Warde and Juwan comment on the season and future
Warde:
Michigan basketball went 8-24 and finished in last place in the Big Ten, which was “not the season we expected,” Manuel admitted Wednesday. But the AD said he was heartened by the effort the Wolverines showed in the face of their struggles.
“The effort never backed off, and for that I am proud,” Manuel said
Howard:
“There are going to be a lot of decisions made when the season ends -- obviously the season just ended. We'll regroup tomorrow, and we will sit down and talk as a staff on our needs, our wants. At the same time, we're going to do a great job -- I trust we will do a great job in executing that plan,” he said.
Howard later added: “I look forward to coaching next year.”
I wonder what effort backing off would look like compared to this.
Lack of effort is the very reason I thought Juwan has lost his team. Often times, this team quits in the second half. And gets blown out.
I'm just wondering what Warde is watching.
Hopefully that's the "coach speak" and him not wanting to publicly shit on the players. But you never know with Manuel.
He doesn't have to shit on Juwan or the players, but he also doesn't have to say anything that's so obviously contradictory.
In fairness the comments by both Warde & Juwan were made immediately after the game ended last night.
Warde was literally standing next to Juwan when he said that - my guess is he was simply looking for something positive to say in that moment, I didnt take it as some ringing endorsement for the future. And what the fuck is Juwan suppose to say? "We sure sucked again today, didnt we. I really dont know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to coaching basketball".
I wouldnt read anything deeper into either comment given when and where they took place.
Top coaches talk about having to play weird guys after a launch.
Well, if he was being honest, yeah
I for one would appreciate some plain honesty from the coach.
Why is it so hard to admit that he did a terrible job this season and the players did terrible too. This isn’t what we were aiming for but yeah we utterly failed and it’s not acceptable.
Why does everything have to draped in 30 layers of PR and coach speak?
Because the truth is just too damn upsetting
March 15th, 2024 at 12:22 PM ^
Worked for Pitino. Now I, like many here, hate Pitino and think he's a sleezebag, but he called out his players by name and was widely condemned for it, but since he did St. John's is 6-0 and probably going to the tournament.
He didn't realize he was watching re-runs of the Beilen era on BTN
He’s not watching, that’s the problem. Dude is at the buffet line while the basketball program has crumbled around him.
so you're saying there's a sub basement?
I saw guys not even attempt to box out, jog back in transition, and fail to stop the ball/look at each other to do it.
That didn't just happen in the last game. It happened constantly.
Saw that PG from Nebraska just dice us up
fully comatose?
Aware but not fully aware?
A lot like this.
https://twitter.com/brockheilig/status/1766882689099948120?=42&t=W0iyy_SudiMjbX0JH86PTg
Physically not taking the floor to play games would presumably count.
I lost whatever respect I had left for Warde after that. The effort was embarrassingly bad. And Obvious.
Well ya know, none of the players stopped breathing, so in that sense there was continuous effort throughout.
March 15th, 2024 at 10:06 AM ^
It may not look like I'm doing much right now, but on a cellular level, there's a lot going on.
If that was a subtle dig at Juwan, I’m all for it lol
They were very ready to call it quits last night instead of trying for one last hurrah in the postseason.
Im picturing the tennis scene in Royal Tenenbaums where Luke Wilson takes off his socks/shoes, while openly weeping on the court and throwing his racket
How many offensive rebounds did this year’s team just stand and watch the other team get? Last game I watched (and turned off) they watched the other team grab three offensive rebounds and may as well been sitting on the bench. I would have benched the entire team and played the walk ons. They would have given a damn
“I look forward to coaching next year.”
I just hope it's as an assistant for the Heat.
I was thinking maybe a youth YMCA team, but "anywhere but here" is also an acceptable answer.
The only possible way to keep Howard would be if Manuel knew that Michigan's admissions were not going to stand in the way of any transfers and that NIL was promising big money to bring in an entirely new roster.
Edit: I don't actually agree with this, I just think its the one argument you could make on how things could be improved next year.
Stop.
I don't think that would be enough. The far bigger problem is the repeated lack of effort and disorganized game strategy due to poor coaching.
Agreed. IMO, given the lack of attention to detail, poor defense, and bad boxing out that is endemic to the team would only mean a player like Terrence Shannon regresses here and wouldn't have looked anything like he does now.
People rending their garments and pointing angrily at "admissions" need to get some perspective.
Yes - we actually have academic standards and hold athletes to those (including transfers - although athletes *do* get far greater leeway than the rest of the student body). HOWEVER, this is not a problem with proper planning and due diligence. Football, hockey and numerous other sports contend with same issues (as did basketball *before* Howard). This is nothing new.
Blaming anything on "admissions" is like blaming the tides for washing away your beach blanket - the only people seriously impacted are those who didn't think ahead.
Spot on. The basketball team is probably one of the smaller teams in terms of roster size at the university, but the amount of admissions issues they have compared to other teams is completely disproportional.
Transfer credits have taken on a whole new set of priorities with the Transfer Portal. TO deny this is to deny that it even exists. Dealing with the problems of yesterday is not the same as dealing with the problems of today.
BTW, 'admissions' is a euphemism for the transfer of credits issue that plagues upperclassmen trying to transfer into Michigan.
Juwan could do himself a favor and look for transfers that can get in, and not tell dudes they can come without knowing if they can or not.
Football has been able to use the portal quickly and effectively by identifying the right guys.
First, the university should not have separate standards for athlete credits than other students - that would be like a slap in the face to everyone else. *rimshot*
Second, the issue of transfer credits isn't even uniform across the school (i.e. this isn't the main admissions office causing the problem). Each department/college within the university has their own standards about determining how many & which credits they will take from outside institutions. Again - if a problem arises with a certain program, that is something the student (and whoever is working with the to arrange the transfer) should address at the very beginning of the process. Catch a problem early enough it might be solvable (even by simply applying for a different program).
Third, this is *not* just a "recent" problem only involving upperclassmen transfer credits. People in our fanbase have been (misguigedly) blaming "admissions" for recruiting issues for *decades*, long before transfers were even a major consideration (with the RR showing prominently since that was a coaching staff *not* understanding the environment where they were trying to bring in kids... they were still recruiting as though they were facing WVU standards).
Planning is everything... and for these salaries there is not much excuse for failing in that.
So if that applies to transfer credits, why doesn’t it apply to admission standards more generally? I don’t think you have any defensible reason for your position. Athletes in the major sports (basketball, football, and hockey) absolutely get in with far lower grades and test scores and I don’t just mean marginally. I mean but for the fact that these guys play sports, their application would have been tossed in the trash. It’s not an instance where you have someone with like a 3.5 and 27 on their ACT and you’re like “hmm a little lower than we’d like but he’s well rounded with the sports and is also a 4*.” I’m talking guys like with C averages in non-advanced classes and like 15s other ACTs. I’ve asked you this before and you’ve never responded. Why isn’t this a slap in the face to the rest of the student body, who largely got in on merit? And for the record, I don’t mind or care, but your stance is just BS l, hypocritical, and sanctimonious.
March 15th, 2024 at 11:10 AM ^
Admissions "standards" and comparisons between prospective undergraduate students and transfers from other universities are *not* the same - this is an apples-to-oranges comparison and your citing of various metrics such as GPA and standardized test scores are not as relevant in the latter as they are the former.
And... performing "due diligence" on the academic viability of athletic recruits absolutely *does* come into play for "admission standards more generally"... however you meant for that to be taken. As I've said, athletes do get some degree of favor when going up against admission standards, but this is only so far (where the exact line falls is purposely vague and not public knowledge, but it is certainly higher than for other universities). Yet, "admissions" is not simply a one step process - the general university has their process to admit, defer, or deny, but then individual colleges (and some departments) have their own standards on top. For example: a kid can apply for UM admission and want to go in the College of Engineering; they might pass general university admin but be denied entry into CoE (I personally know some who did - they enrolled in a different college then transfered into CoE after a year or so).
The process is even more difficult for transfer students - Michigan values its curriculum highly and makes it very difficult for outside credits to transfer in (this also brings in more revenue to the school since transfer students may need to take more classes than they would otherwise). I have also seen this firsthand, both from transfer students that I met that came to UM and later from being part of a department curriculum committee many years ago. Individual colleges/departments have even much greater influence than the university when it comes to accepting transfer credits as part of *their* curriculum... the *university* might accept a course from another institution, but if the *department* does not it just becomes an elective credit... mostly useless when trying to complete a specific degree.
I'm sorry my statements offend you (for some reason), but you might want to familiarize yourself with the details and process further before getting upset.
I'm also sorry you feel I'm "sanctimonious", but I believe that academics is priority one, two, and three of a major public flagship university and have never hid that position. I *also* enjoy sports & competition and having Michigan excel at the latter without historically compromising the former is a point of pride as an alumnus & former employee. I also believe that, regardless of how gifted a student is physically, that should have *zero* bearing on their academic status (including admission & assistance) - it inherently becomes an unfair advantage compared to those students that never had the opportunity (why should an athlete get preferential admission and full ride for playing a game, especially in a non-revenue sport, when a kid in a wheelchair applying to UM has no chance at those - even if both students are academically brilliant?). The argument that athletics is the best marketing tool for universities is only a half-truth... and far less accurate for schools like Michigan, which never hurts for applicants and has one of the lowest acceptance rates of any public university.
This is just saying a lot of nothing. Athletes get major favoritism. Rivals used to post the GPAs and test scores of recruits. Michigan was regularly taking and signing guys with 15 ACTs. But for football they would not even sniff Michigan. Most of them are applying to LSA or Kines. There really is no reason why LSA should be drawing such a distinction when they’re already dropping their standards to admit substandard students.
March 16th, 2024 at 10:58 AM ^
I outline actual procedural intricacies and first hand observations from decades of experience and you claim it as "a lot of nothing".
First, perhaps you shouldn't take much stock in what "rivals" post about the academic qualifications of high school students. Aside from the legal and ethical concerns that poses, one should also consider the *accuracy* of such claims.
Second, one bad result isn't necessarily a deal breaker. If a kid had a poor result on a standardized test, it can be repeated (people take the ACT multiple times and only need to use their best result - even if someone else knew they bombed it one of the times)... not to mention they can submit other tests (e.g. SAT) in lieu of the ACT.
Third, we *know* from previous experience in recruiting updates that there have been numerous kids that Michigan wanted and informed them early on that they needed to work to get their grades upon before graduation... only to learn that they dud not and those kids ended up playing elsewhere. It was a common refrain for a while with some coaching regimes - so clearly the admissions standards were not *that* flexible.
LSA is basically a "catch all" college and one needs to look into individual departments there to gauge the academic standards - admission into the Physics or Chemistry degree programs is going to have a different standard than the English, or American Culture programs (just as a few examples).
Harbaugh didn't seem to have many problems with the portal. Wallace, Stewart, Hausman, Hinton, Henderson, Nugent, Barner, Tuttle and Tucker were all contributors to varying degrees on the NC team.
grad transfer, grad transfer, freshman, grad transfer, grad transfer, grad transfer, grad transfer, and grad transfer.
Shannon was supposed to be a grad transfer and his previous school screwed him over. Jackson and Olivier were grad transfers. Not sure on the status of Burnett. The 3 PGs he has brought in were all grad transfers, as was the Brown 6th man shooting guard he brought in for the Elite 8 run.
So it isn't like Howard doesn't know how to get transfers in. The foreign kid this year was a special circumstance.
So the only 'failure' was Love this year, who was coming from a similar level public school as UM, which, ok.
Getting juniors and seniors to transfer when 50+% of their credits won't come is a problem. That can severely limit your options in the world that the portal has become.
The football staff also brought in Haussmann, an underclassman. They've understood the parameters and worked within them.
The issues I see are 1) basketball has gone after guys two years running when it wasn't sure they could get admitted and 2) when they didn't get admitted, had no plan B.
CAVEAT: I am not an insider. I know nothing. The following is my opinion only.
I've felt since Warde gave his support for Juwan several weeks ago, after the kerfuffle at practice, that this was Warde not firing a coach within the season, rather to play out the string, and make a move in a quieter time. That said, my opinion is that Juwan will get the firm handshake and encouragement to find his landing spot and make the move 'for [insert reasons here] reasons' of his own accord. We'll then all wish him well, because he will always be part of the Fab 5, and then the real searchbits begins.
Sounds good to me. Nobody wants to hate Juwan he just seems to be in over his head. He needs 10 new players. After his 5th year.
This isn’t going to end, is it?
My genuine worry is they retain Howard and he cobbles together a 17-14 type team that the AD sees as enough progress (Hey, a 9 win improvement! Arrow back up!) to retain him another year.
They aren’t going 17-14 with him In charge. He is lost. Does not know how to motivate. Does not know how to get guys to buy in cause he is offering very little of anything beneficial and nothing to buy. He never (as a coach at Michigan) understood how to prioritize what needs to be prioritized. He was always more concerned about his personal views, his kids etc…
I don't think he is either, next year's roster is going to look like a mid level 1 bid league roster, but that said a lot of bad teams steal wins and post .500 or so records. If Warde is still AD a bad but lucky team could have enough of a W/L improvement to justify keeping him in the mind of the one lazy guy who makes the call.