Drake Harris - back to basketball

MGoBlog reporting Drake Harris will attempt to play basketball at Michigan

http://mgoblog.com/content/report-exit-football-drake-harris-hello-hoops-drake-harris

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Somehow i saw this one coming. Does he has 3 years if transfer sports

No, he has 2. This is his 4th year in school, and he has 5 years to complete 4. This year, his scholarship counts as a football scholarship–next year, if he is still here and on scholarship, it would have to come from the basketball side.

Unless he does a dual next year a la Matt Trannon

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He will probably see more action on the hardwood than he was going to get with the football team. This could give us some good depth at guard and he has time to get his body and skills in shape before the season starts.

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I am sure that his body is in decent shape, could get some fine tuning by Sanderson. But his basketball skills may need some time to find, especially learning the offense. He should’ve done this sooner, say after the spring ball.

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According to some, football is done, over, gone, thus basketball only.

My concern is whether he’d be worth the scholarship in 2018-19. If he were walking on, I’d be all for it.

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I feel like this is a couple years too late…

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I’d be surprised if he used a basketball scholarship for this, but if he continued on his football scholarship or through some other means, I’m all for it.

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Yea I’m surprised he didn’t do this earlier. Seems like he would have had a much better chance of playing hoops than at DB.

An athletic wing who was a 4 star out of high school and has great physical measurements is pretty awesome to be gifted upon us.

Anyone know if he’d be eligible for this upcoming season?

he can play immediately as any UM walk-on students can. how much he retained his basketball skills after three years of playing football is unknown as Beilein’s system is quite different from those of Don Brown and Jim Harbaugh.

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He is in football shape, he needs to get into basketball shape.

Beilein will know by next year if he wants to use a scholarship on him or not.

Did he ever end up practicing with the basketball team last year? I feel like I read Mgoblog rumors saying that could happen.

If he doesn’t join the team until after football season in January, then it will be hard for him to be much of a contributor. If he’s joining the team and will start practice with the team with everybody else before the season, then maybe he can help some. Although, that’s asking a lot after having not played competitive basketball in several years. To think he can play over Watson or Poole may be unrealistic.

Regardless, I don’t see Harris being able to contribute in football so why not give basketball a shot.

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My understanding, basketball is now. He will be counted as a football scholarship this year. Next year, who knows.

Agreed…depending on how he transitions from FB to BB, it may be hard for him to get up to speed in time to contribute much this season. Ideally, he’d just make the switch now and be done with FB, but not sure if that’s possible.

But in any case, what the heck? This is basically a free player, probably well above the level of a walk-on, at a position where we could use another body. Even if he only is a peripheral backup, there’s really no downside.

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Free this season only, tough decision for Beilein regarding the 18-19 scholarship counts. I assume that Harris will go fulltime on basketball and participate in basketball preseason practice. how much he can contribute is a big question mark. The best scenario is that he can establish himself as an elite defender and at least an average shooter. I can see him backing up MAAR ahead of Poole.