Former Michigan Players in the NCAA

I’m more interested in Marcus Allen playing 43 minutes in a 40 minute game

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Stayed after for three minutes to get some shots up.

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Still early and not playing high major teams. Justin Pippen has averaged 14.5ppg 6 rbg and 5.5 apg. 8 turnovers isn’t good but getting lots of run 34 mpg.

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Phat Phat is starting for Central. The offense has been extremely rough and he has 9 fouls in those 2 games

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As we enter Feast Week, I thought I’d post on the 12 former Michigan players still playing in the NCAA similar to how @mgl does with his great NBA updates. I apologize in advance if I miss something since I will admit to watching almost none of these guys play so far this year - most of this is taken from stats.

  • Tarris Reed (Michigan → UConn) - He’s only played in three games this year so far but has been very good, averaging 20pts and 9 boards when healthy. He’s shooting 77% from 2pt range as you might expect. He missed the Arizona loss for a 4-1 UConn team. It will be interesting to see if he’s back for their Illinois/Kansas games next week.
  • Frankie Collins (UM → ASU → TCU → Vandy) - On his 4th school in five seasons, he’s basically averaging his career stats of about 10ppg, 4reb, and 5ast. Interestingly, he’s not a starter on this 5-0 Vandy team, though he does play a fair number of minutes off the bench. He’s missed their last two games.
  • Tre Donaldson (Aub → UM → Miami) - Tre would fit right in on our team this year as he’s off to a rough start from behind the stripe (3-for-17), but he’s still averaging 16 points and 6 assists per game for the 4-1 Hurricanes. They got beat up by Florida for their only loss and Tre really struggled in that game.
  • Terrance Williams (UM → USC) - He’s in his 6th college season for USC and has come back from injury to play in 4 games this season. He’s playing about 15mpg off the bench and hasn’t done much statistically so far outside of a blowout against Manhattan where he went for 10/7. Good to see him still contributing as he was a gamer for us during his time at UM.
  • Dug McDaniel (UM → KSU → Memphis) - Some of us watched part of his game the other night and saw the good (pace) and bad (sloppiness) of the Dug experience. Memphis is off to a rough start, though statistically Dug is doing pretty well. He’s averaging 15/4/6 while shooting 36% from 3pt and 90% from the FT line in his 34mpg!! However, he’s also averaging more than 3 turnovers per game and shooting just 38% from 2pt range.
  • Sam Walters (Bama → UM → SMU) - Sam is struggling to find a role on this undefeated (5-0) SMU team, averaging just 2 points per game in about 11mpg. He’s just 2-for-7 from deep and has almost as many fouls (7) as rebounds (8) or points (10). SMU’s schedule picks up after Thanksgiving with FOUR straight SEC opponents so we’ll see if Sam carves out a role.
  • Justin Pippen (UM → Cal) - While they’ve played a soft schedule so far, you have to come away a bit impressed by both Cal (5-1) and Pippen (13/5/5 in 30mpg). He’s starting and playing major minutes with solid counting numbers. His underlying stats aren’t great as he’s shooting just 48/24/74 with almost 4 turnovers per game - but encouraging start to his Cal career.
  • Phat Phat Brooks (UM → CMU) - Somewhat surprisingly, Brooks is a starter for CMU in his first season with them after rarely seeing the court for Michigan last year. Now, CMU is a bad team (2-4) and he hasn’t been very good so far as his shooting line is rough (0-8 from three). But he’s driving the offense and playing about 27mpg.
  • Isaiah Barnes (UM → Tulsa → Valpo) - In his final season, Barnes is averaging about his career counting stats (6/4/1) for a 4-1 Valpo team that lost their one P4 game by 40 to Kentucky. Barnes starts and has hit double-digits in the two games where he played 30 minutes, but is really struggling to put the ball in the hoop. He’s shooting 29% overall in large part thanks to his 1-for-12 from outside.
  • Jace Howard (UM → Fordham) - It doesn’t look like Jace has found a role on this team as he’s only appeared in two games and played just 20 minutes. He seems to be near the end of the bench for this 4-2 Fordham squad.
  • George Washington (UM → Richmond → FGCU) - GW3 seems like a deep bench player for FGCU as he’s only appeared in two blowouts so far of their five games (3-2 record). His highlight is that he scored 10 points and had 5 rebounds in their blowout of an opponent called “New College” that doesn’t even have a link in basketball-reference. As far as I can tell, it is a tiny liberal arts school in Sarasota called the Mighty Banyans. Fun fact for the day.
  • Cooper Smith (UM → EMU) - The final person on this list is former walk-on Cooper Smith, who transferred to EMU. He is obviously still at the end of their bench as well, but he has made appearances in three games (all losses) and did make his only shot in just 7 minutes of game time across the season for the 3-2 Eagles.

You could build an interesting team with this group of players. I don’t think they’d be any good, mind you, but they would be interesting. Some of the guys seem to have landed in a good spot on teams that are playing well and they’re contributing. Others still haven’t found their level where they can be a meaningful contributor.

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Thanks for a very interesting update.

I think a team made from this roster could be pretty good. You would have a very good center with Taris and good pg play from Dug/Tre/Frankie. Filling in the wing spots would be a challenge but if TWIII got back into form you might have something there.

“The Mighty Banyans"

I don’t think he’s on the team anymore fwiw. He’s been scrubbed off the official roster page

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It’s funny because my take was “look at the Juwan era carnage”

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Yeah, other than Tarris and maybe Tre that team would be one of the worst in the HM ranks.

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I will defend TWill for eternity

Tennessee legacy putbacks

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I love Terrance

At full health I think he can be a real part of a decent team

That said it looks like he won’t get that shot.

Tarris and Tre are good college players

The rest?

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A quick internet search reveals this to be true.

I didn’t see any articles about it….just that he isn’t on the roster.

https://x.com/csayf23/status/1994611220524019777?s=46&t=qq2oxh4juqE9DdzjxUWqMw

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Sorry to hear that. Jase seemed like a good guy and a good teammate.

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Sad news.

Also, guard?

It’s being reported that the medical reason for Jace’s retirement is multiple concussions. Multiple concussions can obviously be problematic but I don’t think justify the label of “medical crisis”.

Well, at least he will always have that block of Kofi Cockburn.

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Jace Howard. Very good person from my interactions

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This made me chase the question “what is Kofi Cockburn up to?”, and I realize his main asset was “being really big” while having some decent athleticism, which doesn’t really age well, but I’m surprised to see he’s playing in the Japanese league for a team that apparently “has been unsuccessful retaining a coach, with players filling in on a rotating basis to the team’s detriment”.

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