It's finally, mercifully over
March 13th, 2024 at 11:20 PM ^
I watched the last 11 mins of the game, for some reason. Michigan didn’t make field goal in the final 6 mins until a scrub made a desperation heave at the end of the game. That was rough. Thankfully this season is over.
I turned it on just before halftime. At halftime, the studio guys were showing clips of PSU guys hustling and diving for balls... while Michigan guys were standing around and watching them. And there was plenty of that in the second half as well.
It's one thing to lose a basketball game because you have inferior talent OR because the opponent's shots go in OR because your shots just don't go in, provided you are trying. But there's no excuse for lazy, disorganized, half-assed play in a tournament game that is win-or-go-home for your team. That tells me that the team has quit and that's on the coaching staff.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:21 PM ^
This team quit 2 months ago. That alone is reason enough to fire Howard. Good riddance to the entire coaching staff
March 13th, 2024 at 11:23 PM ^
8-24
Hard to say much more than that.
But if I must:
The mitigating factors are this:
- Howard is a Michigan man, will always be a program legend;
- Howard did, indeed have a serious health issue that played a major role in the lead-up to the season;
- It was mostly not players he recruited, but Howard coached a really good team just a couple of years ago and made multiple tournament runs, with last year being the first year he missed;
- Howard has, in fact, had a hard time building the roster with guys he successfully recruited to come due to policies that are not necessarily his fault and probably do warrant some self-reflection from the University.
- Michigan is not a rush-to-fire school and chose to stick with a program-legend coach after a losing season and won a national title, so there is precedent for a give-more-time strategy working.
However:
- 8-24
- You still have to put a roster together no matter how tough. If you roll the dice on hard-to-admit guys and get burned, you still were the one targeting the guys.
- Some significant in-game coaching questions remain unanswered;
- There are multiple data points of Howard struggling to control his temper; there's no reason to believe he will not struggle again in the future.
- The big one to me: He lost the team.
He lost the team. Now, see the final point above: one of my big arguments for firing Harbaugh in 2020 is because I believed he lost the locker room, and it remains unquestionable to me that the collapse against Wisconsin that year was a situation where the team quit. So I have to have some humility here. But, c'mon. You may have roster problems, but guys can be coached to play defense, but this is two years where basic stuff just hasn't been bothered with. That's not talent. That's effort, and frankly it's the responsibility of the coach.
I want to be painfully honest here: I suspect Juwan's tragic downfall has been recruiting his sons to the team. The relationship between fathers and sons is complex, and it can be hard for coaches to coach them properly. Sometimes they are too hard, or sometimes they aren't hard enough. There are plenty of examples, in multiple sports, of elite-level athletes with fathers coaching in those sports choosing to play for other teams.
Crucially, it wasn't just one son. It was both a four-year backup-type *and* a blue-chip recruit that no one in their right mind would consider Juwan not wanting to have on his own team. But that blue-chip recruit didn't exactly seem to mesh with a good team basketball concept, and a team with a lot of really good talent on it never put things together. They couldn't play defense.
And I wonder if Juwan lost the locker room because he couldn't properly coax his sons to put the effort into doing the little stuff, and without that, nobody else would either. Juwan is a guy who cut his coaching teeth in the NBA in an awesome franchise culture, where the players are pros both technically and in the best sense of the word; you don't have to get after them to do stuff. You give expectations and guidance, and they put in the work themselves. Juwan came to college and you need to be able to teach and exhort guys differently. And each player on the roster could see that Jett and Jace didn't do the stuff and didn't need to.
It's just supposition. I could be way wrong.
But: 8-24.
What are your issues with that? Would you like to keep Howard? Let him go? LOL doesn't say much without context.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:05 AM ^
Stephen, I appreciate you trying to take a measured stance with great points.
Bottom line is the team lacked fundamentals in a horrible way. Terrible floor spacing and movement, awful and lazy passing, terrible efforts on rebounding, defense was non-existent.
Roster management is pathetic, end of game strategies were terrible.
Juwan sucks at every and any metric you can come up with.
The fact that we have to even wonder if Warde will fire him is some kind of stupid.
Any comparisons to Harbaugh are unwarranted , different track records by a mile.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:21 AM ^
Does it make difference, that’s up to you. But we are not being honest if we don’t list as a mitigating factor the fact that this team rarely had the same group of available players in back to back games.
only Reed and Burnett played every game. (WillT and TWill only missed 1). And they were all staggered. That makes consistency almost impossible.
No Cran, that's just making excuses for Juwan.
He is responsible for the state of the program. He has also embarrassed the school multiple times while being a hot head. I loved Juwan the player but I can't stand Juwan the coach, sorry.
The toughest part is watching what we were under Beilein and now watching this dumpster fire.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:33 AM ^
You kinda lose legend status when you lead the program to depths never before seen
Not sure I would say that - there are plenty of examples of players (in numerous sports) who were legends while playing but flamed out trying to coach... and probably even more who were relatively unknown as players yet became great coaches.
Juwan is still a legendary player... just maybe not a good HC (in college anyway).
I think Stephen King is looking at this as objectively as possible. And I think you’re right. While there were signs of slipping prior to Jett coming here, Jett’s season seemed to change the players culture. And it showed the last two seasons.
Never thought about the impact his sons would have but this is very true. The final straw was a lazy Jace, on a full ride to one of the best public U's in the world, gets a great (but cranky) S&C coach fired.
I was fortunate to work in a company where nepotism, though it had its moments, was never a dominant feature. His sons are spoiled and sooner or later Juwan can thank them for getting canned.
I wasn't for Jim to get fired after 2020, but felt he needed to move on for his own mental health. Thankfully, he recharged the staff and we went 40-3. Juwan, if back (as I expect, since Warde isn't one to do anything bold), could very well go 0-fer in the B1G next year.
I really appreciate you trying to look at this as objectively as possible, and you make a lot of great points, but I still don’t even remotely understand anyone who tries to make the comparisons to the 2020 season with Harbaugh.
1) That was such a weird season that should have a full asterisk next to it for everyone. Played in the middle of a pandemic with rules changing and updating all the damn time. Different conferences get to do different things.
2) How many of Michigan’s players said they planned on coming back and impact players at that, and then the pandemic hits and they all decide to bounce? Harbaugh had guys who he was planning on making a difference for that team and had to scramble to readjust. His game plans without them.
3) Perhaps most importantly, Harbaugh had a proven track record leading up to that season. Not just with Michigan, but at multiple stops. His teams at Michigan, up to that point, were always somewhere between pretty good and “literal inches away from the CFP.” Inches away from winning a Super Bowl, and had brought Stanford back from the dead. There was a lot of argument to say he earned the benefit of the doubt to get another shot.
Howard has no such track record whatsoever.
I know what you’re trying to say, but this is apples and oranges.
Since I am not interested in arguing for Howard’s retention, I’m not really interested in parsing this out, but acting like it’s not the same thing doesn’t pass muster. When you look at the program from the perspective of the athletic department, the parallels are very visible. Howard is a Michigan man. He produced a really good team, too—that 21 team was a hair’s breadth away from the Final Four and would have gone if either Livers hadn’t gotten hurt or Franz Wagner hadn’t lost his shot completely in the Elite Eight, and while those were mostly Beilein guys there were also key parts that Howard brought to the table. The locker room is a problem, but as I discuss above that was a question with Harbaugh, too. The circumstances were awful in 2020, but with surgery you’ve got a circumstances argument here, too.
Many of us overreacted to 2020 in football, but the team was bad. It just was. Bad breaks on personnel were real. But so have been Howard’s bad breaks on personnel. A complete revamp of the staff was needed after 2020, and that certainly seems the case this year.
If you want Howard gone, arguing that there aren’t parallels to 2020 is useless. The athletic department is going to see the similarities. They’re there. Michigan has a longstanding culture that moves slowly on this stuff, sticks by its people, doesn’t fire in-season. We have benefitted from that at times, including after 2020.
Someone who believes that Howard should go won’t accomplish anything by pretending that these parallels aren’t there. The athletic department will see them, will remember all the noise from people like me after 2020. Saying “it’s not the same thing at all” just suggests to them that the noise can be ignored the way it was ignored in 2020.
Instead, argue why the parallels are insufficient. Why Howard is not likely to succeed with a new staff and another season the way Harbaugh succeeded. Why the strategy that worked in 2020, if applied the same way, will damage instead of benefit the program.
Those arguments exist. Some have been made; I’ve just made a few. Your last point in particular is real (I would suggest that an unexplored issue is whether or not Juwan is well suited to coaching *college* as many coaches struggle to cross over from the pros). But that point does not mean that there aren’t parallels. It is an argument that the parallels are insufficient. Pretending there aren’t similarities just makes it likelier that the real arguments will be ignored. The arguments that are right there for us. Arguments like: 8-24.
Stephenrjking- first, love your early books but I think your talent is waning
Something is off with Howard's coaching- maybe he feels to much pressure and that is ruining the team.
This year's team was off to a good start and then Juwan returned and everything turned to shit. To me, that is enough of an a/b comparison.
If Sherrone went 3-1 and then Harbaugh took over and went 8-20 I think we'd all agree where the problem is.
Howard should have left due to medical reasons after his surgery-
March 14th, 2024 at 12:03 PM ^
> Instead, argue why the parallels are insufficient.
There is no Blake Corum or Aidan Hutchinson on the team. Nor is there a recruit vaguely comparable to JJ McCarthy telling us (literally) to have faith in the program. I was probably >90th percentile here in expectations for 2021 football because of this. Football is a different sport with large hordes of players, but Howard is going to be out looking for 7th-best players on decent teams that will be the #2 or #3 option for Michigan next season. That stuff doesn't work.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:05 PM ^
Even if you want to give Howard one good year as a HC in 21, that it is still only one good season as a HC for a positive data point. Harbaugh had multiple good to great seasons at the NFL and college level by 2020. One data point versus many, not the same thing at all.
This is exactly Stephen's point. There are obvious parallels between Harbaugh 2020 and Howard in 2024 that any Michigan partisan will at least momentarily entertain, but a close look at the entirety of both contexts reveals important differences that inform what Michigan should do next...
As has been pointed out countless times, 2020 was a career-worst season for Harbaugh that followed a string of decent to great seasons, both at Michigan and elsewhere. Also, Harbaugh had already shown a knack for recruiting fresh assistant coaching talent as need be. Howard, unfortunately, has neither a prior track record as an HC nor much experience turning over his staff for the better.
That observation, made clear by the comparison, is why Michigan should move on from Howard. As Stephen points out, the comparison is undoubtedly useful for people at Michigan because this is a conservative institution that moves cautiously by nature, especially when deciding the fate of one of its own notable alums. 8-24 speaks for itself in the realm of fandom, but Michigan is always going to act deliberately and consider contingencies, even in such an obvious "fire the guy already" circumstance.
Georgetown fired legend Patrick Ewing
St John's fired legend Chris Mullins
And I dare say the were both bigger legends as players at their schools than Juwan is at UM.
As Michigan fans are usually fond of pointing out, Michigan is not Georgetown or St. John’s. Whether Michigan *should* have such a view of itself is a matter that is open to question, a question I am willing to ask. But the reality is that this is how Michigan thinks of itself.
Why even make your first collection of points (although true in statement, not in context) and then go shit all over them with your follow-up points.
This isn’t a case of needing to look at Howard’s season “from both sides”. He needs to go, either from his own choosing or that of the administration.
If he doesn’t, his legacy will almost certainly be tarnished, that is if it hasn’t already.
This is about the most cogent summation I have seen.
Who do you think should be the next coach?
March 14th, 2024 at 10:39 AM ^
Juwan probably has to go and I am fine with it but
It was mostly not players he recruited, but Howard coached a really good team just a couple of years ago and made multiple tournament runs, with last year being the first year he missed;
While not his recruits, Howard had to replace our top 3 scorers his first year. In Howard's second year, the team was almost entirely Howards. The only key contributors were Eli Collins and Livers versus the players Howard brought (Mike Smith, Chaundee Brown, Franz Wagner, and Hunter).
March 14th, 2024 at 12:35 PM ^
This is not a comment to crap on anyone referencing 2020 Harbaugh situation when talking about basketball, but I really wish we would all drop it.
2020 was peak COVID and it was a made up/fantasy season to have some perception of normalcy when everyone thought the world was freaking ending. Its a made up season that no one should take seriously at all, or even try to use as a talking point when comparing to the now, in relation to sports I mean.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:26 PM ^
I actually watched some of the 2nd half
no shit.... even went through the trouble of logging into peacock (I've been paying 6 bucks a month since football season for some reason)
So it wasn’t just me that signed up Labor Day weekend and then forgot about it
"This shit works!"
- Peacock bean counters
We have Peacock for some other shows, but I did actually have the game on in the background while I did some other things last night.
The portions where I was watching.....like nearly every game that I watched (in whole or in part) this season, I just rolled my eyes at another horrific turnover or another technically sloppy sequence.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:32 PM ^
POSBANG?
March 13th, 2024 at 11:33 PM ^
This season has been like slowly stepping on a rusty nail.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:20 AM ^
Over and over and over again… even though you know it’s right there
March 13th, 2024 at 11:37 PM ^
The fact Howard will go to bed tonight with a job is the tell-tale sign that Michigan doesn't take basketball very seriously.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:41 PM ^
Until next season when Warde brings Juwan back because Harbaugh worked out.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:45 PM ^
The good news is that I'm getting a lot of work done around the house without the distraction of Michigan basketball. Bad news? I miss it. Michigan basketball wasn't a thing when I was in school (98-02). It was fun watching Beilein make the program relevant. Sucks watching Howard fail, but he's the head coach, it's his program and his record.
March 13th, 2024 at 11:53 PM ^
Get ready for more of this because nothing is going to change.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:13 AM ^
I’m old enough to remember when it was honorable to resign.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:40 AM ^
Those who stuck out the game threads deserve some recognition, true basketball sickos
March 14th, 2024 at 12:43 AM ^
honestly, I am stunned how sideways this went after a promising start... never thought Michigan was going to be world beaters, but I thought maybe they could be a 12-13 seed.
The implosion... I hate to speculate, but this was as bad as Eberlle's teams were...
its one thing if the players also accept some of the blame and support the staff, but it just doesn't feel like its trending that way...
if there are fractures between the team and Howard, I am not sure how they can possibly keep Howard at this point.
These are exactly my thoughts. After the first handful of games I thought for sure this was an upper half of the B1G and NCAA tournament team. I can't help but think the internal strife between Howard and Sanderson severely impacted Howard and the team. The team started going backwards, things snowballed when key guys got injured and Howard couldn't or didn't know how to turn it around, and then the whole thing crashed and burned in a big way.
The timing of the Sanderson incident (supposedly late Fall, perhaps about the time we were 3-0) certainly leads one to believe this was a jolt on a team that had questionable talent and dubious work ethic. That one jolt was enough to crush any togetherness and focus, hence the bad losses to follow. This team was really a house of cards on many levels, waiting to fall, but I never expected 5-24 to follow.
I'd like to see a change come Monday but expect Warde to carry on for one more year. It's much easier to kick the can down the road as a leader than take decisive action. I know a lot of people want Warde gone, but my sense is that he is more secure than ever in his role, particularly with the BoR. Santa is not going to push him out either. He doesn't have power alone without consulting with the BoR. His elevation to Prez of CFB PO committee speaks volumes of what his bosses think of him.
I'm expecting an even uglier 24-25, maybe not even winning 3 B1G games. Throw in a few more embarrassing home losses to mid-majors like LBSU and McNeese. This time Warde will have to make a move if we are drawing 3K for games vs. CMU and half the fans are Chips.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:48 AM ^
Clean house
March 14th, 2024 at 12:50 AM ^
No it ain’t with Juwan coming back and, of course, Warde the great firmly in place.
Basketball is largely my favorite sport. I especially love College Hoops. I gave up on us this year about mid January. I haven't watched a Michigan basketball game since then....
I love Howard but he has done such a horrendous job that if he comes back I feel Warde will have to commit seppuku.
The whole thing sucks
The team finished last. Last time that happened, the team's god damn shorts had fucking belts on them. Coach should be turbo fired.
Not just last but by 4 games! In a down year for the conference.
Remember how promising the season was looking when Michigan went and beat the snot out of St. John’s at MSG in the second or third game of the season. Who knew we’d only see this team win 5-6 more times in the whole season.
Honestly if Juwan isn’t let go by the end of the day then I don’t even know what we’re doing here.
I heard that Michigan defeated Marquette in a closed scrimmage prior to the season’s start.
Not what was expected..
March 14th, 2024 at 10:11 AM ^
Maybe they won because the scrimmage was without coaching. Coaching sure seemed to make this team worse minute by minute, half by half, game by game.
What a total train wreck.
I suppose we should be thankful that it bottomed out --- if they had salvaged a couple useless wins, Howard would have a better shot at returning.
Gross.