Juwan Howard: The Leader and the Best
I'm not sure how this isn't seen as the best possible outcome a'la HARBAUGH. Seriously.
Your recruiting concerns are silly as he not only was a former top tier recruit (some things you don't know, unless you know, and knows.) but also has been a parent in the Div 1 recruiting process. The only role he hasn't played in the recruiting process kitchen table conversation is the HC. About time.
He was in consideration to become a HC for an NBA team. That shows trust in organizational management skills. Full stop.
Documented that he develops bigs.
The cell phone numbers of literally the greatest basketball players on the planet. Like, personal relationships.
Will bring the Fab Five. (Doesn't matter if you don't want it, still additional value)
He has a degree from the University of Michigan.
In conclusion, consigliere really pissed me off. F*ck whoever said that sh*t.
Thanks Warde, excellent hire!
Can we just sticky a Juwan Howard Snowflakes thread?
before or after the one for yaklich?
Let's make two threads on each subject today. Like on Martelli and Haynes. It's single subject multi-thread day!
Did I miss something? Was there another post by someone (consigliere, maybe)? Is this the official press conference reaction thread?
I'm surprised there has been so little fanfare on the front page or here.
Live link to the press conference that just started at 12:05 PM.
https://mgoblue.com/watch/?Live=581&type=Archive
Juwan shedding tears already. Passion is on point.
Yep, this is a solid hire. Couldn’t have gone any better, especially with the timing of Beilein’s departure. I’m watching this press conference. This is big, agree, agree and agree.
I liked the hire when announced and I like it more and more every day. So proud.
Damn Juwan, you're making me cry.
Howard up there crying he's so happy. Hard to not get excited about that
Welcome home Juwan! GO BLUE!!
I like the hire and I think he will do very well recruiting. My only concern is that he needs to prove to me that he is an X's and O's coach and does not get outcoached by Izzo and other high profiled coaches.
Spoelstra one of the best x’s and o’s Guys in the game vouches for his ability at that.
I don’t consider Izzo an Xs and Os guy at all.
He has relied on bully ball most of his career and instead of changing with the rules and adapting, he just complains a bunch to the refs until they start calling it more favorably.
He couldn’t figure out what to do with two NBA lottery picks and probably his most talented team. Hell, even last year they probably don’t sniff the final four if Ward and Langford stay healthy. Tillman and McPoyle made them a much better team defensively and a better team overall... and Izzo probably would have gone all year dumping the ball down to Ward never really realizing his team’s potential.
Any success the last five or so years can be attributed to good recruiting(probably a little $$), inexplicably keeping draft picks longer than he probably should(also probably a little $$) and name recognition IMO.
Yeah, I was gonna say...if you get "out coached" by Tom Izzo, then you've got major problems. Izzo's coaching philosophy (from what I and my dad - a spartan fan) can tell is...throw the biggest and most physical players you can on the court and tell them to go play street ball / just make up the offense as you go cause who needs an actual plan right? It's funny when they lose cause he gets so upset over Izzo's lack of a game plan...once again hahaha.
When can we discuss how messed up Beilein’s timing for leaving was?
You get an NBA job on the NBA's schedule.
It is messed up but it isn't Coach Beilein's fault that the NBA hiring cycle is several weeks behind the college coaching cycle.
Gosh isn’t that a dead horse, I’d rather talk about home made or canned gravy.
As soon as we're done discussing where the program was when Beilein took over relative to where it was when he left.
If your not all in on this by now, time to go
I'll fully own that this hire didn't excite me but I feel completely different watching this press conference. He wants to be here, this is his dream job. You can just tell.
I'm 100% on the Howard train! Can't wait!
You probably should pay closer attention to the PC. As of now he doesn't have any idea of what he is getting himself into and admitted to it.
I hope he picks things up quick.
Neither do you! He is the coach of the University of Michigan’s Men’s Basketball team officially now. So, actually your minute statement is totally incorrect. He’s heading into his first full season of coaching college basketball but has been coaching young men for years. The defense rests.
Just idiotic. I hope you listened to Warde after Juwan finished his press conference.
Carol Hutchins started off as a part time assistant softball coach and part time secretary in the athletic department. Many years later today she is the winningest coach in the history of COLLEGE SOFTBALL.
Everyone starts somewhere. Perhaps if we got Harbaugh in 2007 we wouldn't have had to sift through shit for a decade.
Hutch was the assistant at IU for a few years and then head coach at Ferris State for a year (and went 10-0 in the GLIAC) and then the assistant coach at UM for two years before being given the job.
Yes, everyone starts somewhere and that's usually a lower rung (like Hutch) as they work their way up proving themselves each step of the way.
If Warde actually compared the two, yikes.
He is everything he needs to be and has everything he needs to have.
Basically, you're faulting him for a statement that, to me, corresponds to humility and work ethic. Two very rare but excellent traits to have in our HC. I'm psyched for his tenure.
I think a lot of people forgot that his grandmother died the day he committed to Michigan. He has a lot of emotional attachments to the school.
Must be press conference time
Warde did a good job here. The way people demean him is simply unfair. He made a B hire in a context when there was no A hire to make. Well done.
Juwan is saying all the right things here, of course.
I don't think it's fair to grade it at this point. Even if it doesn't work out, his hand was forced, especially if you consider the blow back of hiring an alternative that fell short of expectations and wasn't Juwan Howard. Howard had to get a shot because the media coverage would have been unbearable, not to mention the blog. It would always be how Howard should have gotten a shot.
He made a good hire. No doubt about that.
But the way he handled the press conference diminishes my confidence in him, because it has the effect of diminishing public confidence in Juwan (which isn't Juwan's fault, since Juwan handled himself beautifully for the most part). Warde was needlessly defensive and came off as thin-skinned. The way he kept repeating the media's criticism of the hire as "risky" and a "gamble" (someone ought to count how many times he said those words) actually lent credence to that criticism. And talking about how Juwan will "evolve into the role" didn't exactly make it seem like Warde himself has the utmost confidence in Juwan. It sounded more like Warde was trying to convince himself that this was a good idea.
He doesn't need to defend this hire. It didn't come out of left field. The timing of Beilein's departure was unfortunate, and Billy Donovan wasn't going to walk through that door. It's the media's job to try to generate controversy where none exists, and it's Warde's job to avoid playing into their hands. At that, he failed. All he needed to say was twenty different variations of, "Juwan is the best man for the job, and I think he'll prove that." Instead, he delivered a meandering, defensive speech that came off as needlessly defiant towards people whose opinions don't really matter.
The time for criticism of this hire has passed. Howard is our guy and we need to be 100% behind him. Love the idea of getting someone like Martelli to sit next to him, and the fact that Howard wants him shows he knows he needs some experience to help him.
What adviser upset you?
He really is our basketball equivalent of Jim Harbaugh in every way, except Jim had success coaching in the pros first, and Juwan was about to get his shot. Who knows, perhaps he will fail. But maybe, just maybe, we snagged the basketball equivalent of Stanford Harbaugh.
He won the press conference for sure. Welcome Coach Howard and Go Blue!
Did he commit a violation with the Cole Bajema comment? If it was an honest mistake but the people in charge could have told him about that.
I was wondering the same thing. I thought Bajema had already signed an NLI, though maybe he had been released from it when Beilein left, so he has to re-sign?
If anything it's a minor violation (do they still use the term "secondary violation"?) that everyone knows is no big deal. I kinda doubt the NCAA will give is the death penalty for talking about a player who will be on campus in a few months.
I never saw a notice that Bajema had been released from his LOI. I assume there would have been four threads about it. :)
As long as he was never released from the LOI, or signed a new one since he re-committed, it's not a violation to use his name.
I wondered about that, too. I immediately thought "OOPS." I thought the coaching staff cannot make public comments about a recruit until the LOI is signed, sealed and delivered.
ignore me. The poster below covered my points re: the LOIs.
I thought the same, so I looked it up. He and Wilson were both publicly announced on MGoBlue way back in November as having signed their LOI's, so unless LOI's automatically go bad with the leaving of the head coach (which makes no sense given Wilson still had to formally be released from his) or Bajema was silently released from his LOI, it should be fine to name him.
This feels like Harbaugh all over again. At least he had actual head coaching and recruiting experience.
The thing is, we would have been FAR better off hiring Harbaugh back when he barely had any experience (he was at San Diego U) than the people we DID hire. Yeah, Harbaugh hadn't proven anything yet. Instead he went to Stanford and turned them into a National Power while we withered on the vine.
Great coaches are great coaches, even before they get their experience. Bad coaches are bad coaches even WITH experience. We don't know what Howard will be, but a lot of people THINK he will be a great coach. So maybe we grabbed someone that is going to be a great coach before he got the shot to prove it.
Or maybe he will fail. Most coaches do eventually. But I've rarely seen an assistant coach talked about as glowingly by both management and players as Howard is.
I agree I hope he does well. I don’t get the he cried at his press conference so he’ll do better than Beilein stuff on here, it at least feels like that.
And I don’t think comparing Howard to Harbaugh is a good thing anyways. I’d rather Howard be Beilein 2.0 that can bring in more talent, because you know, Beilein won stuff.
Maybe Howard can be Howard 1.0.
Hang the damn banners, Juwan!
I'm so pumped about Howard and the ongoing press conference is just fueling it. I can't imagine a better hire.
This is very hot take-y, but I feel like the program is even better situated for the future than we would have been under Beilein. In the short term there may be a slight drop off, but JB is 66 and likely didn't that many years left. There would have been a difficult transition at some point, so we might as well get started on it. Now we have our coach, for potentially the next generation. There's no possibility now of a late-career dropoff for Beilein or recruiting issues as it becomes apparent he is close to retirement. (Not that I think that would be particularly likely to be a big problem, but still could have set the program back at some point in the future). I think this is the best case scenario.
Look around college basketball. Izzo, Coach K, Roy Williams aren't going to be around forever. Assuming JH has a successful first few seasons, he can position the program as one of the premier ones in the country for the next generation.
We’ll see if Juwan’s the man.
The MICHIGAN MAN!