This has got me to wondering how the season would be going had he and Yaklich stayed together. The team won some cold-shooting games the past two years due to their stingy defense. Turnover numbers would be down.
I think it’s more likely Bajema would be seeing minutes because of Beilein’s love of pure shooters. I wonder what kind of an impact Jalen Wilson might make. Teske would have greater consistency in a more familiar role. Castleton would probably be playing over Davis, since JB wasn’t a fan of feeding the post. Would Johns be as confident right now under JB as he appears to be under JH, or still be sweating mistakes and his development postponed?
In any case, as others have said, Beilein would not have been around for many more years, and now UM has a young coach with promise. I think it will be at least three seasons before I’m ready to give my own verdict on whether Juwan Howard was the right hire. Seeing how he finishes with this group, and also how he builds and sustains his own program will go a long way towards making that determination in my view.
Yeah the key is to keep giving yourself chances. Beilein was an OT away from the Final Four at West Virginia. You keep coming back year after year and at some point the breaks go your way.
Also, the Kansas game was much flukier than Houston. We were ahead in the Houston game with a minute to go (61-60) and then missed a bunch of close shots while they made a few FTs - it was looking like a very unfortunate loss when Poole saved the day. Kansas OTOH was a game where we were barely in it and made the miracle comeback.
I mean, once JB had his own recruits as upperclassmen (2011-2019), we basically had what, three years (2011, 2015, 2016) out of nine where we weren’t a really good team?
Two Final Fours, two national title appearances (better than any other Big Ten team), two Big Ten regular season championships, two Big Ten tourney titles, two more appearances in the Big Ten tourney finals (both losses to MSU), one Elite Eight, and two Sweet Sixteens?
If Juwan can do better than that, God bless him, and he’ll go down as our best coach ever.
I would be terrified to open this thread if Juwan Howard hadn’t gotten off to such a hot start and hadn’t already won games against Mark Few, Tom Izzo, Roy Williams and a guy that everyone wanted hired at Michigan for some reason, Steve Prohm.
He is a good example though of how it can be tough to distinguish early tenure results from the previous coach. He inherited Georges Niang, Monte Morris, etc.
Beilein was great but um basketball has had so much coaching turnover in its history that I am a bit enamored with the potential of having a potential lifer 20+ year type coach at UM in Howard. Obviously that’s a long way down the road and if juwan does what I think he’ll do the nba is going be enamored with him. Of the top 15 programs or so historically um and osu are the 2 programs I can think of that have never had anyone like that. UM is beyond due for one.
I don’t really think JB’s roster construction was at fault there. He was really a victim of his own success as far as guys just exploded and left way earlier than most people could have anticipated. Then he had one recruiting class where he missed on all his top guys. And he had already started adapting to that a bit, with grad transfers and being okay with signing above your limit.
Is that what you see in Juwan? I honestly don’t have a great read but it is a fascinating question. I can’t imagine you spend two decades plus playing in the NBA, years coaching in the NBA and then don’t at some time take a job in the NBA.
2015 and 16 were bad and the 2017 season was on track for the same until D Walt exploded out of nowhere for the last month and half or so. 2018 also got off to a rough start and had to rebound (although in hindsight it doesn’t look as rough since they played a pretty easy non-conference schedule).
I think a period like that was always pretty likely to reoccur under JB when a guy he doesn’t want to leave bolts early as a sophomore and he doesn’t really have a replacement ready to go.
EDIT: And yes. JB is the best coach in the history of Michigan basketball. Although, I think JB will also be Michigan’s first HOF coach. Michigan has never really had great coaches.
That is a really interesting question. Obviously it seems like an NBA job would be in Juwan’s future at some point but he really loves it here. I think he’ll move on eventually but I wouldn’t be super surprised if he did stick around for a pretty lengthy period of time.
Massively hurt by injuries. Imagine 2016 with Levert all year. And you can’t just chalk up 2017 like a fluke. That team was good for a longer portion of time then they were bad.
I see what you’re saying, but as a fan I’d never trade our last 40 years (including 5 Final Fours and a national title) for Purdue’s (lots of Big Ten titles but no Final Fours since 1980). The tourney is the big stage and it’s what everyone remembers.
To be honest, I really don’t get the appeal of coaching in the NBA from a competitive standpoint. There are some better coaches than others, but for the most part nothing you do matters that much and everything is player-driven. I think if you want the best ratio of pay-to-hours it’s great, but I would think going down as a legend at your alma mater in college is more fulfilling from a competition/legacy standpoint since college is much more the coach’s game.
