Honest Question re: Juwan Howard and the basketball program

People are pinning most of the blame on Juwan when that isn't fair.  The administration and Warde are also to blame.  

When it comes to coaching, Harbaugh has a proven track record and I was pissed so many people wanted him fired because of the covid 2020 season.  Just ridiculous.

We lament at how crappy NIL and transfer portal has made college football but one and done players, NIL, and transfer portal have made college basketball even worse.  We lost so many good players over the last 3 to 5 years in basketball. How many 4th, 5th year players have we had on the team?

While not everyone thought 2020 was an anomaly, the sentiment was that Jim H was a good coach but wasn't going to get the team over Ohio State or even pull away from MSU. Yet he was being paid like he'd done so. Was Michigan and the fanbase okay with 10-3 and 9-4 seasons, losing to OSU 100% of the time and MSU 50% of the time plus the bowl game?

The sentiment was no. For his contract, the results that would be okay would be to beat OSU 1 in 3 games, beat MSU 2 of 3, and win > 33% of bowl games. He hadn't beat OSU once. His overall records were otherwise acceptable. 

People wanted him gone, but not because he wasn't a good coach. He just wasn't good enough. Many were okay with rolling the dice and would have accepted worse results if it also meant a victory over OSU on occasion. 

This is different then Howard. Harbaugh still had UM averaging out as the 3rd best B1G team during his tenure to that point, maybe the 2nd. SP+ still liked some of those underachieving Michigan teams. Only in the pandemic year were they bad. In contrast, Howard's teams have been slipping every year. They are nowhere near a top 3 conference team. There is no evidence Howard is a very good head coach. 

For Juwan to right the ship it will require doing what Jim did: turnover staff and listen to the new staff. 

Juwan defenders are really something else. 
 

We’re an embarrassing 8-18 and the program is showing no signs of improving.  
 

I guess the good news for you is Warde won’t do anything and you’ll be back here defending Juwan when he’s 5-25 next year.  

Let's look at this another way -- if Juwan Howard were coaching at any school other than Michigan with the exact same track record and Michigan's head coaching position became vacant, would anyone consider hiring him for the job?

Juwan's 2024 is closer to Brady Hoke's 2014 than Jim Harbaugh's 2020.  

I am in the minority here as I believe we have a quality coaching staff in place in terms of coaching basketball and developing players.  

HOWEVER, there has been a disaster level performance at roster management.  Too many one and dones that weren't productive college players that left for the NBA anyway.  No continuity year to year.  Once this happened, Juwan did the best he could building a roster through the transfer portal.  You can find a good player or two to add to a good situation through the portal, but it takes some really good fortune to build a whole team through the transfer portal (losing Shannon and the other guy to admissions didn't help).  The portal guys we got this year have strengths, but they also have weaknesses.  This comes out too much on a team full of players with weaknesses that haven't played together. 

This ground has been covered many times. If you've missed the debate I'd say you're not reading a lot of the message board comments about basketball either.

OMG I'm so sick of people comparing the two.  It has been in steady decline.  Howard is more like Hoke not Harbaugh.  Every year has been worse than the year before.

There are a number of reasons that the situations aren't similar... to name a few:

1. Juwan's has not proved that he can build a competitive roster. As others have noted, this team just doesn't fit together.

2. He does not have the type of track record that Harbaugh has. This isn't just one bad season- they also missed the tournament last season and significantly unperformed expectations in the regular season of 2022. They are also Dead MF'ing Last in the conference. That should never happen at Michigan. He has destroyed everything JB built in basically 2 years. 

3. Juwan seems to have anger issues/self discipline- Telling Mark Turgeon "I'll kill you!", the infamous smacking of another coach in the face, supposedly challenging his own strength coach to a fist fight in front of his team and having that coach leave the program.  Any one of those things could get you fired - he's had plenty of chances. 

I am sure there are many other reasons fans are ready to dump Juwan - these are just the first few that come to mind for me. 

Howard has more in common with Hoke than he does with Harbaugh.

My question then, is how is this any different than post 2020 Harbaugh?

I must have missed the future #2 pick in the draft getting hurt and multiple other pro prospects opting out because of COVID.

How is this question being asked? 

Harbaugh inherited Hokes program.

Howard inherited Beileins program.

That should be clear enough 

Seriously either way Warde should come out with a decision quick, if Juwan is coming back he can recruit cause the roster depth is like none existent, and same if he is not brought back get a coach quick so the new coach can recruit because the depth is non existent. 

Make no mistake though: Harbaughs seat was way hotter than Juwans is.  Everyone wanted Harbaugh gone.  They wanted folks like Tom Allen to be the HC at Michigan, or Matt Campbell.  

I remember.

Harbaugh had a long-term track record of success as a football head coach.  

Howard does not have the same track record of success.  

2020 was a fluke year for the football team. JJH’s early years were solid, with some highly disappointing losses sprinkled throughout. Except for the late tenure Don Brown catastrophes, the losses were competitive, the team looked good and played solid, fundamentally sound football. The quality was evident, even if the results were less than desired. Except for that one year, of course.
 

This hoops team is not really comparable to Harbaugh’s teams, except for that 2020 year. Maybe this year is an extreme outlier due to Howard’s severe health issues, but there’s also historical trends indicating that future expectations shouldn’t be particularly rosy. Howard’s teams have always had major gaps, even when stacked with dynamo personnel. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he gets another year, so maybe we’ll get a chance to see.

Somewhere in America there's some,"Shampoo" being used.  How they made it I'm not sure.  Also Juwan injures his players on purpose so that they cannot play.  Also I'm not sure if you're aware.   It's his fault that some people believe that admissions, is not at fault.  See:Lee Aaliyah For some people truth doesn't have to matter.  That's Juwan's fault also.  Remember the movie,"Shampoo?"

Here's my take:

1) the yearly results are on a downward trend, not just one bad year.

2) Last year, he had 2 high NBA draft picks and an All-American center and could not make the tournament and also lost early in the NIT.

3) He has made zero changes to a coaching staff that isn't getting it done.

4) He slapped an opposing coach after a game.

5) He ran off a long time highly successful Strength Coach for sticking up for the trainer when Juwan's son was yelling at him.

6) His teams show a lack of simple fundamentals in playing the game (turnovers, bad shots, no offense, can only play defense by fouling).

7) His - arguably - best player is only eligible for home games since he's not going to classes.

8) His current team is dead last in a very down B1G conference.

Time for him to realize that resigning to save face is a smart approach.

One way in which they are different (Juwan/Harbaugh), the NBA plucks players much faster than the NFL.  So, Juwan has to deal with the pandemic, portal, NIL AND! the NBA draft to build a roster.

It is almost a fatal combination for all of college basketball.

Jim, for the most part, got to develop his players to their college potential.    

The main difference is Harbaugh understood you need guards on the roster.

2020 was a global pandemic that completely eliminated large parts of practice and development time, coupled with a coaching staff that was on its way out/didn't even set foot in the building (Safeties coach). It was also an outlier in the totality of Harbaugh's tenure. That being said, had covid not happened that team was still likely to end up in the 8/9 win area because they didn't have a QB, Brown should have been gone a year earlier, and the OL was young.

The basketball program has been on a consistent decline for years.

Year 1 they were a tournament team with some transition costs

Year 2 they were great and had Livers not gotten hurt, a NC level team (hell they almost made it there without him)

------ Beilein's guys are now mostly gone ------

Year 3 the were an 11 seed with an All-American center and two 1-and-dones that never came close to hitting any ceiling even as freshmen

Year 4 they didn't even make the tourney with an All-American center and two 1st round draft picks

Year 5 they are the worst team in the conference.

If you ignore all of the surrounding issues, that trajectory is just bad and consistent. Expecting the program to all of a sudden bounce back would require a belief that there's something there to support the bounce back.

A great recruiting class that just isn't on campus yet? Nope.

Star freshmen who are just not quite there yet, but they're going to step up? Nope.

A coaching staff that has continually gotten the most out of their talent and clearly developed an offense / defense scheme that they can rely on? Absolutely not.

Thank you for your honesty

People on here think they know sports better then the people who run sports teams.   Like they are better scouts or know how to coach college players to be better.   It is funny how little many of these so called experts really know.   I am a super well informed fan who has knowledge of inner workings of programs and can tell people that 80% of what people think they know or what is going on is funny.   They would be laughed off if they actually worked inside some buildings.    Go Blue!!! 

This same thing happened to J. Beilien and Harbaugh not to long ago on this very blog. 

let's not forget Harbaugh coming back from the Covid year is very rare. Most coaches bottom out then keep falling. Can you think of another situation where someone bombed one year in the middle of their tenure and then climbed back out? Brian Kelly at ND is the only one that stands out to me. And when they do, it's usually explanable by some unforseen circumstance (Beilien with the injury bug, even harbaugh himself with Covid). 

Anyways, just because it happened once doesn't mean it's likely to happen again. Comparing the two is more or less meaningless.