Michigan Basketball Snowflakes
How do you bring Juwan Howard back next year? This is far worse than 2020 Harbaugh. That team didn't finish last in the Big Ten. This isn't something that will be fixed by switching assistant coaches. Warde Manuel will be run out of town if he tries to bring Juwan back. If my athletic director makes over one million dollars a year, I want him to be able to realize when something isn't salvageable.
I recently met an intimate family member of a 5 star recruit who recently chose Kansas over Michigan. His family loves Michigan and has connections and roots there. He loved the vibe, and he is a huge Michigan football fan. He loves Juwan Howard, Phil Martelli, and the entire staff. This is a highly intelligent kid who speaks multiple languages. Despite his family’s preference for Michigan, along with his love for M and staff, he decided that he had a better chance to get developed at Kansas because he felt like it was a more rigorous program than Michigan. He loved the family feel at Michigan. However, he expressed his concern that it may be almost too nurturing, such that they may not sufficiently push him to reach his potential. This true anecdote lends credence to the Brady Hoke vibes in this program to which many have alluded.
Sad part is that Brady Hoke vibes would be an improvement - at least Hoke recruited decently in some spots and the defense was passable most of the time.
This is the worst Michigan Football/Basketball team that I can remember in some time. Even 2008 Michigan football came close to beating Utah.
And beat a top 10 at the time Wisconsin team.
Michigan basketball beat #11 Wisconsin this year (so close to full circle)
Yup....I mentioned that in the last one that I remember sitting there watching toledo beat UM but even after that game you had some weird glimmer of hope due to some of the athletes on those RR teams.
What we are watching here isn't even a sport. Sort of feels like random pick up basketball or kids casually playing tag. Which is fine if that's what we are going for I guess.
I had no hope after losing to Toledo.
I still am shocked at the number of "ESPN 300" players Hoke had that just absolutely busted. Still have no clue if they were talented kids that just got zero coaching and development, or by sheer bad luck he got a run of recruits that were way overrated.
That’s gotta be elmarko Jackson you’re talking about. Was sad to see a legacy kid go elsewhere.
Don't be so hasty. Does Hunter Dickinson speak multiple languages?
What other languages does he speak ? Jive ? Creole ?
It's probably Flory Bidunga
Mwloverine1, You may be on to something here…
What your 5-star buddy left out is that on his visit to Kansas Dickinson did a fine job answering any questions he had regarding all things Michigan. I mean Dickinson helped us get to a final 4/sweet 16 becoming an AA along the way yet Michigan showed him the door instead of taking care of him. Why would anyone want to play under those circumstances? They don't.
I'm mad because I was such a delusional fan I bought their b s. and even helped push their money grubbing agenda by trying to convince others that Michigan would be better without Dickinson.
Look, I don't care what coach we bring in if we don't change our ways with NIL it won't matter.
Will say it again for those who should listen - Michigan had more consensus Top-100 players on the floor last night than Rutgers….think it’s still just NIL and Admissions?
Agreed its both. Shannon, Love and Hunter are averaging almost 60 ppg between them but also our try hards arent even playing defense so Im not sure what more talent would do in the long run. Although that is a lot of lost talent.
I agree with your points, but Dickinson was not the recruit in this scenario. It may have been a similar thought process for him, though.
We didn’t make the final four with Dickinson. We lost in the elite eight.
Makes sense. This could also explain the Sanderson/Howard friction.
I'm not sure if Kansas is really the best place for developing talent. They remind me of State and Izzo and that category.
Self has only had 3 lottery picks and one top 10 since 2015 despite having 9 five star and 13 four star commits. He's had twice as many final four appearances as lottery pics in that time.
Kansas has the 4th most players of any college on nba rosters. Only Kentucky, Duke and UCLA have more. Coach K retired and UCLA's list goes back before Cronin took over.
Who was getting intimate?
Howard's big recruiting pitch is we let you play through mistakes.
There's no organization. No order. No structure. No discipline.
Howard is a sissy (for lack of a better word) compared to Beilein.
People claim Howard is the guy players invite to their weddings compared to the opposite with Beilein.
Yet no one stays under Howard. They all leave. Even his fucking son.
Well good news For those players that want to get married between November and March. Moving forward, they won't have to worry if Juwan has a scheduling conflict, He should have plenty of availability.
Joking aside, Juwan loves his players and loves Michigan. He's just not a good coach, at least at the college level.
To a man, I believe anyone who played high school and college basketball for John Beilein absolutely loved the man and he loved them back. Coach Beilein just coached and demanded fundamentally sound basketball on both ends of the court. The lack of fundamentally sound basketball on either end under Juwan is astounding. They play like it is summer pickup ball.
SMASH
Snowflakes?
This is a snow storm inside a hurricane!
Was ridiculous that he was hired in the first place.
Crisler will be embarrassing next year if he isn't fired.
Stop trying to rewrite history. It was considered a very good hire in 2019, especially given the funky timing of JB's departure. Juwan was a hot name at the time. Clearly he's better suited to being an NBA assistant than a college HC.
Mike Francesa on WFAN radio, on east coast, said it was a terrible hire. I disagreed with him. Ten years ago may have been great, because Juwan would have gotten all the top players. Now they all go to the G league, and NIL.
great irony on the user name
was not ridiculous that they hired juwan, not at all. he was a fab 5 guy, loved our school, had won it all in the NBA, was universally touted as an excellent NBA assistant - in short, he was very close to a hoops version of harbaugh.
sad that it's not working out. i do think its time for him to move on. but when he was hired, it was a very good hire by all the available metrics.
A very good hire? Someone with no HC experience and zero college experience….a good hire? Gonna have to turn you around on that one.
It was considered a good hire at the time. He universally lauded as a potential homerun hire. He was pursued by the Lakers during one off season. Maybe he should be coaching in the NBA vice NCAA. I get it now with hindsight it was a horrible hire.
Good at the time by who? The Miami Heat who made no effort to keep him?
I mean he did win Coach of the Year too folks.
I think he should of been fired at halftime last night, but he did demonstrate he could coach talent if it was in the door. Just can't develop kids, recruit kids or manage a college roster in an age and talent appropriate manner.
He'll probably be a great assistant NBA coach soon. And if he stays with us, he needs to have that Harbaugh "clean house" moment, and bring in some recruiters and more serious alternative voices. When Harbaugh was nearly out the door, he was forced to pivot...doesn't seem Warde is even talking about any of same or Juwan is either.
You put your HC in,
you pull your HC out,
you do the B10 conference and you turn yourself around….
Whether any hire is "good" is subjective and based on a lot of factors. When Howard was hired, we were hiring after the coaching carousel had already completed, meaning options were limited. We either had to go outside the carousel or lure someone away who had made the decision not to leave just a couple months earlier. I don't recall exactly who was in the latter category, but that is always going to be a tough pull.
Since we had to go outside the carousel, we were looking at likely an internal hire or someone from the NBA. Howard was a respected NBA assistant who many had pegged as a future head coach. He had an obvious love for Michigan, and with two high school age college prospects, he had some understanding of modern recruiting. Were there risks? Obviously. There are risks any time you hire someone, let alone someone without head coaching experience or college coaching experience. I think anyone that was being honest at the time would say it was riskier than most college hires. Nonetheless, it was still a very good hire under the circumstances.
Exactly. It was a good risk to take at the time. There was real potential updside there. It didn't work out, that sucks, time to try something else.
Wrong - it was not good risk. Someone with zero college experience recruiting or the ins and outs of navigating through a college setting/roster and all the different styles of play there are ....ON TOP of the fact that if it falls apart, you are effectively alienating the most popular era of Michigan basketball..........do you think for one second after the messy departure of Howard that the Fab5 will entertain any thought of supporting UM or the program...I have my doubts.
This was an awful leap of faith and very similar to the hire of Rich Rodriguez.
What the fuck are you talking about? RichRod had a lot of success at the collegiate level and wasn’t a fit culturally with Michigan. Howard had no success as a head coach but was a fit culturally due to his basketball history with the fab five and being a player and assistant coach in the NBA. Even in your own example, hiring Howard wasn’t anything like hiring RichRod
At the time of hire it looked good. He played in the NBA, was an assistant in the NBA and had experience working with young talent in the league. It just hasn't, and more than likely will not work out at Michigan for Howard.
I have said this before and will continue believing it, he is best suited for a tier 2 or tier 3 college basketball program, such as a MAC school. I really like Howard and his love for Michigan, but tough choices have to be made for the better of the basketball program. Of he stays next year, I hope he changes his resume at Michigan, but doubt it.
He was the best possible option at the time. He was an alum, part of the Fab 5, and was an assistant for several years under one of the most well-respected coaches in the NBA, in one of the most stable, premiere organizations in the league.
Juwan had a lot going for him, and maybe he's really well suited to the NBA game. I don't blame Warde for giving Howard a shot. Everyone else was either a retread or someone who would give Michigan a respectable program, but there was going to be a very clear ceiling on what they could accomplish.
I blame Warde for a lot of things, but hiring Juwan and giving him a chance isn't one of them. It was the best possible move he could've made at that point in time. Its not like Beilein left him with a lot of options, given the timing of his departure.
PSM nails the correct answer. Beilein left us in the lurch, and Howard was a fine hire given those constraints.
I really don't think the Harbaugh 2020 comp is right. Outside of that lone season, Harbaugh had the football program at a pretty good place, with a few bad breaks being the main difference between top 5 program and top 15 program. Add in where Michigan Football was pre Harbaugh vs Basketball pre Howard and things are even less similar.
Michigan Basketball was a premier program before Howard took over, having been a near lock for the tournament every year. Since he arrived it has been a steady decline, surrounded by constant drama, and inconsistent play. He also didn't have near the pedigree Harbaugh did. Harbaugh was coming off a Super Bowl appearance, and arguably a top 5 coach in the whole sport. Howard was a seemingly good assistant in the NBA with strong ties to the program and a former star player, but his resume as a coach was just okay, and his tenure at Michigan has been mediocre from the start.
He should not have such a long leash
"I really don't think the Harbaugh 2020 comp is right."
The only way the basketball coaching situation could be similar is if JHow is stripped of his guaranteed high salary, and replaced with an incentivized goal-achievement salary. It took Harbaugh's experience, knowledge, determination, pride, and full effort to achieve results after 2020. There is no evidence that JHow could have similar result.
JHow has no program building experience, whereas Harbaugh is a proven coach in program turnarounds, his own or others. The sad statement for JHow is that while he may have been a great assistant, he has failed in his only tenure as a head coach. Even his upside projections for future seasons are mediocre.
Yeah the OP comparison to 2020 football is off. We're not living in a pandemic world where any symptoms give rise to quarantines and contact tracing quarantines. This year for Michigan Basketball is much worse than 2020 Football as there are no external circumstances to blame.
I hope this is the final nail in Howard's tenure. It was a gamble that looked like a good one at the time that has gone horribly wrong. Time to move on.
I would agree with that. The criticism of Harbaugh at the time of 2020 was that he couldn't beat OSU or win bowl games, he may also not have had a great record on the road against ranked opponents. So when 2020 came and they only won 2 games it highlighted all that and upped the criticism. Howard's situation is nowhere near the same. There's no OSU that he's struggled to beat, he's struggled this year to beat anyone. The roster is a complete disaster, players aren't being developed and pushed to become better.
I agree that at the time of his hire, it seemed like a high upside hire. He was a sought after assistant coach, he was a Fab Five superstar, loved Michigan. He seemed like a risk worth taking. Now though, the risk did not turn out in Michigan's favor and its time to cut ties. He just wasn't ready for this high profile of a job. Even Harbaugh had several jobs before being considered for Michigan. Its past time, hopefully at the end of the season when Warde looks at the program he comes to the same conclusion and parts ways with Howard.
Re: Harbaugh 2020 comp
The basketball roster doesn't have an Aidan Hutchinson on it. It doesn't have a Blake Corum or a Hassan Haskins or Zak Zinter. It really doesn't have even a Cade McNamara.
lol how do you lose by 30 to Rutgers, the answer is give up 82 points which raises the question of lol how do you give up 82 to Rutgers.
Not to make fun --- but I was out this evening, I just got back, saw this score, and did a double-take. "WTF??? How is this even possible???"
There's no way you can bring Juwan back. Bad years happen, but it should never be this bad.