Honest Question re: Juwan Howard and the basketball program
I don't follow (watch) our basketball team like I once did, which is to say not much if at all these days.
However, I obviously read this blog and message board and it is clear that most of us are not pleased with Juwan's performance here and many wish to move on.
My question then, is how is this any different than post 2020 Harbaugh? Many wanted him gone, and I would not have been mad if he was let go, but Warde was patient (or call it inaction if you want) and then he proceeded to change what/how he was running his program and went on the greatest run (in my 44 years) I have ever seen in Michigan football. 40-3, complete dominance of the B1G and OSU and culminating in an undefeated National Championship.
Is the basketball situation so dire that we have zero faith Juwan can right the ship or are these two very different situations? Or maybe it's just an easy to thing to point at and say 'Fire Warde'.
February 21st, 2024 at 8:56 AM ^
Losing games is one thing. Running good people out of the program is another. These situations feel different. Even if Juwan gets the ship turned around, the only thing in front of him will be scorched Earth. Also, fire Warde.
February 21st, 2024 at 8:57 AM ^
Harbaugh had a decade of goodwill by proving his competence as a head coach at multiple levels of the football world.
For Howard, it's not just about being snakebitten by unfortunate events (like the 2020 football season was). It is patently clear that all aspects of the basketball program are failing.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:01 AM ^
How so exactly? Is he not recruiting / developing well? Is he not a good in-game coach?
He seemed to be a prized candidate when we hired him, by the NBA at least. Is this just a situation where we thought he'd be great but turns out he's just not a good coach?
February 21st, 2024 at 9:04 AM ^
Is this just a situation where we thought he'd be great but turns out he's just not a good coach?
His pedigree stemmed from two areas:
1. he played here.
2. he was on the bench behind one of the NBA's smartest coaches for a few years.
It is entirely possible that he would be successful as an NBA coach, but that doesn't correlate to college success (or the other way around).
In terms of recruiting/development -- well, I'll let the in-game product speak for itself. Both of those things mean nothing if you're not executing.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:25 AM ^
I think recruiting/development is a far bigger problem than the in game coaching and scheme. We run good NBA style stuff and when we have a cohesive roster, it worked very well. The issue is that Juwan had the 2020-21 team with a very good block scorer (HD), veteran backcourt (Brooks, Smith, Brown) that could shoot and versatile wings that could also shoot and defend (Livers, Franz, Brown). He has not tried to replicate that other than at C. His other teams have featured more 4/5 hybrids than 3/4 hybrids like the 2020-21 team had. The rosters just don't fit together and I don't see him targeting the guys we need in the portal or HS recruiting.
I have no real problem with his scheme and what we try to run. Until this year, the team didn't struggle with TOs and defense much. It was more spacing and depth that we struggled with. This year has gone off the rails in all aspects due to the lack of direction in the program and roster mismanagement.
February 21st, 2024 at 11:17 AM ^
Now do management of the last 2 minutes of the game the last 3 years...
February 21st, 2024 at 12:26 PM ^
There was a time when JB had a bad string of close game results. Those kind of things can be fairly random. But I'd be curiuos what his close game record was the first three seasons when we had veteran guards. I'm guessing it was better. We've had really bad guard depth the last two seasons (which is on Juwan). What I think is happening is that we have a limited roster (which is on Juwan) and that limits what you can do in a game. We've lost a ton of halftime leads this season. I think that's mostly due to having a good first pitch but not having a second pitch. So when other teams make adjustments, we don't really have much we can do. But in terms of our scheme, I don't have too many complaints. We run alot of NBA stuff. Juwan knows basketball. But he has been a disaster in roster management.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:31 PM ^
There was a time when JB had a bad string of close game results
I'm curious what you're thinking of?
I remember the 16-16 team (which lost its starting backcourt to injury) losing a bunch of OT games but that's about it.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:50 PM ^
And that team was shorthanded as it was because we didn't have a ton of depth (due to early departures and injuries). Again, the roster construction is on Juwan. Backcourt was a freshman and late developing sophomore last season. Had a senior PG transfer but he was hurt. And the backcourt situation isn't better this year. I think it's more a roster management problem than an in game coaching problem.
I also remember JB losing a few last possession games (N'W, OSU etc) and fans were arguing back and forth about guarding or not guarding the inbounder.
February 21st, 2024 at 2:07 PM ^
The Evan Turner game happened in 2010. The NW game happened in 2017. Trying to make a trend out of two games seven years apart is a reach.
There is no Beilein-era analogy for what's gone on these past few seasons. The closest comparison I can see is the Ellerbe years.
February 21st, 2024 at 2:47 PM ^
FWIW, Ellerbe's roster management had more to do with players getting the NCAA hammer (Crawford) or disciplinary issues (Gaines, Searight), as well as taking a flyer on a really raw Josh Moore.
Howard doesn't have the excuse of a program with sanctions hanging over it, which (gulp) makes him even more culpable than Ellerbe
February 21st, 2024 at 5:05 PM ^
I've always felt a bit sorry for Brian Ellerbe. He was promoted to the job because he was standing there when Fisher was fired and his name wasn't Brian Dutcher. And his boss, Tom Goss, was completely out of his element as AD. Ellerbe probably wouldn't have succeeded anyway but he never had a chance. Not with Goss as his boss. Not with Lee Bollinger as his bosses boss.
February 21st, 2024 at 6:40 PM ^
Friends with a basketball trainer named Mitch who was Kevin Gaines basketball trainer in Las Vegas and happened to be a good friend of Ellerbe's and as that time Ellerbe was living in Henderson he came by the gym where I worked to visit with Mitch every couple weeks.Spent hours going over his teams at Michigan and came away with some things about college sports of that time. 1. Recruiting violations are common. 2. Recruiting violations are very common. 3. Recruiting violations are very,very common.
Duke and UNC along with the midget at State regularly had their Ed Martin's but were more experienced in hiding the bagmen. Hell the FBI has wiretap info that incriminates numerous big name coaches and the only one that paid for it was Miller at Arizona.
Rant for February is over.
February 21st, 2024 at 11:19 AM ^
Well, here's the rare poster that knows something about the game chiming in with some worthy observations. One in about fifty here, honestly. I'm with you until the end when you invoke the question of roster management. . . and then. . . between just what players are available and who you can actually shoe-horn in???
And there's lots we don't even know. In a way, these issues mask deeper questions about "roster construction," or Juwan's administration of the program, because who you might want to play for you is so deeply, deeply separate from who the hell you can get, or get in. It's admissions AND money.
The two things I think one can honestly assert that fly in the face of the current torch and pitchfork analysis are that a) Juwan has lost pushing ten guys in three years to the NBA or admissions, and b) beyond that luck has been bad--with injuries, heart problems, etc. (Now Olivier.) No one, no one can tell me we're not fielding far better teams with, jeebus, even three or four of those players in the fold.
And right through last year, people who ACTUALLY KNEW were praising Juwan's strategic acumen, OOB plays, lots of stuff. Players saying that they would run through a wall for him.
What troubles me, the reason why I've stopped coming here to get cheesed off, is that there's just zero compassion for what a favorite son of Michigan is up against. Just a bunch of people who couldn't hold the man's jockstrap on their best day spouting complete nonsense. Using the couple of basketball terms they have floating around the old cocoa and strutting off tickled with themselves, twenty more anonymous clowns shouting hurhur.
Juwan is not, sometimes, a strong advocate for himself. He's defensive. He's sometimes maladroit. I agree that the record is so bad that something's got to happen; I've said before that Juwan should quit--I would. One can almost guarantee that there will be a LONG period of trials beyond, because the college bball landscape is in free fall, if you're not prepared to pay lots for players.
I've used the word lynching to describe the hostility, and yes--that's strong, of course. Mgoblog is infamous for the stupid you get here during games, including football. There truly is nothing like a group of American Know Nothings all puffed up around some new reason for heat. We have an entire media machine, both sides, that now vacuums up bazillions feeding on it, and selling the the gap-mouthed citizenry laundry soap with their own bile for lubricating oil. Of clarity. . . nottalotta. And I find Alex's numbing blow by blow recaps of very little use, even if someone is editing him better.
You just can't really come to mgoblog to develop insight about hoop. (Study the comments at umhoops about mgoblog sometime!) But thanks for your nuanced contribution.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:12 PM ^
Someone was paying attention in AP English! Bravo! Are there any other flowery phrases you could regale us with?
The Fab Five might be my favorite sports team of all time and I'll always root for all of them in whatever they do. But since losing to UCLA in the 2021 tournament, the team is 44-48 overall and 9-21 in games decided by 6 or less. Give me a break. That's an actual trend with an actual sample size. This contrarian crap is something you'd say when a team is on the bubble instead of being in the Top 25. Not when the team is struggling like this and experiencing off-court issues as well. I would be thrilled if Juwan could turn this around, but something is very wrong. Sure they would be better with the departed/denied players (there's nowhere to go but up). But they still wouldn't be a tournament team with Love and Shannon this year just like they weren't with Houstan, Jett, and Hunter last year.
February 21st, 2024 at 6:33 PM ^
People with hack names followed by numbers are always the least interesting posters. It's a rule that holds across media as well as across different kinds of content. Politics, sports, knitting--GoRaiders9012 is always the most low-rent poster. And the most likely to complain about wordz. Those things you use to communicate with on message boards.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:42 PM ^
Hack names? Apologize to Roy Munson and Big Ern McCracken right now.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:13 PM ^
He just didn’t like you calling out his AP English infused choppy writing style. He went to an ad hominem reply faster than he could come up with another two word fragment.
On the other hand, I agree that Alex’s breakdowns aren’t doing much for the reader. That and how something (pitiful performances) is happening is less interesting than why, and this blog’s football coverage knows that. Its basketball coverage does not.
February 22nd, 2024 at 12:49 AM ^
Oh yeah, the basketball dialogue here could be better on the board. I just don’t know if there’s much else for Alex to say at this point in his articles. Regardless, I don’t like the implication (and it’s been several people, not just that poster) that anyone unhappy/worried about the current and future state of the program is some kind of simpleton. I wore #5 for Jalen on my grade school team, I’m as pro Fab Five as you’ll find and I’m rooting like hell for Juwan to turn it around. But numbers don’t lie and several bad trends have now developed over an extended period. A few early pros and missed transfers (which are part of the game in college basketball anyway) aren’t the only difference between us and a healthy program.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:30 PM ^
I'm happy to wallow in my basketball ignorance as it appears that those who ACTUALLY KNOW "hoop"are smug, hyperbolic, and historically unserious. Equating UM fans frustrated with the team's performance under Juwan with hanging-happy members of a xenophobic political party nearly two centuries dead is both baseless and gross.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:34 PM ^
Completely agree MGlobules. There are posters who openly admit to never or hardly watching basketball games for many years and then will go on to tell you what’s wrong with the coach/ players. I don’t know why I open basketball threads on Mgoblog.
February 21st, 2024 at 5:09 PM ^
Well, I do not know how to operate a train. I probably have not been on a train in, oh, 30 years. But I do know a train wreck when I see one.
February 21st, 2024 at 5:19 PM ^
What troubles me, the reason why I've stopped coming here to get cheesed off, is that there's just zero compassion for what a favorite son of Michigan is up against.
I can feel for Juwan on a personal level. I don't want to see him go through this. But it's also increasingly clear that he's not the man for the job. Michigan basketball shouldn't be in last place in Big Ten, and certainly not in year five of a coach's tenure.
If Juwan gets fired, he gets a $3 million buyout, to add to the many, many millions he's earned as a player and coach. He won't be struggling to make ends meet anytime soon. I still would feel bad for him as a program legend, but the interests of the program come above personal sympathy.
You just can't really come to mgoblog to develop insight about hoop. (Study the comments at umhoops about mgoblog sometime!)
The UMHoops community has been openly discussing a coaching change all season long. Their "Potential Coaching Candidate Discussion" thread has 2,700 posts as of right now, and adds 100+ per day.
February 21st, 2024 at 6:00 PM ^
Just curious- which players last year were saying they would run thru a wall for him?
February 21st, 2024 at 2:45 PM ^
..and we didn't really have any other options.
February 21st, 2024 at 3:02 PM ^
The roster is poorly constructed now because they've failed to retain a PG for more than a season until Dug now, and they have a lot of 4-ish sized guys and not enough depth in the backcourt. But development/recruiting (until this year) really wasn't a huge problem. Kobe and Jett just went to the NBA in a lottery, and both weren't sure-fire first-round NBA guys coming out of HS. Diabate and Houstan were good pickups but they just didn't play like top-15 guys in their first seasons, which is an issue that plagues all teams that recruit highly-regarded young guys. Had either of them stuck around for a second year my guess is we'd have seen some improvement there as well. Hell, Dug is a better PG this year (at least offensively) than you'd necessarily expect from a 5-10-ish true sophomore who was the #115 guy in his class. Hell, Williams has turned into a decent player after being a sorta lost cause for stretches.
And Howard ID'ed guys in the portal - Shannon and Love - that would have been IMMENSELY helpful on those teams but they weren't able to matriculate to UM because of the school's, frankly, archaic view of credit transfers. And on paper the guys they brought in this year from the transfer portal make sense and were plus players at their last stops. So no, recruiting and development have been fine basically until this year, when literally everything that could go wrong has.
This isn't to excuse Howard's failing as a coach but only to push back against the idea that Howard hasn't developed guys.
February 21st, 2024 at 3:39 PM ^
And Howard ID'ed guys in the portal - Shannon and Love - that would have been IMMENSELY helpful on those teams but they weren't able to matriculate to UM because of the school's, frankly, archaic view of credit transfers.
An important aspect of recruiting at this school is identifying players who can get admitted. U-M, as a rule, wants its undergraduates to complete a majority of their credits here to receive a degree. Call that what you want but it's unlikely to change. It's incumbent on any coach here to work within those parameters. Better to bring in a guy who's a little less talented than Shannon/Love but can get admitted than, well, no one.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:07 AM ^
He had a good reputation in the NBA. So good, in fact, that:
But, as others have noted here and in other threads, he didn't have head coaching experience and he didn't have any experience at the college level. It wouldn't make sense to give him as much slack as Harbaugh got in 2020.
I hope Juwan finds his happy place. It just doesn't seem to be at UM, in this job.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:47 PM ^
Like many others, I bought into the hype when Howard was hired. I had been a big Fab Five fan and wanted to believe he'd keep the machine rolling. But in hindsight, hiring a coach who'd been away from college basketball for 25 years (since he was a player) really didn't make a lot of sense.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:14 AM ^
Harbaugh had a long record as a successful head coach at multiple levels. Howard had never been a head coach. That is a very large difference.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:49 AM ^
Right. And beyond that he is proving it live that he is not a good college head coach. He may be just fine in the NBA. Or he may end up being a really good NBA coach some day if he gets that opportunity. But the 4+ years of data with Juwan as a collegiate head coach suggest that he is not good and things are only getting worse. People might say he just needs more time. And I would agree if there were any positives in the trend. But damn, everything that I can see is trending poorly for this team under his leadership.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:58 AM ^
Harbaugh also inherited a program that was in decline, having gone 7-6 in 2013 and 5-7 in 2014. He immediately turned it around in 2015 and came within a decent spot on that goddamn fourth down in overtime to getting into the playoffs in 2016.
Juwan Howard, on the other hand, inherited a program that had been in three straight Sweet 16s and in the title game two years before. While he was able to do well when he had the talent, he's done a poor job of bringing it in and developing it.
February 21st, 2024 at 9:21 AM ^
He seemed to be a prized candidate when we hired him, by the NBA at least. Is this just a situation where we thought he'd be great but turns out he's just not a good coach?
I don't get how people don't get this at this point. Coaching hires are crapshoots with very rare exceptions. Sometimes good ideas fail and bad ideas work. Juwan at the time seemed like a good idea given the circumstances and it didn't work. The roster management, the defensive coaching, and culture have all dropped to basically rock bottom in year 5. You just keep trying good ideas and one will work, maybe even the next one.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:00 AM ^
Sometimes good ideas fail and bad ideas work.
Exactly. Detroit was widely mocked for choosing Dan Campbell but look how good that "bad idea" has worked out.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:20 AM ^
IMO, Juwan may not be a superb coach, but he's not a horrible coach. As I mentioned in the other thread on Juwan, he has one hand tied behind his back because of the strict systemic limitations that our school places on bball program. There are not a lot of coaches out there that could succeed at Michigan because of that.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:27 AM ^
So the basketball coach some how has far more restrictions than the football coaches, who just won a title? I don't think so.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:10 PM ^
It's almost as if those are two entirely different sports and restrictions impact one more than the other. Crazy idea, I know.
Not even getting into how much worse NIL is for basketball than football...
February 21st, 2024 at 12:10 PM ^
Well he does. NIL for basketball is far worse than it is for football. There is some strong indication that the Michigan basketball NIL program is one of the worst in the big ten.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:43 AM ^
Ok, so maybe we shouldn't be competing for titles every year (even though Beilein had the same limitations placed on him), but we shouldn't be the worst in the B1G. We don't seem to be able to do fundamental things well, we seem to struggle putting forth a consistent effort (see e.g. defense), and are trending further down each year under Juwan.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:52 PM ^
Hey. I don't disagree with you. And I should be clear, I'm not against firing Juwan, we just need to be as sure as possible that we can replace him with someone better. Having the systemic limitations severely inhibits of us getting a good coach. Furthermore, these limitations are things that JB did not have to deal with, particularly around NIL.
February 21st, 2024 at 10:51 AM ^
Juwan took two lottery picks and an all-american to the NIT.
What "limitations" exist there?
February 21st, 2024 at 11:58 AM ^
Mostly notably, NIL. Football NIL program >>>>>>>>> basketball NIL program
February 21st, 2024 at 1:12 PM ^
And JH is responsible largely for our crappy NIL. He has to get out there and still the program and work with boosters. Harbaugh came around to that. Glad handing is part of the job as is recruiting. Warde ain't going to do shit so that falls on Howard and his staff.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:59 PM ^
Then this is another reason why Juwan has his hands tied. It seems like most programs with successful NIL programs have a GM-type role to manage it, not the head coach. We just hired one this year for football.
Also, I can tell you as someone close to some major boosters, Jim Harbaugh never came around to the NIL madness. He had no problem doing the standard donor hand-shaking boondoggles, but activities around NIL were not his thing. Jim liked revenue sharing much better because it was cleaner, fairer and more transparent than NIL.
February 21st, 2024 at 3:18 PM ^
Juwan gets paid millions of dollars a year to overcome problems and obstacles. If things are so hopeless, and the bottom of the B1G is our new ceiling, you might as well bring in someone to fail for a lot less money.
February 21st, 2024 at 5:40 PM ^
Sure. We could do that, but that doesn't really address the root cause.
February 21st, 2024 at 2:48 PM ^
And Bielien didn't have the same limitations. For that matter, I think NW has far more limitations and they will beat us by at least 20 tomorrow (probably more like 30)
February 21st, 2024 at 11:16 AM ^
prized candidate? Do you hear how Howard is at the top of nearly every NBA job opening list every offseason?
Oh wait.
Reminds me of all the QB coaches Bret Favre got hired elsewhere because they apparently all were the key to Favre being a good player. Lions got suckered into hiring one of them.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:12 PM ^
When he came here, he was a candidate for a lot of NBA jobs. I didn't say now.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:34 PM ^
How so exactly? Is he not recruiting / developing well? Is he not a good in-game coach?
Yes.