Unverified Voracity References Giddy Potts Because It Can
Free concert thing. Ann Arborites, Treeverb is happening tomorrow at First and Huron, just across the street from the MLive building and the world famous Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, where the podcasts originate.
Food trucks will be on site, along with an option to purchase adult beverages. More information at their website.
Exit DeAndre. Saddi Washington will be the only survivor amongst Michigan's assistants:
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. My time here at the University of Michigan was nothing short of a dream. pic.twitter.com/91Y8FiJ53O
— DeAndre Haynes (@CoachDreHaynes) May 30, 2019
Mike Miller, who was discussed a couple days ago, Howard Eisley, and former St Joe's coach Phil Martelli are the names that have been floated for the two open spots. (Yaklich's departure for Texas is now official.)
Note that the report that Martelli has a firm offer came from a Philadelphia source, not Michigan. Brendan Quinn disputed that, citing sources on both sides.
[After THE JUMP: potential additions]
Reasons to bring in a head coach. Current coaches on the adjustment Howard is going to have to make:
"If you're Juwan or Patrick Ewing, your focus goes from 100 percent basketball, and now it's 50-50 or 40-60," one coach said. "You're now focusing a lot of time on other things: recruiting, compliance, scheduling. That isn't part of the job. That is the job. The basketball part is easy."
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman, who has been both an NBA and college head coach, said his time as an assistant coach at Arizona State and LSU was crucial in his early days as a college head coach.
"The three years as an assistant coach at the college level really helped me prepare for transitioning to a head coach," Musselman said. "I had to understand about buy-games and buy-game contracts. There's the most important aspect, which is the student-athlete piece, understanding the APR. Influencing your student-athletes. You're not just coaching them, you've gotta get them ready for life. Teach them how to be on time, how to rest properly, how to eat. There's obviously the recruiting aspect. My time as an assistant coach really helped me understand the recruiting aspect -- even doing a home visit. In the NBA, you coach and develop your players. It's X's and O's. In college, it's a CEO, general manager and head coach."
I'm okay with not baking. Michigan's opener is a night game against Middle Tennessee, and three other games have had times announced. Note that the Middle Tennessee game is the 31st—it's not a Friday night special:
UM-MTSU Aug 30 7:30 pm BTN; Army At UM Sept 7 noon Fox; uM at Wisc Sept 21, noon; UM-OSU Fox, noon pic.twitter.com/XknRW4VWKh
— angelique (@chengelis) May 30, 2019
Oregon-Auburn is scheduled at the same time but that's the only game in that window of much interest—since the NFL has not started the opening weekend is now spread out over five days. After the oven that was last year's SMU game I'm happy enough to avoid the August sun.
Draft refugees. More names for Michigan's open scholarships have popped up after several guys withdrew from the NBA draft. None of these gents are immediately eligible unless they get a waiver because their dog requires a cooler climate but might be worth it for 2020-21:
- Rutgers PF Eugene Omoruyi shockingly bailed on Rutgers in the middle of the night. He'd be a sit-one, play-one. He's a burly, mostly paint-bound 4 that wouldn't have been much of a fit with Beilein but may be for Howard.
- TCU CG Jaylen Fisher announced he'd leave the Horned Frogs in January, and then went through the draft process. Fisher's been beset by injuries over this career and played just nine games last year. He should get a sixth year and may be a waiver candidate. He's a 41% career three point shooter.
- Kansas's Quentin Grimes withdrew and announced a transfer. Very weird since he was a five star recruit people projected as a one and done. Tough to execute that after a 94 ORTG freshman year.
Steady on. Seems like everyone currently on the roster is going to stick it out:
“I wanted to hear (what they were thinking)," Livers said. "Most guys were like, 'Oh, we’re just going to wait (to see) who comes in.' For now, it looks like everybody’s happy and nobody’s really going to make that decision (to leave). I told them if you are going to make that decision, just let me know so I can know ahead of time.”
While there was initially some uncertainty, that later gave way to excitement when the players found out Howard would be the next head coach. According to Livers, "everybody was happy."
Drevnooooooo, an ongoing series. I promise I'll stop being crazy about this if Stueber or Mayfield is an acceptable right tackle this year but my God it just does not stop. Michigan was going to flip Alaric Jackson from Iowa and then didn't send him a LOI:
Alaric Jackson was solid in every facet for Iowa last season. pic.twitter.com/EP3oSCfJiA
— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 31, 2019
It's uncanny.
Etc.: Juwan Howard hanging out with a bunch of old Michigan basketball coaches. JJ McCarthy seems good.
The music tomorrow is about to be great!
FWIW Quinn said he expects Martelli will likely join the staff on the latest The Moving Screen pod with Dylan from UMHoops. Also says he hasn't spoken to Martelli about it, though he knows him from St. Joe's as Quinn went there and his dad was a longtime coach in another sport.
Pod is a good listen for press conference reactions and assistant coaching speculation. Eisley sounds like the most likely other guy.
I wonder if that means Miller might come on as an adviser or analyst like Harbaugh has.
Would be a weird path for Miller to go to an off-court role. That might fit Martelli more but I think it's more likely that discussions with Miller were prematurely reported as a done deal.
On the pod they talk about how Martelli has been on the rules committee, heavily involved in the NABC and knows everyone in college hoops everywhere. Miller sounded better to me at first but that aspect of a Martelli hire seems particularly useful.
Seems wise to add an adviser and/or recruiting coordinator to the basketball staff. On the pod they speculate on that and think Michigan will add a position there (and maybe two) but we won't have the off-court staff bloat that, say, Stackhouse is bringing with him.
Miller is the reigning G-league coach of the year. He's going to be up for NBA jobs. The former coaches that Harbaugh brings in as analysts have been out of work.
Sorry but the Alaric Jackson miss is just as much Harbaughs fault. He was the head man and should have seen the screaming lack of quality OL depth like a semi heading straight at him.
Why have assistants if you're not going to trust them to do their job?
Hiring Drevno was his fault, not missing on Jackson. That's bullshit.
It's not like we didn't already have Bredeson and Onwenu. We didn't have a true OT and that was the point of this original comment.
Seth set the standard with the "Exit: Brandon Peters" post. Things that could be on Harbaugh won't be called out. Things that can be plausibly blamed on departed assistants like Pep or Drevno will be, and then some.
Criticizing Harbaugh for his rival record fine... but Peters? Come on. Who knows, maybe he could have worked out here if you didn't get a 5 star recruit with 2 years starting experience and immediate eligibility. Real hard decision he had to make there.
Peters was playing just fine with experience level until Wisconsin’s D gave him ptsd against our line.
Hi there Maizen’s sockpuppet! How are things?
Why neg this? Its true!
I suspect missing on Alaric was much more Harbaugh's fault than Drevno's. Do we really think signing day came and Drevno said he'd rather bank a scholarship then to take the guy he'd been targeting?
It's Harbaugh's job to allocate the scholarships by position group. I'd imagine all the position coaches want as many players as they can get. Brad Robbins took the last spot in the class. Maybe Partridge did a better job lobbying for him. It would have been more logical to take another OL seeing how that scholarship opened up when Kai-Leon Herbert decommitted.
The comments about Howard all seem to have a common thread--he's got "it", whatever that is. He connects with people at a much more comprehensive and sincere level than most people do.
I don't know if he will be a great coach or not, but it sounds like he will be a great motivator and teacher. Obviously that won't be enough if the Xs and Os aren't there, but I think it is easier to learn strategy than it is to learn how to connect with people.
I realize a lot of these articles are puff pieces, but people are effusive about Howard. These aren't people making up some nice things because someone asked them--they all seem very genuine in their comments.
I just worry that a portion of the fan base are complete screaming eejits and will savage him and make the planet toxic while he goes through what probably almost any coach would have to do coming in. The degree of ridiculousness here, and even at the normally more subdued umhoops--outright hysteria that it was taking too long, etc.--has been stunning. Agree that Juwan's essential decency has a powerful effect on people; just hope he can also tell them to f*ck off.
EDIT: Interested in the fact that it takes Brian a day and more to respond to the press conference. I wonder if he decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Personally--though I wanted Juwan--I was none too taken with Warde's highly defensive performance.
It was not a good press conference. Howard came off very jovial and excited which is refreshing to see, but the tone was way too much “he is coming home” than it was “we need to keep this machine running.”
It was great to hear him mention all of his teammates from long ago, but those guys are far less the Michigan basketball that people know right now than are Nick Stauskus, Tim Hardaway, Trey Burke, etc. There was a hint of a “need to recessitate the program” vibe that seemed really out of place.
He seemed to connect heavily with the Michigan basketball of bygone days but very little with what the program is now. I know he did not mean “you have to start somewhere” to come off the way it did, but it wasn’t the right note. I am not going to read too much into an intro press conference but it sure felt a little off to me.
Your whole post is reading too much into the press conference.
The dude gave Beilein props all over the airwaves today and mentioned that he has the responsibility of keeping it all going on and off the court.
What more do you want? He even mentioned that during the press conference.
The ridiculous amount of negativity with you people is hitting absurd heights.
Just plain say it. You wanted Yaklich to be coach and now are pissed that he isn't which is why you're essentially sub-posting.
Blame Beilein for leaving at the worst possible time and not taking care of his assistants or warning anybody in person before taking the Cavs job all while leaving about 2 weeks left in the recruiting season for 2019 with a depleted roster. Then you'd probably see someone else as the head coach.
The amount of whining from Brian and Craig on the MGoRoundtable yesterday was pathetic. Just fucking say you guys wanted Yaklich to be promoted since he's apparently the next coming of John Wooden.
Seriously dude, your post is “blah blah blah blah.” You are the one freaking out, not me. I did not want Yaklich to be the coach. I loved the Howard hire. It was just a bad opening press conference. That’s it. That’s all I said. And many people agree.
Yeah if only Howard had just said something like "I've attacked and defended against a lifetimes worth of offenses and defenses at the highest level, and am going to transform that knowledge and experience with our staff and players to win games" everyone would be pretty happy with the press conference.
“What the program is now” is what’s on the roster. Resuscitate is obviously too strong a term for what’s needed, but let’s not get carried away in the opposite direction.
Even before Beilein left, it was universally understood that the team was likely to take a step back this coming season. If you’re Howard, it’s quite reasonable to behave like you’ve got your work cut out for you, because you do. Matthews and Iggy and MAAR and Walton did a lot for U-M, but they can’t do anything for Howard now.
Harbaugh's press conference was all about "homecoming" too. He didn't get into Xs and Os and staffing. It's totally appropriate for this type of situation.
I did not suggest that Howard should have gotten in to any of that.
His answers to what kind of player will you recruit and what type of offense will you run seemed to display a bit of unpreparedness. At the least a couple of boilerplate answers would have sounded better than we don’t really know yet.
The quotes from the article with Musselman reinforce the fact that we need to be ready to be patient. Howard has enough to learn right now to cause anyone to sometimes stumble.
Good point. You changing your avatar?
No, I'm not ready to do that. But I certainly want Juwan Howard to succeed at Michigan!
Yes sir...it will take him a good amount of time to adapt and we need to realize that...ALL of us
Was it the greatest presser, no, was I personally expecting something less than stellar..yes. (the part where he was talking about Cole B. I was like ummm wait, nooooooo..oh wait he signed.)
haha he has a lot to learn
I got his back, the little that means :)
Yeah...PATIENCE RULES!!!!
Who needs the NCAA Tournament excitement when we have PATIENCE.
The low expectations of this fanbase when it comes to basketball is unbelievable.
Fuck off Wayne.
It’s interesting to me how often people have used the Cole B reference as an example of how much he has to learn. It almost always includes the poster thinking, “oh no” and then remembering he signed his NLI. It’s not a violation, and he obviously knew that as he didn’t mention Wilson, Franz or any other recruit.
Pfft. Brian should stop promoting local music festivals and stick to state and local politics.
On the note of the music festival, stop by Blank Slate Creamery at First and Liberty for some of the best and most unique ice cream in the state!
Be prepared for a LONG ass line
It's still a big deal to me how Juwan Howard left early for the NBA, yet still graduated with his class.
In his first year in the NBA with all of its fame and riches, instead of carousing and chasing parties and women, he got his degree in the spare time he had to fulfill a promise he made to his grandmother.
That speaks volumes.
I sincerely hopes this works out.
Fucking Drevno never goes away. This team was significantly better without him last year. We have nowhere to go but up again this year. Oh, and fuck Pep too.
Drevno - now running backs coach at USC pulled from the O-line. No surprise there. While he seemed to be a seriously nice guy in pressers, he appears unable to squeeze the most from his players on the field.
Call me crazy, but if UV is going to claim it references Giddy Potts, it might actually want to reference Giddy Potts.
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