Post Rutgers Basketball Snowflakes
This feels like the 2013 Hoke season where the carpet is about to be ripped out under us. Next year is make or break for Juwan.
Franz was not coming here but for Moe's great experiences at Mich- under Beilein- so I think he's at least 50-50 attributable to Beilein recruiting.
Agreed on the recruiting, and maybe Franz developed himself without any assistance, but the whole "Beilein guy" idea is based on the magic Beilein worked through his coaching. (I'd very much agree that he worked magic with many guys.) He didn't have any time with Franz so I don't think that's an instance of a "Beilein guy."
True that Brown and Smith weren't JB's guys but they aslo weren't JH's. They were developed and coached by other coaches. Good on JH for getting them but there is a difference between developing players and poaching guys that already know how to play.
Brandon Johns and Austin Davis were also JB's guys.
So out of the eight rotation players, four were coached more by JB and Yaklich, two were coached more by other coaches, and two were JH.
I am with you that JH does not appear to be a good coach. However, I would be really surprised if he is let go next year if this trend continues. I would argue that JH will never be "fired". I expect the same poor performance in the next few years, and then he will decide to leave. Of course, there will be pressures but he will not be fired (unless he repeats some of his bad previous behaviors).
It's possible he could improve. But he certainly needs to
As a true Michigan fan and former student athlete, I want Juwan to succeed. Things don't look good at this time. Juwan needs to do what Harbaugh did after the 2020 season and look deep inside himself and make whatever changes he needs to make.
It's too easy to crap all over Juwan and I'm not saying he's been a great coach this season. All of the comments on this thread with criticism has been fair so it will be interesting to see what the fallout is after this ugly loss and terrible season.
Hoping the Georgetown experience influences that thinking. State and OSU are down and Michigan is out. That’s on Juwan. The loyalty is ONLY because of his Fab Five connections.
Remember JB left because he saw the roster attrition nightmare of transfer portal and NIL coming. Juwan benefited by keeping that group together and then proceeded to deal with what Belein feared going forward. So Juwan needs to pivot on roster management quickly
Does he need to pivot or do we need more evidence? 1st full offseason he brought in Mike Smith and Chandee - clear wins - and retained Franz. 2nd year brought in Devante (OK, but necessary), retained Eli and had a freshman class everyone was excited about. 3rd year brought in Shannon until administration said no, Llewellyn after Frankie left (incomplete evidence due to injury). I think he's made reasonable roster moves in the offseason to fill in the roster, but the last two haven't panned out as hoped. Dug's development will be key to maximizing whatever roster changes are made for next year IMO
Yeah - I almost think it's more likely Juwan jumps ship to the NBA, similar to Beilein. College basketball is in a bad era right now and the conditions are making it very difficult to hold onto players and build a program. Juwan has coaching chops for sure, but he's having difficulty navigating an unnavigable college basketball landscape. I bet he would much prefer the pros where I think he would be much more successful.
Jace Howard is a junior. He will be back next year. Jett just showed he isn't ready for the NBA. He will be back next year. If Juwan goes to the NBA it will not be until after next season. He may realize college basketball in the era of the portal is a fucking joke but it won't be until after next season.
Every coach deals with the same "nightmare" though. Beilein may not have wanted to deal with it, and also didn't really stick around to even experience it, but plenty of guys win in the new environment, use it to their benefit.
If Juwan can't do it, someone else that can needs to be hired.
March 10th, 2023 at 11:58 AM ^
You trust a guy that starts Cheddar to build a roster?
We have no idea what next year's roster will look like. It was a disappointing year, but this team was also one player or ~15 points away from an excellent season. Super young team with lots of time in the offseason to evaluate and retool the roster ahead of next year. Also a long time for Coach Howard (and the staff) to self-evaluate and grow himself, having just finished his 4th season ever as a head coach.
Why does Beilein not get any shit for the absolute trash way he left the program? The time he left put Michigan in a terrible spot and the roster he left behind was terrible. People vastly overstate the roster Howard inherited and the extent to which his early success was because of Beilein. Howards second year success was basically entirely on him as a coach.
2019-2020 team had:
zavier simpson
john teske
isaiah livers
eli brooks
Austin davis
colin castleton
david dejulius
IMO that team absolutely finishes this season top 4 in this years big ten, is not on the bubble, and could make a run in the tournament.
JB didn’t leave behind a bad squad.
That team isn't good at all. Zavier simpson was awesome but an absolute spacing nightmare who couldn't be in games late because of free throw shooting. Teske was just a lesser version of Dickinson in every way on the court.
You are also looking at Brooks and Davis like they after Howard arrived. Both were zeroes who most people thought should be processed off the team going into that year. David Dejulius has had a bad career at a lower level and Castleton has done nothing at Florida. That team is terrible.
Zavier would be better than Dug and Livers was obviously better than anyone on this team but you don't know basketball if you think that team would have more talent. What an insane take.
This year sucked enough by itself on the court but easily the most frustrating thing is watching people just completely disregard history to shit on Howard on top of it.
Wow, these are some very very awful takes.
Simpson was an excellent college player and is so good he's getting some cups of coffee in the pros.
Ditto Teske. He's nothing like Dickinson. Teske was an excellent defender. Not a great offensive player but that's fine for a defensive center. There was a reason Michigan was as good with him on the floor as Mo Wagner in 2018. He also got some NBA run.
March 10th, 2023 at 12:01 PM ^
Yeah Im kinda confused. This is supposed to show how bad a roster it was?
zavier simpson
john teske
isaiah livers
eli brooks
Austin davis
You are way, way off, apart from Beilein leaving at a bad time. Livers and Brooks led the 2020-2021 team to the Elite Eight. Beilein was the one who brought in Franz, essentially a legacy via Mo. Austin Davis and Brandon Johns were significant contributors. Zeb Jackson was an incoming top 100, Beilein commit. I wouldn't say they were stacked, but it was far from a "cupboard is bare" situation. To his credit, Howard brought in Dickinson and got quality transfers in Chaundee and Mike Smith. And to this day, that's all you can say Howard has going for him: he can recruit pretty well. But he hasn't *developed* players like Beilein did. Livers and Brooks were guys who actually improved in their time at Michigan, and that 2021 team made the Elite Eight because of it. Have we seen a single player improve from year-to-year since those two guys?
March 10th, 2023 at 12:02 PM ^
Kobe Bufkin comes to mind.
Everyone saying that it's premature to move on from Juwan but has no reason supporting that conclusion. Prematurity isn't a reason. What are the reasons to believe that Juwan is a good coach or that the program will improve? No one has offered a single one.
Juwan should get one more year to make changes, but it's not looking good.
That’s where I’m at. Another season of something like this and it’s time to move on. This team showed little to no improvement from beginning of the year to the end. I can live with a subpar season if there’s signs of optimism but I have a hard time coming away with anything positive this year other than Kobe coming along well, but I’ve already prepared myself for him bolting because of it.
Not saying I disagree, but what sort of changes? Change of recruiting targets? change of assistants? We've had issues on both sides of the ball and issues on fundamentals. If a new assistant can make that much difference maybe we should consider making him the head coach. I know some will cite JB's changes and bringing in assistants to specifically change the defense because he recognized that wasn't a strength, what is the equivalent with Juwan?
The biggest issue is that prior mistakes were made in recruiting. This was discussed recently, but you essentially have to recruit guys with less immediate “upside” with the payoff you can keep them on campus longer. Howard came in and got a great recruiting class and got exactly what out of it? I’ll tell you: players that never signed on the dotted line, guys that left early, roster holes and not much team success worthy of pounding your chest about. I hate that’s college basketball these days, but it is the sad reality.
Maybe he's learning that? Hopefully? I mean McDaniel is too short for the NBA and Reed can't shoot at all, so those are probably four year guys. Maybe he's moving in this direction. Kante and Washington coming in aren't supposed to be NBA guys either, right?
I agree. I think he’s moving in that direction, but will the team gel before it’s too late?
You have to include the portal in recruiting. Howard's first recruiting class included Dickinson, Chaundee, and Mike Smith and got them a big ten title and elite eight.
His second recruiting class landed Kobe, Diabate, Houstan and got them a sweet 16 as a young team got better throughout the year.
So his recruiting has gotten the program a big ten title, elite eight, and sweet sixteen in four year.
Pretty solid honestly.
TLDR Take:
- Clearly he needs a quicker hook to help Jett get better. The one game where he finally took him out after a terrible spell, Jett came back in far more disciplined and focused on both end of floor.
- Given how bad the overall year was, he needs (MUST) have a Harbaugh moment/realization and shake up staff.
- Need better recruiting at guard position so need to make room for a new recruiting ace.
- We also need a coach focused exclusively on D (or better at coaching D) plus inbounds (out of time out) plays which have been awful this year on the coaching and player execution front.
- We need to aggressively and more effectively pursue and keep guys with some moxy, the equivalent of a Chaundee Brown and, yet again, another PG. This team lacked that punch and chip on their shoulder and it showed at crunch time or when things got hard.
- Fix the the admissions office issue so we don't miss on another Shannon to the enemy.
- Then we need patience that we will never have. Reality is most of the rosters we put on the floor were majority underclassman. Hopefully a summer will help there, although I have huge concerns the HD leveled out so much this year and guys like TWill and Jett got much worse as season progressed.
- Conversely, I will always love HD's big game tying 3 and Kobe made huge strides as did Dug and Tarris.
Good riddance to that season. Blech.
TLDR Take:
- Clearly he needs a quicker hook to help Jett get better. The one game where he finally took him out after a terrible spell, Jett came back in far more disciplined and focused on both end of floor.
- Given how bad the overall year was, he needs (MUST) have a Harbaugh moment/realization and shake up staff.
- Need better recruiting at guard position so need to make room for a new recruiting ace.
- We also need a coach focused exclusively on D (or better at coaching D) plus inbounds (out of time out) plays which have been awful this year on the coaching and player execution front.
- We need to aggressively and more effectively pursue and keep guys with some moxy, the equivalent of a Chaundee Brown and, yet again, another PG. This team lacked that punch and chip on their shoulder and it showed at crunch time or when things got hard.
- Fix the the admissions office issue so we don't miss on another Shannon to the enemy.
- Then we need patience that we will never have. Reality is most of the rosters we put on the floor were majority underclassman. Hopefully a summer will help there, although I have huge concerns the HD leveled out so much this year and guys like TWill and Jett got much worse as season progressed.
- Conversely, I will always love HD's big game tying 3 and Kobe made huge strides as did Dug and Tarris.
Good riddance to that season. Blech.
I think Juwan should do the same thing and bring in a defensive coordinator. I understand Saddi to be doing that job now and he's clearly not good at it. There was a reason Beilien teams were bad at defense until they hired others to do the job, despite Saddi already being on the staff.
That's probably the one fix he can make. See if that can help things for a year.
Michigan's defense and rebounding has been the big problem the last two years although offense got pretty ugly this year too, but I think that can mostly be explained away by injury to the starting PG.
Juwan's offenses have been pretty good and as Matt D has pointed out, they do some clever stuff and good in game adjustments...for the most part.
If a new assistant can make that much difference maybe we should consider making him the head coach.
That's funny. No one said that when Beilein brought in Yaklich. I think that's what the assistant comment is about.
(Wrote this in the end of game thread)
All season I've been fine giving Coach another year. But there's some obvious roster & coaching problems, and this game shows complete lack of effort in a "must-win" game. No excuse - even if guys are thinking about the NBA.
Another odd observation: Coach always stands away from his assistants during the game & they all sit down. And during timeouts, it's always him drawing up the play & sitting in the center. You never see assistants doing that work. Clearly looks like he's keeping his assistants at an arm's distance. Weird. On to next season, Go Blue.
Yep, he better have some trick up his sleeve because next year is make or break for him and if Kobe and Jett, and even more so Hunter, leave then we're fucked. I really have no clue what Juwan teams are going to look like post-Hunter. He's relied so heavily on Hunter almost his entire career and post big men don't grow on trees
I would like someone to explain to me how this TEAM has grown. Not individual players, but I would love to hear how the team in totality has gotten better.
There may be big changes after this. I only expected one win. Jett and Kobe are fooling themselves if they believe they are NBA ready. Jett plays like a entitled coaches kid.
being NBA-ready doesn't mean ready for significant playing time, it means having the raw skill & body type required to be drafted. The better point is that there isn't much reason for either of them to stay.
Michigan hasn't shown an ability to develop guards since JB left.
"Michigan hasn't shown an ability to develop guards since JB left."
Woah. So you think that Dug has not developed one bit this season? Interesting.
And you think that Bufkin has not developed one bit this season? Also interesting.
Our 1 and 2 positions would have been my best examples of players that have actually improved.
And our past guards have certainly improved throughout the year.
Now if you mean we have not taken a recruit and developed one into a really good upper class guard, that's a fair but narrow criticism. Plus it looks like Dug is well on his way.
Interesting to me that you use Dug McDaniel as an example of developing guards. Dug went 0-3 from the field today with 3 assists and 2 TOs. No, I would not call that development.
Kobe is better than he was last year, I'll grant you that much. I don't know how much of that has to do with coaching & how much has to do with him getting older and bigger. But my general point is that its more than likely better for Kobe & Jett's development trajectory to go to the NBA.
In the end you've cherry picked 2 examples (one of them not a very good one) out of all the guards to play here since Juwan has been the coach to try and prove that he develops guards and I'm not buying the argument.
Dug has far exceeded expectations this year and was decent for a freshman PG. Yes, it's bad that we had to rely on a freshman PG but I am not sure how you can be disappointed in Dug or say he has not developed this year. It's rich that you say I am cherry picking but then you point to Dug's one game.
Yes, Kobe has developed tremendously. And you can't just ignore that but somehow give JB credit for developing Caris Levert. It was either good recruiting or good talent development. Either way, Juwan gets credit for that. But I disagree that Kobe is better off going. He is a much better player this year and with another year of being a leading option on offense, can really develop into a great all around player. That's already happening.
Jett for example, didn't really develop this year at all but overall he was at least decent for a freshman and isn't really a guard.
And I used Dug and Kobe because those were the clearest and most recent examples of "Juwan guards." I would argue that Brooks, Jones, Smith and Brown all got better but they were older players, while Frankie and Zeb were frustrating incompletes. Feel free to cherry pick your own examples since you are stating that Juwan is terrible at guard development (I will give you Zeb to some degree but I think Frankie was actually developing in his one year).
Also said about Jordan Poole repeatedly on thread after thread. NBA is about the body type, athleticism, and potential once you get past top 2-3 names. Extrapolate Kobe out 1 more year like he grew this year. NBA teams will be all over him. Caleb H with worse athleticism than Jett and shooting that drove us wild got to the league etc.
March 10th, 2023 at 12:12 PM ^
NBA execs make promises and the kids eat it up. If you are an exec you can make encouraging statements to 5-6 kids with your 2 picks. It only adds talent to the draft.
As far as developing everyone is 100% sure that 6 minutes a game in the G league is preferable to 30 minutes a game at UM. Im not so sure. Making yourself a name and moving up the draft boards could be huge. Are Diabate and Houston gone forever DJ Wilson style? Who knows. Ill say this Poole is 100% based on being picked up by the right franchise. If he was drafted by the Kings im not so sure where he is now.
It seems like they were more cohesive overall and tighter defensively before Jett returned from the sprained ankle.
Can't argue with this. They were 3-0 without Jett, since he returned they are 0-3.
If this were any other team, I would be laughing my ass off. I’m still chuckling, though. One of the worst halves of basketball I’ve ever seen from a Michigan team.
Wow, that was putrid to watch. This team had no option outside HD and no idea how to create a shot for anyone else. Everyone disappeared and it looked like they were going through the motions of an all-out effort. I hate making that observation.
I don't know how motivated this team will be playing in the NIT but that's where it's headed with questions surrounding the makeup of this team going forward as well as its coaching staff.
Yeah. Hate to say it. That was bad.
prolly bodes well for guys coming back I guess.
I don't think Jett is NBA ready, but if they think he is, great, he doesn't help this team and we've played worse with him. One dimensional and when he isn't hitting a 3, offers nothing.