Honest Question re: Juwan Howard and the basketball program

Harbaugh had one bad season in the very weird Covid year, after five mostly good ones. Howard's trajectory has been more like Hoke's, with one very good season early (Howard's second, Hoke's first) and then three years of progressive decline with the wheels coming off in the last year. 

Fire both! And fire effin Borges while we are at it.

there are lots of good responses here, but i also want to add that there's a possibility, if somewhat remote, that the basketball situation IS analogous to football 2020, and with a staff reshuffle, some fresh blood on the roster, and a culture reset, juwan might succeed in 2024-25 and beyond.

it feels unlikely to me, because the team doesn't seem to be playing fundamentals. there are lots of reasons people pointed out how this situation is different. but i'm just saying something similar could happen in bball too. 

Harbaugh has a history of success at every single stop he’s made along the way.  Harbaugh’s recruiting while doubted at least put bodies in positions of need.  Harbaugh’s in game tactical decisions (sans 2 minute drill) could almost always be justified.  Harbaugh identified his own game plan flaws and brought in minds to fill in those gaps.  Harbaugh and staff developed monsters.

This is Juwan’s first head coaching opportunity.  Development has been slow/limited (see Jett Howard defense) or seems to have been accomplished purely by the players doing it on their own (see Hunter Dickinson 3 point shooting).  Juwan has attempted to fill gaps on the roster to be repeatedly shot down by admissions (potentially not his fault) but then instead of grabbing someone to fill the gap…the gap remains (I.E. there is a single pure ball handler, that currently can’t go on road games).  Juwan has not changed pieces on his staff despite: defense getting worse, development lacking, in game play calling being…questionable, etc.

Did you not expect to be exorciated with the post?  Have you been to this site before?

The comparison of Juwan to Harbaugh is really funny. In no way are these two the same.

Rehashing this over and over again does really no purpose 

if you have to ask...

This basketball team is far worse than 2020 Michigan Football. Warde got lucky with the Harbaugh decision. It wasn't some wise thing that he did.

This bad season in mbb is not the same as as 2020 Michigan football, for a number of reasons.

But, you also cannot compare beilein’s teams and running of the mbb program to Howard’s. The xfer portal really started in earnest around 2020, as well as the NIL game, and it completely changed the landscape of recruiting in basketball, as compared to football recruiting. The schools that actively engaged in paying players prior to nil became even more emboldened to do so, as well as the additions of many other schools that had no qualms about doing that. To round out a team to be competitive, all of the sudden they only needed a xfer or two to sit comfortably as a top-25 team. 
 

Michigan, on the other hand, wasn’t very forthcoming with nil opportunities, nor was its xfer process able to compete with other schools in terms of credits. Throw in a stupid ncaa rule on foreigner nil opportunity as well as requiring a recruit to “pay back” a measly sum of money because of another stupid rule that effectively cost Michigan a viable player this season, and it’s really easy to see why the rails came off this season. 
 

The one thing Michigan football had going for it, even after the 2020 season, was roster continuity. That is something the basketball program has never had under Howard, and I’m not sure how much of that can be laid at Howard’s feet. Some, sure, but with the smaller rosters it means that more of the players (a higher percentage) on that roster become important in any given season to keep a team competitive. Roster continuity on a bball team for Michigan was always going to be a challenge, and it’s been proven in the current recruiting landscape to be a minefield where Michigan is concerned.
 

Im not absolving Howard of the blame for the state of Michigan basketball, nor am I going to lay everything at his feet.
 

I believe he can coach.

What I’m not sure of is can he pivot and change enough in the other important aspects of running a d1 program at a big time school to get the program competitive again. That should be the question to be asked and considered by the AD. That also happens to be the question the AD was really considering about Harbaugh after 2020, and the only similarity between Howard and Harbaugh and their two disappointing seasons. 
 

For the record, I believe if Howard was retained as hc and completely changed his assistants, including hiring at least one who could be a giant plus in recruiting (hs and xfer), that he can turn things around at Michigan.

Last season was the "covid" season. This season is if Harbaugh went 3-9 the next year. Harbaugh wouldnt have survived that season.

Stop this. There were maybe five football coaches on the planet better than Harbaugh in 2020. You had some innovative coaches or hot names, but we realistically could not do better than the coach we had.

The only reason most people want to see Juwan stay is for sentimental reasons. There are multiple coaches out there better than him. Honestly, the only way I seem him succeeding is if you put Beilein on the staff with him (which doesn't happen in most workplaces) or ask Fisher to come back and mentor him. Short of that, he does not have the resources to help him become a better HC.

I am a Juwan supporter. I am in the extreme minority on this board that want to give him another year. And I know I could be dead wrong and he never gets it figured out. 
 

But, can we please stop comparing football and basketball? And while we are at it, the Beilein comparisons are not fair either. CBB is in a completely different place than it was when Beilein was coaching at Michigan. I believe it’s one of the reasons he left. He could see the mess that NIL and transfer portal were going to create. 
 

Fire Warde 

A lot of people overreacted when Michigan only won 2 games in the shortened COVID season and blamed Harbaugh for it when he wasn't the problem-- Don Brown was. I was still a lurker back then, but I believed Harbaugh should get another season as long as he fired Brown. That happened, and the rest is history.

Unlike Jim Harbaugh, Juwan Howard is very much the problem with the basketball program, and has to go. So does Warde Manuel.

2020 was the COVID start year, and I firmly believe that Harbaugh/Michigan did not believe they would play football and did not want to play football, so they planned and practiced accordingly.

My issue is that he wasn't qualified to be our HC in the first place, imo. He had no experience in the league as a head, and he had no college coaching experience at all. Harbs had plenty of both. And success. Therefore, he deserved more benefit of the doubt. 

So now that Howard's lack of experience is seemingly rearing its head, I think he should move on.  

Not to mention the slap, the blaming of his players for lack of effort, the gross mismanagement of his coaching staff, the implication that everything is the problem except him ( the shit works), the lack of contrition for making an ass of us all (I'm from Chicago, I was defending myself), his GLIAC level son seeing the floor, etc, etc only serves to twist the skewer into my eyeballs. 

Sigh. Let's play the game again. Harbaugh had two teams within a game of making the Final 4. He immediately turned the program around in 2015 after a bad 2014. The comparisons are not apt.

Let's table Juwan threads for awhile. They're just depressing.

There is no pandemic so we are more clearly focused. Clearly.

Regarding your final paragraph: yes, no, it's an easy thing to point at and say "Fire Juwan."

I wanted Juwan's hire to work out, but it's pretty obvious that it hasn't.

One was a global epidemic that caused a large number of players to sit out the season, the other is a complete ***tshow that looks like they are completely uncoached and not wanting to play.  Plus Harbaugh never punched coaches on his team and other teams.

I mean no offense OP but unless people are oblivious to anything Harbaugh did before 2020 including at previous stops it is glaringly obvious what the difference is. One had an extensive prior track record to make you believe 2020 was an aberration, not to mention the amount of UM players who sat out, etc. The other is a first time HC. There is a world of difference.

Come on, you guys. He said it was an honest question. 

Honest response:  No one here in this thread will be making any decisions about whether Juwan stays or is fired.  So, the actual real question is what does Warde Manuel think, and what action (or inaction) will he pursue?

We only know that Warde has said he will be evaluating the b-ball program after the year is over.  Otherwise, 🤷‍♂️

"Honest Question" vs "Breezy, non-Hostile"...big dif

I’d agree that these feel like very different situations and with that it does feel like fans have given up on Howard in ways we never truly gave up on Harbaugh.

For one, the frustration with Harbaugh was almost entirely about results and his path to redemption had a much more obvious set of action steps. On offense, he needed to end the Joe Milton experiment and install a new system of checks and balances to reign-in Gattis. On defense, he needed to abandon the Don Brown experience. Program-wide, he needed a culture reset and a batch of elite recruits. All that to say, the blame for the failings of the 2020 football team (and the others preceding it) were dispersed enough that even the most over-it fans knew there was a plausible path for Harbaugh to follow and make things right.

Howard’s problem is more akin to Brady Hoke’s in that many now view of him as being a poor representative of the program ASIDE from his being an inadequate basketball coach. It’s normal for fans to be disappointed in the results - and they are quite disappointing - but unfortunately, it seems that many have lost respect for him as a man and leader of young men. That’s a totally different obstacle to overcome, and I have no idea how he gets past that. And even if he does, what could Juwan do to improve results? The idea of stripping out what remains of Beilein’s infrastructure doesn’t sound promising. But at the same time, neither does running it back w/ reinforcements from the class of 24. I think Juwan may have a set of impossible obstacles ahead  of him and the fans are really feeling that too.

Oh, FFS. 

This team has NOT progressed and make the same careless mistakes now as in the beginning..THATS coaching..Howard Must Go there is NO ENERGY around this program

Can we get John Beilein back?

Jim had more political capital because of his success at multiple levels as a head coach. Juwan does not have that. Additionally, Jim broomed his coaching staff to rebuild the culture with a "love" mentality and it doesn't look like Juwan wants to fix the culture (e.g. the Sanderson incident).