Can Donnal and Chatman bounce back from underwhelming freshman campaigns? [Fuller]

This edition of the recruiting mailbag—now featuring hoops, too—covers the impact of KJ Costello's commitment to Stanford, a guess at when Harbaugh will land his first commitment, and some discussion of next season's basketball rotation.

Assuming Costello stays out West how big an impact does that have on all these other offers out there?  Didn’t seem like too long ago we were hoping for Costello and a bunch of other guys to visit together?  Would be great to have a West Coast Tentpole (it’s a thing I think), especially at QB, in the class to link up the offers (and optimism) with commitments.

Tx as always for your time.

Dana

Michigan's forays into California are always going to feature a lot of misses; they'll keep at it because the hits make it well worth the effort. Landing a whole group of Golden State prospects was always a longshot at best; even before Costello went off the board, receiver Theo Howard—who described Michigan as his "dream school" after receiving an offer—pledged to Oregon, and it looks like receiver Dylan Crawford could follow in Costello's footsteps.

Jim Harbaugh has already experienced some success recruiting the state, however. Getting five-star OLB Caleb Kelly to foot the bill for an unofficial visit was impressive, and Kelly's mentioned a desire to return for an official visit, which would be a great sign for Michigan's chances. Four-star OLB Camilo Eifler will take an unofficial days after the spring game. Four-star S CJ Pollard said he'd take an official visit as soon as he received his offer. Four-star TE Devin Asiasi is a good bet to take an official, as well. Several others at least have moderate interest; if I had to guess, I'd say Michigan gets at least one California prospect in the class.

That'd be a huge step in the right direction. Seth was kind enough to dig into his database when I asked him about California recruiting under previous coaches. The disparity between Lloyd Carr and the last two coaching staffs is huge:

Carr: Tom Brady, Russell Shaw (transfer), Patrick McCall, DeWayne Patmon, Justin Fargas, Hayden Epstein, Courtney Morgan, Charles Drake, Zach Kaufman, Calvin Bell, Tyler Ecker, Spencer Brinton (transfer), Matt Gutierrez, Leon Hall, Keston Cheathem, Morgan Trent, Eugene Germany, Jason Forcier, Chris Richards, Johnny Sears, Jonas Mouton, Zion Babb, Avery Horn, Donovan Warren, Michael Williams   

Rodriguez (1): Tate. Unless you count Burzynski.

Hoke (2): Mags and Wile

Carr averaged about two California recruits a year, and he landed his fair share of big-time recruits, like Brady, Fargas, Mouton, and Warren. As Seth points out, a lot of those guys were from power programs, like Matt Gutierrez at Concord De La Salle—a connection forged back when Carr was the defensive coordinator and Michigan landed a wide receiver from DLS by the name of Amani Toomer. Reestablishing a strong rapport with California's top schools will pay off, even if it's more so in future classes than 2016.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the mailbag, which includes maybe the greatest reader email I've ever received.]

Just read about the busy visitor weekend, should we be holding our breath at all?

There hasn't been a prospect pointed out as an imminent commit watch candidate that I know about, but I think Harbaugh breaks through with his first 2016 commit sooner rather than later. Brady Hoke, who hit the recruiting trail with similar aplomb, if not the same national name recognition, got the initial commitment for his first full class (2012) on April 12th. With a ton of visitors on campus this weekend and next, Harbaugh should be able to best that, even if there isn't a blindingly obvious candidate at the moment.

@AceAnbender (1/2) how do you dictate the minutes for next years hoops team? Beilein has always had a short bench but next yrs team could be

— Andrew Wink (@andrewwink) March 27, 2015

@AceAnbender (2/2) really deep. can he buck his own trend and roll 9/10 deep? #mgomailbag

— Andrew Wink (@andrewwink) March 27, 2015

Unless a team has Kentucky talent, I'm not sure a nine- or ten-man rotation is optimal, and while Michigan does return a lot of depth next season I believe it's far more likely a player or two drops out of the rotation. Brian's already tried to piece together a minutes distribution and it's tough to find roles for everyone, especially if Caris LeVert returns.

At Michigan, Beilein's rotations have usually gone seven deep, or eight if there's a viable third center (Horford or, in last season's context, Bielfeldt) around, and those tightened up as the season went along. With so many options, I think a lot of guys see the floor early in the season as Beilein gets a sense of what he has and tinkers with different lineup combinations, but by the time Big Ten season rolls around he'll have set a shorter rotation. If that means MAAR or Chatman or Robinson doesn't see much time in 2015-16, that shouldn't be a huge issue—they all have plenty of eligibility left and more minutes will open up in 2016-17.

Ace,

While enormous improvement from sophomore guards has become pretty standard around here, forwards seem to be a little less predictable. What kind of progress should we expect to see next year from Chatman and Donnal, two of the bigger disappointments of this season?

David

For both Chatman and Donnal, getting more consistent with their shooting is paramount, and Beilein's track record provides plenty of optimism in that regard. With a year of strength training, it's also reasonable to expect progress on defense and the boards—especially for Chatman, who's got the wingspan and instincts to be M's best rebounding four. Donnal really has work to do there, as he was consistently overwhelmed by true post players, and usually had to resort to hacking—he had easily the worst foul rate on the team—to prevent easy buckets; he had a hard time preventing bigs from establishing position.

I'm more optimistic about Chatman's prospects than Donnal's, if for no other reason than Chatman not having the benefit of a redshirt year heading into last season. Based on Michigan's depth on the wings, however, there's a decent chance Donnal ends up with more playing time, barring a DJ Wilson breakout. (I'm by no means ruling out a DJ Wilson breakout.)

I somewhat doubt either is an integral part of the rotation next year—I certainly don't expect either to start—but the transition for bigger players to the college game can be a rough one; both are capable of taking a big leap. Chatman's got great length and shows flashes of top-notch skill, often with his passing. Donnal could change how the offense operates if he's able to hone his three-point shot and at least tread water on defense. We'll see.

Ace,

I've been trying to outline UM's best case scenario for 2015-2016, stop me if I get too unrealistic.

A healthy Derrick Walton takes a delayed sophomore leap to become an all B1G performer, accompanied in the backcourt by a returned Caris LeVert, who uses a NPOY campaign to solidify himself as a top 3 draft pick.  Jaylen Brown commits to UM and joins Zak Irvin and Ricky Doyle in a vicious, athletic frontcourt.

Hip surgery revitalizes Spike Albrecht, and he leads a Kentucky-style, 5-man substitution 8 minutes into each game featuring MAAR at SG, who takes home B1G DPOY despite averaging just 16 mpg in B1G play. Kam Chatman's proverbial light turns all the way on, and he is joined in the 2nd unit frontcourt by Aubrey Dawkins(58% 3pt) and  DJ Wilson(4.7 BPG)

Mark Donnal, Duncan Robinson, and Austin Hatch all take immense leaps forward, but can't sniff the rotation due to the talent on the rest of the roster. However, as Michigan participates in so many blowouts, these 3, plus Dakich and Lonergan, lead the team in minutes played.

During the course of the B1G season, Michigan goes into Kohl Center and hits 14/14 threes, intentionally putting every single one off the backboard. With his MSU squad down 28 at Crisler, Izzo deliberately injures his own players with a cricket bat to provide him with talking points at the post-game press conference.

During the NCAA tournament, Spike get's Kate's number.

After the undefeated season, Beilein takes the team on a barnstorming tour against US and global basketball powers. Opposing squad members often ask for autographs before the game or during timeouts.  The world is shocked when the US National team manages to tie the game with 5 minutes left in the 2nd quarter.

Once the team's place in history is cemented, Beilein reveals himself as an ambassador for a superior race of mild-mannered extraterrestrials, scouting lightly-recruited Earth for entry into his planet's utopia.  Earth commits, and the entire human race plus our cultural landmarks are transported across the stars to a new and better life.

During the journey, the unmanned ship carrying Value City Arena is plunged into the sun.

Did I miss anything?

--Abe
@Smoothitron
MGoBlog: Smoothitron

But do they beat the US National Team?