Bufkin to the Draft
Coach Howard has his work cut out for him next season.
Coach Howard destroyed the program. Top 10 program now at the bottom of the big ten. Have two guys declare for the draft and can’t even make the tournament.
I don't understand negging this. The only other answer is "the program was destroyed while he was coach but it wasn't his fault." No objective person can say the program wasn't destroyed.
And it’s not that he can’t coach. His roster management is horrendous.
hope he's got the team ready for lots of 3 shooting, because things don't look good for a couple of years.
his name gave him a great recruiting class up front.
but now, things might be different in recruiting
It is time for him to let Phil and Howard Eisley go. Phil does not know the modern college BB and Howard Eisley knows even less. He should bring a couple of specialists (similar to JB). A defensive specialist, and another one with experience managing the roster and scanning the portal.
There is not enough college coaching experience related to the new landscape in our coaches' room.
Wait you want him to let Eisley go? The guy responsible for guard development? The guy who made Dug serviceable and made Bufkin into who he is?
I am not sure how strong the evidence is in that regard. Last year did not work, and this it started to work. Still, I think bringing someone with a college basketball background is important. Here, we have Howard and Howard, with neither having coaching experience at any level. In this uber-competitive environment, our coaching room needs more college BB experience.
No kidding- Eisley has been very good.
Because "destroyed" is hyperbolic whining. Many teams have massive turnover due to the transfer portal, early NBA departures, etc. Everyone wanted him to recruit 5* one-and-dones so he did, they got progressively better through the season and then left for the NBA despite them not being ready. Then people complained he needed to recruit guys who weren't clear 1st rounders and develop them over years. So he recruited guys like Jett and Bufkin, good college players but not guys people expected to leave, and they both left either before or right when they started to turn it on.
Howard has issues as a coach and recruiter but so does basically everyone. It's a new frontier right now and don't kid yourself that Beilein wouldn't have had similar roster upheaval; hell, that's a major reason he left for the NBA.
Next year's team looks rough right now but we'll see what comes from the portal and player development. Bufkin looked unplayable last year and is a likely first rounder this year. Dug looked really good by the end of the year as a first year PG, and Reed looks like a plus defender. He needs to figure out the 4 and I assume there will be someone who emerges there.
This is college basketball and people acting like Beilein would have kept what worked in 2013 into 2024 are being myopic. Howard may not be the coach for this team but the reality is every coach in America has to deal with this stuff.
1) Other coaches are certainly dealing with the same struggles, but they’re also solidly making the tournament every year (or at least almost every year). Michigan is at great risk of missing for a 2nd-straight season.
2) I don’t know why you would assume someone is going to emerge at the 4 when literally nobody has for the past 2 seasons. Williams is who he is at this point. Cheddar never showed he was close to making a leap. And Khayat barely played.
3) Howard probably shouldn’t get that much credit for recruiting his son, who everyone expected to leave after one season.
4) The roster issues aren’t just about talent or experience. The pieces of this year’s team just didn’t fit. They didn’t complement each other whatsoever.
Michigan missed the tournament for the first time under Howard. Everyone assumed they'd at least make it this year, and everyone assume teams like UNC and Nova would at least make the tourney as well so long-term prognostication at this point carries heavy baskets of salt.
Kobe looked unplayable at the 2 last year and now he's a first round pick. And two years ago the 4 was Houstan, who toward the end looked perfectly serviceable and would have been a plus guy has had he returned. Williams is an energy guy off the bench and was miscast as a starter. But bigs can take time and I'm not giving up on Tschetter or a transfer 4 (Mack from Wofford would be an option) coming in and settling that down.
People keep saying Jett was a clear 1-and-done; he wasn't. He was a top-45 recruit and those guys aren't remotely givens to jump to the league. Now, he showed an offensive acumen people didn't expect and that shot him into the lottery talk but he wasn't a given when he signed by any means.
I agree the pieces didn't all fit but some of that is just bad luck with losing a senior PG 8 games into the year and some guys just being worse than expected. But that can also change year to year
I agree with every point you make but the one on Kobe being "unplayable." Kobe looked like a freshman on a team with a competent upperclassman in Eli. By the end of his first year, Kobe definitely looked like he was going to be a good player as a sophomore. Plenty of us were like: Damn, Kobe and Frankie gonna kill it next year. Sadly, that didn't work out for us.
Sure, Bufkin looked better by the end of the year but it was still a ton of projection in terms of how he'd look this year. And honestly to start the year he underwhelmed a bit. It really was the last 20-ish games when he went from "he might be pretty all-conference as an upperclassman" to "first-round lock".
Bronx you make great points that are very level headed.
Which teams outside of Kansas, Gonzaga, and MSU are making the tournament every year? Duke, Kentucky, UNC, Villanova, Louisville, UCLA, have all missed tournaments recently.
I'm almost always on the side of giving coaches time to work though issues, but I can't deny the trajectory of the program is bad right now. We'll see how the offseason goes, but it is reallyyyy hard to see how this is a tournament team next year. That would be three straight years of the program getting worse and two missed tournaments. That's enough to lose your job.
Every coach in America has to deal with this, but Juwan does a particularly bad job doing so isn't exactly a winning message.
And re "destroyed," the particular verb is far less important than the reality. The reality is that the program is in bad shape, and you can pick your adjective to describe it, but your choice won't alter reality.
So tell me how he did a "particularly bad job" compared to others on (checks notes) developing guys and sending them to the league? Are you talking purely about roster construction, and if so I'd like to know what beyond the logjam at PF that was particularly egregious.
The program is in a state most programs are - they're trying to retain talent and develop while dealing with the dual issues of NBA departures and guys transferring. Hell, last year's Final 4 featured 2 teams that didn't even make the tourney this year. Shit happens.
What frustrates me is NBA execs needing someone to fill their G league squads. Take Poole out of the equation as he went to the best place in the world for a SG to go to. Iggy, DJ wilson, Houston, Diabate, Kobe, Jett all couldve stayed in school until their talents were good enough to dictate an NBA roster spot. Theses execs are just throwing $1-2 million at these players and stockpiling what is mostly careers that fade away. Id take Juwan and his staff and building your brand behind an UM and NCAA viewing audience then whatever is coaching the Iowa City Madballers these days.
Let them draft the rights and let them stay in school.
Most kids will take $1-2M guaranteed over the possibility of something better. That is a boatload of guaranteed money for almost anyone, let alone an 18 year old kid.
I agree it's frustrating as a CBB fan. I hope at some point the landscape changes. But I definitely don't blame Jett, Kobe or anyone else that's come through UM and made the same decision
You identified what he is doing a poor job of. He got guys to the NBA, but that didn't translate to wins. His job is to win.
And then you doubled down on "the same situation as everyone else." Other teams are trying to retain players and develop talent while dealing with departures, but they're winning while doing so. Juwan is not. In the last two years he had 4 early entrants and a pseudo-All American, yet we were barely above .500, and appear to have the talent of a MAC team next year. That's not "shit happens." He's being paid $3.4 million per year to ensure shit doesn't happen.
Your usage of "reality" is subjective. Go take a Buddhism class and learn that your perception is just that, a perception of reality. Your summation of a yet to be completed roster doesn't mean squat.
It's pretty easy to see "the facts" that this team seems, currently, to have many weaknesses. I posited a lamenting set of questions the other night in a response to the post of hypothetical portal additions.
But you don't know who is yet to come aboard and you don't know how those players will jell or how much the current players you've already dismissed as "bad" won't make leaps in year 2.
Tarris and Dug showed enough to be competent starters with potential for more. Yussef flashed in his last two games and, if he doesn't bolt, could figure it out tremendously in year 2. They could all stagnate, but that hasn't been the trend of players under Howard and his staff.
Teske, Austin Davis, Eli, Franz, Tarris, Dug, Jett, and Mike Smith...theses guys all showed continued improvement under this staff. Baker even got better and more confident by the end of his one year in AA.
Any commenting on next year that stamps itself as "reality" needs a reality check. The only thing we know, at this point, in real reality, is that we lost our three best players from this past year's squad to the portal or draft.
The ball for how that plays out is in Howard's court.
Can you imagine JB trying to navigate NIL? Yikes!
For a lot of his strengths Beilein did come across as a coach who didn't like the idea of money, even above-board, being involved in basketball as it relates to players. I'm sure he would have adapted somewhat but my guess is people would have been annoyed with how he "lost out" on kids because he was more rigid around NIL deals than your average coach.
Yeah, some people want Howard to leave and should be careful what they wish for. I think Howard has done a formidable job. This season was unfortunate but we were right there still even with having lost so many players.
Howard will bring in a top transfer big and we will be fine.
People are acting like it's easy to make the tournament. And it's not.
There was a decade-long stretch of Michigan basketball not that long ago where they didn't even make it once. And now people are saying that they are at the "bottom of the Big Ten" (not even remotely true, check the standings guys) and should fire his ass for barely missing the tournament once.
Howard might not be able to turn it around. He might be able to. This is an inflection point in the program, it could be the beginning of the end of Juwan or it could be his Jim Harbaugh moment to figure out how to turn things around. We don't know yet.
I have no idea why people are bringing up Beilein. He didn’t coach in this environment, but he was far more successful than Howard with a much longer record of success. Howard isn’t in his league as a coach, and neither was any other available coach.
Not trying to continue down the JB hole, but Howard is barely into his head coaching career. Comparing Howard 5 years in vs JB 30 years is apples to oranges.
With that, I do think Howard would do better at navigating the new landscape compared to JB. Imagining JB trying to figure out NIL and how to scour the portal is frightening. JB got out at just the right time.
But this argument is used both ways. Howard isn't as successful as Beilein because he has a much longer track record but also Howard should be held to the same standard as the totality of Beilein's career despite the lack of longevity. Howard has coached UM for 4 years; go look at Beilein's first four years at UM if you want. Beilein is 70 years old and retired while Howard is 50 and 4 years into his career as a coach. So yes we have a larger corpus of a career to look back on for Beilein but it's illogical to grade one guy at a standard amassed over decades (while largely ignoring the down moments).
Juwan may well not work out as HC at Michigan but it always sucks to be the guy after "the guy" because fans inevitably have a distorted memory of how that actual career played out.
It's not binary. Belein isn't coming back. It's not him or Juwan; it's Juwan or someone else we plausibly could get. And the latter is better than Juwan given the available evidence.
Similarly, the relevant question isn't what Beilein would've done recently. The question is what MICHIGAN as a school can do/should have done.
What is the "latter" then? Name me guys who would come to UM who you know would be better than Howard.
You're talking in generalities, which is fine, but unless you've got clear examples and evidence to back it up this is just wishcasting with a "fergodsake this is Michigan!" rubbed on for good measure.
He wants the flash in the pan coaches who are having their "one shining moment" in this year's tourney. He wants the Florida Gulf Coast coach of yesterday that made USC into a PAC 12 powerhouse today...ooops, that Andy dude hasn't done much since he left FGC for Hollywood.
There are very few established coaches that have shown they can coach ANY team. Rick Barnes, Shaka Smart, Brad Davidson (ain't happening). Bill Self. Chris Beard. Icky af.
Miller never made Zona what they imagined, which is why he is back at Xavier. Hubie is having it worse at UNC than us, lol. Scheyer bowed out early with Duke and all those 5*s going in the lottery...and once he's had some years without the Coach K lore, what will come of his recruiting?
He imagines that Dusty May is better because he had one hot run this year. Where is UMBC now after they upset UVA years ago?
Immediacy is a drug. Urgency does not mean change. Fan is short for fanatic. Fanatic does mean irrationally obsessive zeal for a subject matter.
Howard should have 2-3 more years to prove himself in the NIL landscape, which will mean different things to different fans.
Can Matt Campbell coach basketball?
That "flash in the pan" guy who had his "one shining moment" made it further in the tournament than Howard has, and did it with FAU. Try another argument because that one is just stupid.
That's nonsense. It's not my job to find coaches for Michigan. That's like saying you can't have an opinion because "you never played at that level." Georgetown just hired a coach we supposedly could've had four years ago. I don't need to dial up coaches and ask them whether they're interested in Michigan to surmise that there are better choices out there. The extension of your logic is to never fire someone underperforming because at the time of the firing you can't know with certainty that the replacement will be better. You have a standard and when it's not met you try another solution. That's college basketball coaching. There are lower tier coaches that successfully move up all the time and the university employs people to identify such coaches when the present one looks like he's going to continue his poor performance.
To put it differently: you can't be confident in saying there's not a better alternative. I thought Juwan would succeed. He hasn't. You move on. Welcome to private employment.
You (Bronx) are the first the thread (if I’m reading it right with the bizarre formatting) or bring up JB. Howard’s career shouldn’t be compared to his career bc it’s a joke. And comparing JB’s first four years at program that was a huge mess to Howard’s first four at a program that was well established is likewise a joke. But you’re the one doing the same thing you’re complaining about other people are doing.
The original post was:
Coach Howard destroyed the program. Top 10 program now at the bottom of the big ten.
That's referring to Beilein unless you think he's saying Howard destroyed what Fisher created or you and I have a vastly different memory of the Ellerbe/Amaker eras.
Again, we keep having these dumb arguments where everyone acts like Amaker's teams were dumpster fires. They weren't - they were mediocre teams that probably should have snuck into the tournament at least once during his tenure. Amaker took over a tire fire from Ellerbe and righted that ship, and that helped Beilein at least come into a program past sanctions and with some talent on board.
Howard took over a program that was in a better state but also saw their long-time coach bail because he realized he couldn't retain talent anymore like he wanted. A mere 2 years after Howard took over the roster had basically 1 player from the Beilein era who had played significant minutes under him (Livers); it was a new team being coached by a new staff and deploying new schemes and approaches. And he did really well with that squad of guys he recruited and brought in.
I've said it elsewhere either to you or someone with this outlook - you can think the program is going down the shitter and want Howard gone. Have at it. But this revisionist history bullshit where everything good is because of the last guy and everything bad is because of Howard is obnoxious.
OP didn’t mention that he thought JB was a better coach or should be brought back. I don’t think Howard has destroyed the program, but the idea that it wasn’t in better place when JB left than now is silly.
I’ve always maintained that Howard should get one more year, so whatever you wanna bitch about there, go ahead. If he misses the tourney for two years in a row, that is unacceptable given what he took over. There is at least consistency in thinking that Amaker was doing fine and that this past season was no big deal— cresting the bubble and choking away a berth was an Amaker tradition.
But to pretend that Beilein didn’t fix a crap program that Amaker left is revisionist history bullshit. I don’t see why you feel the need to engage it in bc you think it makes Howard look better.
Howard might have been the best guy available when JB left and maybe he still is the best guy available now. JB was the greatest coach Michigan basketball has had in at least my lifetime. Whether Howard as good as him or is doing better than JB would do if we magically had him as our coach now doesn’t matter. If last season was just a blip, then I hope Howard stays even if I don’t think he’s better than JB. If he misses the tournament two years in a row, then they should look for someone else, regardless of how I think JB would do under NIL.
Again, you keep acting like "the program was great and Howard destroyed it" doesn't in any way refer to Beilein and the implicit statement that he wouldn't have let this happen. And if the argument, taken at the most charitable of face value, is that some other coach would have done immensely better and would have taken this job, then I hope the OP shares that instead of simply whining about how the team he likes stopped winning at the rate he was accustomed to.
I am not going to spend time relitigating the exact level of mediocrity Amaker's teams were, and if you consider "crap" to be somewhere between 60 and 30 in KenPom for most of his run (remember he was the one he really suffered for all the Ellerbe/Fab 5 fallout) then so be it. But it is absolutely revisionist history to act like the team when he took over and when he was fired were similar in any number of meaningful ways.
I have said that Howard needs at least 1 more year to figure stuff out, and if he could get some luck for once and not lose guys to the NBA that would help. He's not going to get it this year but I guess we'll see what he can pull out of the portal. But some fans of this program around here spend a nearly unlimited amount of 1s and 0s arguing Howard is an awful recruiter, player developer, and on-court planner. He read it here he's barely above a cardboard cutout of a coach with a clipboard. Howard may well not be a good college coach and we'll get a good idea of where he is on that spectrum this year. But I have also seen that whatever goalpost you put down people will simply move it, so I'm doubtful that if this team gets into the tournament next year as, I don't know, a 10 seed and get bounced in the first round everyone will say "oh that's fine, at least he made it back to the tourney" even if you can point to that trajectory being somewhat common even amongst elite coaches from time to time.
He isn't good. And you're going to see that next year as we did this year. Back to back tournament misses should lead to his firing. Don't know if it will but it should.
And just for your INFORMATION, Beilein left. Want to know why? He is also the reason Poole, left. Want to know why? It wasn't because he was enjoying the coaching.
JB lost his shit because he felt Poole left early and wasn't ready. He would have pulled a scanners head explosion with guys like Houstan and Diabate leaving.
Nobody realizes that Beileins first one and done was also his last one and done. Iggy, and to a lesser extent, Poole broke him.
It is ironic that Beilein, with his love for true amateur college athletics and a seeming disdain for the NBA pulling players away, left college to coach in the NBA. To this day the move made no sense. I was surprised it didn't work out better for him in the NBA, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
"Hyperbolic whining" - well put, bronx.
Failing to make the tournament ONE year does not constitute destruction.
CBB is horribly broken, and Coach Howard may or may not be able to thrive in the current environment - but FFS his teams made Sweet 16 last 2 years.
And will likely miss the tournament two years in a row.
Papa Kante is crossing the Delaware with GW fret not those Hessians will be on the run.
Nimari will join the fight.
What is happening now is exactly why John Beilein left. It’s big time college sports 2023.
If you want to assign blame, point it in this direction.
Other coaches can adapt to it. Howard assembles enough talent through the portal to make the tournament next year or he's gone.
How many years has the NIL been in play? It's supercilious to make such a claim that "other coaches are able to do it."
Like, did Brendan Gleeson win the Big 10 this year with his superstar portal team? Wait, Illinois bowed out in the first round! But, but...
UNC won it all this year, right? No, they didn't even want to play in the NIT and now have an ice-berg hole in their roster leaking their roster to the portal.
Well, look at Miami. Yes, their coach is having his first real success after more than 37 years. And he's retiring. And Juwan has just as much winning %.
Will any of the teams in this year's Final Four be there next year? Doubtful. But you can prove that others are doing it better?
It's year 2 of the NIL-Portal era, right? How can anyone, with a straight face, argue that other coaches have routinely figured out how to handle roster balancing in the NIL-Poral age? One year of success is a small sample size. It's silly.
In the portal era, it's hard to "destroy" a program. You can basically bring in a new roster and make the tournament. Super studs play for a year or two and bounce to the NBA.