Warde and Juwan comment on the season and future

this is depressing and stupid and they both suck at everything.

I hope this is part of the "saving face" project as howard is booted out the door

One job opening taken... according to Pete Buckeye Thamel of ESPN, the former Ohio State head coach, Chris Holtmann will be DePaul's next coach with a six-year contract with the Blue Demons.

I am glad UM is a football school. I would gladly take the title in football and last place in basketball every year. Keep Juwan, use all the BB NIL for football and only bring in basketball players that are only here to weight lift in preparation for joining the football team, make use of that scholarship. 

Warde just move on from Juwan and get the search going!

Good lord I hope his all non sense PR talk just so they buy time to work out details of his firing...

I posted this in the earlier thread but news that Louisville fired Kenny Payne was out around noon yesterday after a season ending loss to NC State Tuesday night.   They were also 8-24 in his second season after 4 wins his first (and only 13-19 the prior year under Chris Mack).   He played on a national championship team for Denny Crum in the 80s and coincidentally has a son on this years roster.

I think Juwan is a great guy and he seems to truly love Michigan, but probably time to move on.

Warde however has already failed again.   He didn’t really need the last ten days of data.   Aside from the meteor strike level likelihood of running the gauntlet this week maybe changing a dismissal decision, he should have already completed whatever constituent conversations needed to be done (Santa, key donors, etc) and announced at noon today that Michigan was either retaining Howard for one more year or moving on.   Other ADs come across looking very proactive (Bama hiring DeBoer is another example) and Warde seems to be very slowly reactive.   Not a good look yet again.

“The effort never backed off, and for that I am proud,” Manuel said

I've never disagreed with a statement more in my life

Take Warde and Juwan both into a room at Schembechler hall where the floor is actually a catapult. Hit the button that fires them both into the sun. Announce that mistakes were made. Move on. Profit.

How to make this a "problem with the AD" situation...

!!!!!

“The effort never backed off, and for that I am proud,” Manuel said

That was some of the worst player effort I have seen by any Michigan athletic team in my over half century of Michigan fandom in any sport.  Not a body on the floor, outrebounded, outtoughed and no one to hold them accountable. Effort means more than running fast occassionally.

Now no one to hold the Coach accountable.  Wow.  Furious.

Warde sucks or he's never watched a basketball game in his life...

I certainly won’t be watching until there is a change. What’s the point?

Bring back Luke !!!!

Sounds like coach and AD speak to me.

Please fire ward!

Fuck Warde.

Again, pretty anodyne comments by both.  Warde basically saying "they were bad but they tried hard", which is designed not to crap on the guys and call them quitters.  Howard is saying "I'm going to try to fix it", which is what you expect as well.

I still suspect there's a change in the end but we'll see.

Manuel: I'm proud.

Howard: We have some decisions to make.

Those comments seem reverse. Makes it seem like Howard is getting ready to fire some assistant coaches and that is how he gets to keep his job.

I used to like basketball.

I'm not sure I understand the effort comment. When you play basketball, that desire takes over automatically. Maybe a jaded NBA veteran reaches a point when games don't matter, but when it five-on-five, you want to win.

However, this does not necessarily apply to preparation for games. Is the coach putting in effective game plans for his roster? Is he able to adjust during games?

This part we didn't see from Howard this season. Could be he knew he didn't have the athletes. But it also could be that he didn't know how to use what he did have.

I'm not sure firing is going to fix this problem. But if Howard doesn't have a realistic plan for fixing it, good players aren't going to want to come here in the future. The shit really didn't work this year.

What a bunch of complete bullshit.

This program is utterly screwed and hopeless.

This feels worse than when Ferentz refused to fire his son the OC

Get ready for a shitfest next year

FWIW, I join those saying that we shouldn't read much of anything into comments made immediately post-game.

When you are proud of the EFFORT there is nothing else to be proud of.  Come on Warde, this is a simple decision.

Did Warde not watch ANY games? There was a profound, palpable lack of effort for the bulk of the last two months

Unfortunately for those of us who root for Michigan, the national championship in football continues to obscure what for the most part has been a down year for Michigan athletics. When reviewing Warde Manuel's performance as Michigan's Athletic Director, consider that as of March 14, 2024 this is how many of Michigan's teams have performed during this academic year:

Men’s Soccer (5-6-7; 2-1-5 and tied for 5th in Big Ten)
Women’s Soccer (7-7-4; 3-5-2 and tied for 9th in Big Ten)
Men’s Cross Country - 2nd in Big Ten championships
Women’s Cross Country - 3rd in Big Ten championships
Field Hockey (9-8; 3-5 and 7th in Big Ten)
Men’s Basketball (8-24, 3-17 and 14th in Big Ten; 0-1 in Big Ten Tournament)
Women’s Basketball (20-13, 9-9 and tied for 6th in Big Ten; 1-1 in Big Ten Tournament)
Volleyball (7-22; 5-15 and 12th in Big Ten)
Men’s Hockey (20-13-3; 11-11-2, 4th in the seven-team Big Ten and 10th in the Pairwise rankings that usually predict the NCAA tournament field meaning that Michigan should make the NCAA tournament if they finish in the top 14)
Men’s Gymnastics (11-2; 1-2 and last of five teams in Big Ten; ranked 5th in nation)
Women’s Gymnastics (11-5; 9-1 and 2nd in Big Ten; ranked 10th in the nation)
Wrestling (8-4; 5-3 and 6th in Big Ten; 2nd in Big Ten Championships)
Men’s Indoor Track and Field (8th in Big Ten Championships)
Women’s Indoor Track and Field (5th in Big Ten Championships)
Baseball (6-11)
Softball (13-10)
Men’s Lacrosse (5-2; 0-0 in Big Ten; ranked 18th in the nation)
Women’s Lacrosse (9-0; 2-0 in Big Ten; ranked 6th in the nation)
Men’s Tennis (6-9)
Women’s Tennis (12-3; 2nd ranked in the country and runner-up to top ranked Oklahoma State in ITA National Indoor Championships)

After finishing among the top ten schools in the final Directors’ Cup standings in five of the six years in which the standings were kept before 2023 (the 2020 standings were canceled due to the pandemic), Michigan finished 11th last year and was ranked 21st in the final fall standings. 
_______________

To be fair to Warde Manuel, before last year and this year. Michigan consistently finished in the Top Ten in the final Directors’ Cup standings.

Final Directors’ Cup Standings for Michigan: 2023 (11th); 2022 (3rd); 2021 (3rd); 2020 (Canceled due to pandemic); 2019 (2nd); 2018 (6th); 2017 (4th)

2 incompetent morons who should both be shown the exit but will instead get long leashes because they attended school here 30+ years ago.

I would respect Warde 100x more if he fired Juwan before the press conference like they did at Utah State...though the always emotional Juwan would probably have a tantrum up on the stage.

Begs the question if Warde watched any of the games. Getting blown out almost every second half is “not backing off” the effort? And this is year 5? What a disaster.

Of course Warde didn’t say anything with Howard standing right next to him.  Howard might have hauled off and slapped him and then Warde would have to pay out a settlement to himself.

It’s like Warde thinks we forget what a good team and program looks like. We watched Coach B build this program from the ashes to be one of the best teams in the country. This team is pathetic. We’re not stupid, Warde!