david dejulius

recruiting is the book of Job [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

It's not your imagination. That was the biggest basketball recruiting nut punch of ALL TIME (alllll time):

Michigan manages to appear twice on this list despite almost never recruiting top ten talents during the existence of the crystal ball, and this doesn't even cover the Tyus Battle/Josh Langford double whammy. If you've obliterated this from your memory: when Battle committed, Beilein dropped Langford because he refused to oversign by one, Langford committed to MSU, and Battle flipped to Syracuse.

At least this debacle had a silver lining:

Michigan scrambled for Ibi Watson in the aftermath. Watson was indisputably the best of the three in 2019-20, because Langford sat out with injury (again) and Battle was in the G-League after leaving Syracuse to go undrafted.* You could argue that he's actually the best player of the three after a 20% usage, 121 ORTG season with Dayton. Even if that's… uh… aggressive, Watson would have been a heck of a consolation prize if Michigan had stuck it out with him.

So let's survey potential consolation prizes? Michigan's options follow.

*[Battle is a classic example of a guy who probably would have stayed in college if he had his name and image rights since "Syracuse star senior" is probably more lucrative than "Iowa Wolves rookie".]

[After THE JUMP: screw it get the Dutchman?]

sometimes the big gives up on you [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

As the basketball roster turns. Columbia grad transfer PG Mike Smith committed earlier today; Ace covered the departures and Jace Howard taking a walk-on year yesterday. Meanwhile a previous edition of UV mentioned that Isaiah Todd had removed various mentions of Michigan from his social media accounts. These items are in conflict: Michigan's created scholarship room they suddenly don't seem to need.

Howard can always pick up a scholarship later, of course, but at some point the thought inside the program was that they had more bodies than spots. Brendan Quinn confirms that neither transfer out was planned:

DeJulius and Castleton are somewhat curious departures. Both were in line to compete for larger roles as juniors. Juwan Howard and his coaching staff were not planning for either departure and were somewhat surprised by the decisions, according to those close to the situation. Both contacted coaches and teammates before their transfer decisions were made public. It wasn’t known internally that Castleton was leaving until late Tuesday night.

DDJ averaged over 20 MPG last year and was going to have a shot at being the starting point guard, but there had to be some talk about a potential departure there for Michigan to go after two Ivy grad transfers. Those processes started weeks ago, particularly since Ivy grad transfers know for a fact they're leaving after the season.

Meanwhile, as the Never Give Up On A Big guy I'm obviously hurt by Castleton's departure. I half expect Castleton to take a redshirt year wherever he goes and then becomes Future Ibi Watson. Watson, who did little other than jump really high at Michigan, was the sixth man on the #4 team in college basketball this year, shooting 62/39 on solid usage. The grim Michigan fan sitting on my right shoulder projects him to have a top ten block rate on a mid-major darling in 2022.

Losing those two guys quickly turns Michigan's 2020-21 roster from a clown car into a reasonably full sedan. Further departures (or failures to arrive) leave open spots. So it's nice that Andrew Kahn tracked down Isaiah Todd's coach for some reassurance on that front:

Byron Williams wouldn't predict exactly when Todd would send his national letter of intent to Ann Arbor, but has no doubt that he will.

"Absolutely," Williams told MLive on Thursday when asked if Todd will end up a Wolverine. "He loves Juwan (Howard)."

Todd's foreign options have always loomed but it seems like those would be off the table now since foreign leagues are just as shut down as the US is. Hard to imagine they'd be able to negotiate deals with one-and-dones right now.

[After THE JUMP: Smith comparables.]

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Via Josh Henschke:

The Michigan Insider has learned that Michigan sophomore point guard David DeJulius will enter the transfer portal. According to sources that are familiar with DeJulius' plans, he will be entering the portal at some point this week and has called U-M to say his goodbyes.

DeJulius's pending departure was foreshadowed by Michigan's interest in a couple of grad transfer guards but still comes as a bit of a surprise. DDJ emerged to become a 21 MPG sixth man this year and was probably going to get that much time next year even if Michigan does get Josh Christopher. He shot 46/36 and had a turnover rate barely into double digits; he also became a very good one on one defender over the course of the season. A normal development pace should have seen him become a decent to good Big Ten starter.

Eli Brooks remains as a point guard option, but his scoring deficiencies are locked in at this point. Michigan would be able to function with Brooks as a D-first off ball "point guard" if Christopher and Franz Wagner are initiating much of the offense. Flexibility would be limited.

Unless there's a reversal in the near future Harvard transfer Bryce Aiken's destination just became a lot more important. Freshman Zeb Jackson is also an option at point guard, though it's hard to know how ready he will be to log minutes after a season spent as a deep bench option on a loaded Montverde team.

There is no content after the jump.

life without X will be different

still extremely good at this, thankfully

Michigan hasn't cracked 30% from three in six games 

at least we're done listening to tim brando

can we run this back, we know how to win it now

there's more than one way to pick a roll, or something

Michigan either shoots badly and wins by a fair bit or shoots well and turns you into radioactive glass 

hot damn

not like 80s music, like putting weird things together and having it work... okay like 80s music 

best enjoyed if you skipped the first five minutes or so