pickup game where everyone is bringing different expectations to the table. There’s a lot of finger pointing and confusion. Some guys appear to have given up on team defense.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:50 PM ^
I think Hensons mobile can attest to the fact that I’ve been saying this for a while now.
The transfer issue is especially significant in basketball because there is so much more competition for talent relative to football. A top player can go to the g-league out of high school and to the league after one year. Then you have more competitive teams in basketball than you do in football.
In football, Michigan can reload with top-level grad transfers with two years of eligibility left who can just enroll in a certificate program. The grad transfer talent in football is much higher than it is in basketball. Michigan admissions has effectively limited basketball to grad transfers.
February 17th, 2024 at 5:16 PM ^
And Mglobules had the first comment! You two guys, I tell ya.
Hope to see everyone in the game thread tonight!
February 17th, 2024 at 5:45 PM ^
Admissions is only an issue when the staff does not perform due academic diligence on whom they recruit.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:51 PM ^
Connor Earegood? Same guy on the Daily who was self flagellating about Signz!?
February 17th, 2024 at 3:54 PM ^
I read it but the writer doesn't realize that Barnes was a recruiting miss.
I digress. Watching the UConn game now, things would be quite different had we landed Clingan.
February 17th, 2024 at 3:54 PM ^
Juwan will get this figured out or he won't. He had success in 2021 and if not for Liver's injury may have gotten a title. Elite 8 without Livers n a year later a Sweet 16 without Franz Wagner. The lost to Villanova came down to free throw shooting ,7-14, and Villanova went on to Final 4.
Coming off major heart surgery is not an excuse or is it?