Basketball Snowflakes
I will give Howard credit for the 2020-2021Big Ten title but things seem to be going south. I doubt Juwan gets fired this season but Warde needs to get a list of coaches together just in case. We can't do things on a budget like we have at points with this AD. Use that 17 million surplus and at least talk to Matt Painter, Mark Few etc.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:39 PM ^
Log out and take a break. The team will be better next season!! Go Blue!!
January 29th, 2023 at 1:44 PM ^
Isn’t that the point? Howard is the coach and the team is bad. At what point do you move on?
January 29th, 2023 at 1:54 PM ^
You don't fire a guy because of one bad year. You just don't; people were dying to can Beilein in the mid 2010's because of bad years and then he rebuilt his roster and staff and they bounced back.
The big thing you have to see is staff changes. If Howard recognizes the need for change then that's a good sign; if he tries to run it all back again then you can consider him movable. But teams can have bad runs/seasons and the coach can still work out.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:57 PM ^
They really underperformed last year too until the tourney.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:06 PM ^
They only underperformed if people assumed those top-15 guys were going to play like top-15 NBA draft picks. Neither came close to that (and haven't looked any better in the NBA/G League). Treat Houstan and Diabate more like mid-level freshmen and you basically had Dickinson, Brooks, and not much else.
Last year's team finished 27th per KenPom; that feels about right. They were a fringe top-25 team that got better as the freshmen aged and Jones got more acclimated to the offense. Them being ranked #5 or whatever they were to start the year is more on bad prognostication than UM somehow underperforming their potential. And every year there are teams that start off highly rated and then flounder; look no further than UNC this year who started off #1 and are now 31st per KenPom and not close to the top 25.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:19 PM ^
Kenpom isn't the end all be all though, OSU is 27th in Kenpom and they've been awful. They played a bit better but they were very inconsistent all year last year, they finished .500 in conference.
I don't think people needed the team to win the B1G last year or anything, but I think they wanted better than .500 and living on the bubble the whole season.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:25 PM ^
Yeah, before the ncaa tourney last year they were 17-14 and went 11-9 in the Big Ten. The sweet sixteen run wasn't a cherry on top of a nice season, it salvaged what was a rather pedestrian seasn.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:21 PM ^
Sure, but my point is that people probably should have been more sober in their analysis that replacing 4 seniors, including a lottery pick and two other guys who have played in the NBA (and Livers is a rotation player with the Pistons) with two unproven freshmen, one who was billed as incredibly raw and the other perhaps a bit overrated because of the talent around him in HS, wasn't going to replicate success.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:20 PM ^
2 nba picks, Hunter and a solid transfer pg and they barely finished above .500. That is not good coaching.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:51 PM ^
I wish them success, but Houstan and Diabate will be out of the NBA in 2-4 years. Sports is about having legendary performances. I get people need to get paid, but no one gives a shit about the one and dones unless they win a national champions (or come close) in one year. All of these guys getting drafted on potential and then disappearing is bad for the game. You used to have guys like Patrick Ewing and Rony Seikaly who were the faces of their schools.
January 29th, 2023 at 8:49 PM ^
Duke had 3 first-round NBA selections to UM's 0 and they finished 13-11 in 2020. Kentucky went 9-16 that year with 2 draft picks, one a first rounder. That's just off the top of my head. Judging "good coaching" based mostly on draft status is a dangerous road to go down.
The team wasn't great last year but, again, top-30-ish in KenPom with about top-30-ish talent and experience feels about right.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:29 PM ^
Yes, and a drop off is fine, although I argue they could have been better if he was better with his rotations and whatnot throughout the year, maybe a game or 2 difference. The thing is, they are worse this year in every way.
Next year, they'll be older, but possibly the same talent level and will have holes on the wings mostly, but they need to be better. Going around .500 in the conference again and beating maybe 1 decent to good team in the non-conference isn't good enough. Maybe, my standards are too high, but I don't think we should ever be questioning whether we'll make the tournament, I think the argument should always be what seed should we be.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:05 PM ^
Big Ten Tournament champs or bust.
We still have a chance to get into the dance.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:25 PM ^
I agree. Beilein was given ample time to figure things out and make staff changes after his horrible third year. After that, he was given even more time to finally bring in a 'defensive coordinator' to help him bring the D up to championship standards. IMHO, Juwan has earned the same leeway to make things right. What he does with that opportunity is the deciding factor.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:36 PM ^
The problem Beilein had was a lack of recruiting at the beginning. He was taking a knife to a gunfight. He turned the program around mostly because he could recruit better, and his coaches played an important role. Howard does not have that problem. He has had excellent players. He just cannot coach them. Also, his roster management is not good. Love the man, but he is not a good head coach yet.
January 29th, 2023 at 3:48 PM ^
Roster management is a huge problem. Juwan wants a team that works inside out but we recruit undersized guards that cannot shoot or effectively enter the ball into the post. If you want the offense to run through the post, you need more shooters.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:44 PM ^
But you also shouldn’t want to run the offense through the post.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:01 PM ^
Beilein had a rebuild. Howard inherited a fully built perennial contender and has gone steadily backwards with it.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:54 PM ^
This is just wrong. Beilein’s last team was great. But the players he left behind when he abandoned the team, completely unexpectedly, was average at best. The cupboard was anything but full.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:28 PM ^
I am pretty sure that
Senior - Zavier Simpson
Senior - John Teske
Junior - Isaiah Livers
Junior - Eli Brooks
Freshman - Franz Wagner
would beat Howard’s team this year more than 6 out of 10 times.
also pretty sure that this years team would be better with Cole Bejama or David Dejulius on the roster.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:33 PM ^
What evidence do you have that Howard can't "coach them"? Bufkin has gotten much better compared to last year; Dug is a freshman point guard thrust into a starting spot with basically no backup and is rounding into a plus player. People wanted Eli Brooks booted from the team and by the end was highly regarded by everyone.
Also, the "excellent players" he's brought in have been a mixed bag; Dickinson isn't what he was earlier in his career but he's still a pretty good college player and at some point you can't coach giving a shit. Houstan and Diabate were overrated and/or high-ceiling guys who needed time to develop. And neither have looked like any better players in the pros thus far.
Also, in terms of roster management he lost a PG in Collins because he had the temerity to recruit another PG (Dug) and brought in a combo guard (Llewellyn), which apparently drove Collins away for the umpteenth time in his career. And then Llewellyn was lost for the year right when it seemed like he was starting to figure out the offense. He tried to bring in Shannon and had him signed until the University made a dumb decision and didn't let him in because he needed something like 2 classes at TTU. That's proper roster management and just not getting some breaks.
I'm not going to say Howard has been great coaching this year; he's made mistakes and struggles working his offense with the types of players he has. And the defense has been bad (and was bad last year) and that needs to change via assistant coaching transition. But the idea that John Beilein was stitching together top-10 teams with true-freshmen castoffs from the bottom of the the 247 ranking and Howard is blowing it with all McDonald All Americans is crazy. John Beilein had 3 top-50 guys on the 2014 team...and went 16-16. Zak Irvin was a 5*, Walton was a 4.5*, Chatman was a top-40 guy and they all struggled. And then the following year with all those guys back (and two of them upperclassmen) AND Mo Wagner, they barely made the tournament. Shit sometimes just goes sideways for a year.
January 29th, 2023 at 9:39 PM ^
John Beilein had a long history of success before Michigan and in the two years before 2014, he went to the NCAA finals and the elite 8. In 2014, two of his three best players missed double digit games. There was ample evidence that Beilein was a very good coach.
With regards to roster management - every coach is going to have recruiting misses, but when you recruit a 6 man class and in year 2, you’ve only got 1 quality starter and one guy emerging as a backup, you’ve got roster management problems. Over 2020/21, 10 recruits have resulted in 2 quality starters, and one quality backup who you have to play as a starter. In your 4th year, the roster you have developed is counting on two freshmen playing major roles and they are surrounded by 2 quality starters and a few decent backups. That isn’t bad luck, it is bad recruiting.
January 30th, 2023 at 9:57 AM ^
Amen. Juwan may be doing fine in the recruiting rankings, but his roster construction is terrible and he is getting so little bang for his recruiting buck. He is the opposite of JB, who was a master at bulging teams and getting lower ranked kids that had upside and developing them into impact players.
Juwan deserves another year to turn this around, but a big turn around seems pretty unlikely given that next year’s roster will likely suffer the same kinda of problems. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a mural parting of the ways after next season as Juwan heads back to the NBA with his kids gone from Michigan.
January 29th, 2023 at 3:02 PM ^
Beilein was given time to figure it out because when he took over Michigan hadn't made the ncaa tourney in 9 years. Beilein got them back in the tourney his 2nd year. His 4th year he was back in the ncaa tourney. Beilein took over a program that was stuck in mediocrity for a decade.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:40 PM ^
Beilein took over a team that had gone 22-13 and proceeded to go 10-22. They then went the tournament, then went 15-17 the next year, then went on a run. Yes, that first year in 2007 they didn't have much talent but they did have two top-40 recruits in Harris and Sims (who was a sophomore) so it wasn't like the cupboard was completely bare.
And as noted elsewhere numerous times Beilein's post-Burke/Stauskas run wasn't great, with him missing the tourney once and barely getting in another time.
As for Howard, he took over a team with limited talent in 2019 with basically no time to recruit (Franz was the one guy he was able to keep around) and got them into the tournament before COVID cancelled the postseason. He then recruited Dickinson and brought in Brown and Smith because Beilein hadn't really recruited a competent PG option after Simpson and got them to the Elite 8. Last year they scuttled a bit because replacing 4 upperclassmen including 3 NBA guys is hard with two true freshmen and they still made the tourney and the Sweet 16.
Howard and UM have had a bad year, and he deserves a decent amount of blame for some of the on-court issues on offense and defense. But this site has the memory of goldfish when it comes to teams when they start losing and I swear it's infuriating.
January 29th, 2023 at 5:15 PM ^
I will never understand the argument of "little talent" in 19/20.....I would gladly take a team of Teske, Livers, Simpson, Brooks, Wagner, Davis, Johns, DeJulius, Castleon....
January 29th, 2023 at 9:02 PM ^
I said "limited talent" and when they were at Michigan some of them were. Franz as a freshman took half a year to figure it all out. Teske never quite took that next step people thought he would after Mo moved on. Brooks actually took a pretty big step forward under Howard; nobody would have considered him an essential talent under his two years with Beilein. Johns never got better regardless of coach. Simpson was fine as a PG but he was limited offensively and UM could never quite get over that.
Also, Beilein bailing as late as he did set the whole team up to deal with the upheaval, and yet they still went 19-12 and were playing pretty well to end the year. I think people have read too much into that year regardless of outlook but that might have been an older team but it has a ceiling that fans probably overrate a bit.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:08 PM ^
You're acting like Beilein and Howard have similar situations. You keep mentioning the 2 years Beilein missed the tournament and barely got in. Howard has already matched that since he barely got in last year and will miss it this year without a doubt. He doesn't have nearly the cache to build off that though, Beilein brought the program back and made a national title for the 1st time since the Fab Five. Howard made it to the Elite 8 yes, but he's accomplished for less relative to expectations. The idea isn't that he should be compared to Beilein's 1st year, he should be compared to his later years because that's where the program was.
What is a decent amount of time? He should get all the time Beilein had? That seems like your argument, but Howard isn't trying to rebuild a program, he's trying to continue it and he's not so far. I would give him 1 more year, but he needs to show major improvement, he needs to be one of the better teams in the conference, not just be better than this year.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:45 PM ^
you have two freshman and one soph as the primary ballhandlers. to think this team wouldn't struggle would be stupid. what cemented it, was llewelyn's ineffectiveness and eventual injury. college basketball is a guard-heavy sport favoring experienced players. we don't have it at all this year.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:46 PM ^
You act like Howard has ever been considered a good head coach. Beilein had won everywhere he was. Comparing them is ridiculous. Assuming Howard has the same capacity based on anything you have seen is silly.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:45 PM ^
Howard won a national coach of the year award and was on the short list for a number of NBA jobs before he came to Michigan. He's been well-regarded as a coach.
Beilein won everywhere he coached because he had time; he also left college basketball because he didn't want to deal with the current state of the sport. He also had multiple losing seasons at Michigan, something Howard hasn't had yet.
So yeah, Howard probably isn't as good a coach as Beilein; Beilein is a HOF coach for a reason. But fucking save me this "Howard is a bad coach" line of reasoning because his very young and limited team is losing basketball games for a year.
January 29th, 2023 at 5:19 PM ^
I do not think it's a "JH is a bad coach".....for me, it's more of he's an "NBA coach"....
January 29th, 2023 at 6:40 PM ^
Nailed it
January 29th, 2023 at 3:10 PM ^
I think Coach has earned the right for another year, but there's clearly problems with this year's team. If I'm the A.D. at the end of the season, you interview Coach and the players separately and try to figure out what the internal problems were, and whether the coaching staff tried to improve. Because clearly this team isnt having fun playing the game with each other. I'd even consult with former D1 coaches to review film from the season and get feedback on the team's performance and how these reflected on the Coach & staff.
After that assessment you have a follow-up with Coach and inform him of your findings & discuss. With the understanding that 1) this is a results based world, 2) as coach you're responsible for the bottom line, 3) the A.D. is here to support you in improving NIL and transfer opportunities.
We know Warde did some serious top-down management on Harbs after the 2020 season. So I'd expect this to happen with Coach Howard as well.
Not saying we need a coaching change this season. But I'm instantly impressed with Micah Shrewseberry after his post-game talking about how he called out his team for playing soft. And just being a disciple of Painter and Brad Stevens.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:31 PM ^
I compared him to Amaker, and that comparison is becoming more valid. We will make the NCAA only when we have a roster of elite players, and attracting those players will become increasingly difficult for Howard.
Howard could become an elite coach someday, but lack of experience, any head coaching experience, is evident. He has not developed a coherent philosophy of roster building and playing, and doing so while coaching at UM may not be possible.
I love his passion and love for UM, but it is time for him to move on.
January 29th, 2023 at 4:47 PM ^
Count me among the folks who thinks Howard deserves at least another year, but I agree with this analysis. There does not seem to be a sense of direction under Juwan, and his talent evaluation seems a bit questionable.
Perhaps this is unfair, but the Dug McDaniel situation jumps out to me. Much has been said about him being an inexperienced freshman forced into big minutes, but I think his stature is more troubling. Why did we recruit a PG who is 5'9" 160 to play in the Big Ten? The kid plays with a ton of heart and confidence, and I love that, but when will he ever not be a defensive liability?
I suppose that's anecdotal, and it's just one player, but I can't figure why Howard recruited a player of his size. What are the goals he has in recruiting players? What kind of roster does he want? It's hard to say as of now.
January 29th, 2023 at 7:10 PM ^
Simpson and Burke were small too. I think Dug can be good, he's a good playmaker, he's just a freshman.
January 30th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
I think Coach Howard put all of his eggs in the baskets of Bradley and Trimble. That being said, it still suggests that he was comfortable with recruiting a PG with a height disadvantage.
January 30th, 2023 at 11:37 AM ^
Yep,
Michigan should have canned Lloyd Carr prior to the 1997 season because he had 2 straight 4 loss seasons.
Duke never should have let Coach K stay after starting 17 - 13, 10 - 17, 11 - 17 and after that 18 - 13 year in his 16th season at Duke he should have been immediately terminated
I have no idea what UNC was thinking when they kept Roy Williams after going 20 - 17 in his 7th season. That simply isn't acceptable. It's not like he could go on to win an NCAA title after that kind of season!
Basketball is a different sport. Especially now. Teams (and coaches) are going to have more up and down seasons, like it probably should be, because roster turnover can happen so quickly and easily.
January 30th, 2023 at 1:08 PM ^
Not anytime soon, i would need this season repeated two more times before wanting to fire him. If the team gets worse that would obviously speed things up.
But you're talking about our basketball Harbaugh. He's got a ton of NBA experience and if he leaves here he's immediately on the shortlist for head coaching NBA jobs. It will get better, just like Beilein and Harbuagh both had their share of bad seasons and worked to make the team better.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:41 PM ^
He's had the same staff since he got here. He needs to take a page out of Harbaugh's playbook and shake things up.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:55 PM ^
Beilein made two different staff changes, both of them came when there were lulls in the program. Both times it paid dividends.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:41 PM ^
I thought the fire next to Skeeps might save our season but unfortunately that’s not the case.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:42 PM ^
I was wrong about this team
we are not going to the NIT
January 29th, 2023 at 1:43 PM ^
Anyone who planned on this team finishing in the top third of the league and making the tourney, wasn’t paying attention.
Juwan May leave (especially if Jett and Hunter go) but won’t get terminated (unless he smacks someone).
January 29th, 2023 at 1:46 PM ^
He will probably survive this season but it would be tough to bring him back in 2024 if a Jettless team misses the tournament.
January 29th, 2023 at 1:52 PM ^
I mean, with Jett they've looked like ass for most of the year. Howard is a great scorer but as a freshman he's awful defensively for long stretches and so I'm not sold there's going to be this huge drop-off if he's not on the roster next year.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:10 PM ^
I’ll say what nobody else wants to…
this team plays better without Jett than with him.
January 29th, 2023 at 2:18 PM ^
I've said it a couple of times. Jett is a great offensive player but he's not much of a passer, rebounder, or defender. If you're drafting him in the lottery you're hoping he figures all those pieces out, and honestly I wouldn't bank on it. That's the small piece of me thinking he might come back; he doesn't need the money and showing he can defend and create could vault him up.
But yeah, they looked much better defensively the 1.5 games he didn't play than they did now.