I wouldn’t say that the search is dragging on right now. Beilein left on Monday. How quickly do you want a new head coach?
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I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Like there literally has to be, there’s no reason they would otherwise.
I think some people on this board feel like it’s longer since they’ve been intently keeping track of all the news. Probably doesn’t seem too long for you since you were just on vacation 
I’m just exhaling after the Porter Moser scare. I don’t think any of the current candidates are potential program destroyers like I believe Moser could’ve been…
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Timing is more important in coach searching than the money cannon. It is extremely difficult if not totally impossible to move someone who is content at where they are. Shaka’s name would’ve not come up if his seat was not warm. OSU got Urban Meyer because he was in “retirement”, we got Jim Harbaugh because he was to leave 49ers anyway.
But in Harbaugh’s case, it was not him use the Bo connection to get the job, it was the university that used Bo connection to get jim. JH had no shortage of fitters in NFL, many claimed that he would’ve never return to college.
In Juwan’s case, neither side will not engage without such connection. Juwan would’ve not interested in any other college jobs and Warde would’ve not looked at any other NBA assistants. But it is a perfect timing for both parties. Juwan is almost there for a NBA gig and we have an opening for him, plus the roster is front court heavy to go with Juwan’s strength, plus he has 5* nephew, and NCAA is moving back the 3pt line …
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LOL. Unfortunately, when you run UM Hoops, a vacation where Beilein leaves in the middle of it turns out to be not much of a vacation. More an exercise of how to best use a 6 hour time difference to your advantage rather than an opportunity to roll through some season recap content.
My point is that we aren’t talking about dragging on for weeks, we are talking about less than a week. A bit unclear why all the consternation there. Michigan needs to move quickly but no need to be reckless.
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JB was paid like a top 10 coach if I am not mistaken. The money is there and it should have no bearing on this hire. If it does than Warde is fhe disaster many assume he is.
Yeah, Beilein was paid well but not exuberantly. Talking about 5,6,7+ million for a coach is a different ball game.
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I feel like if Juwan Howard really wants the job you almost have to give it to him and I am more than ok with that. He is going to be an NBA head coach some day and I would feel really dumb if we didn’t hire him and he became an NBA head coach next year or something. How silly would that be to know we could have had an NBA head coach who was also part of the fab 5, heavily endorsed by prominent alumni, and is still young. Juwan Howard would bring a tremendous amount of excitement to the program. If we can hire him and retain some assistants, especially Yak, to help him out a bit I think that would be a phenomenal situation for us.
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Semantics. He was an elite coach was my point. It costs money to get those.
He had three stud freshman this year. Seems he is doing just fine
For sure. And we should absolutely pay top dollar in basketball. We can afford it and the program deserves it. I understand many elite coaches probably won’t leave, but take your shot with a big offer, you never know.
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If we’re going to be fair about it, Harbaugh’s relationships within the AD hindered him for over a decade. He was hired this last time in spite of the people he upset (the academic comments he made at Stanford were barely the tip of the iceberg) because of merit.
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At the very least, you would think Warde is looking at the cost benefit of hiring a mid level guy vs an elite guy. It wasn’t long ago that more than half of the seats in Crisler were empty. This past year, they sold out most (if not all) games. What is the cost if you lose 2000 ticket holders for 20 games? 3000? What other impacts do you have. The impact might be $1 mm or $3 or $4 mm per year. Is the impact big enough to warrant paying $7 mm a year. Michigan’s basketball revenue is approx $16 mm per year. There might be other revenue coming from TV rights and the bigten. That said, the direct revenue is something like $16 mm I believe. Puts us in the top 15 of college basketball. Football dwarfs this number. So when we talk what we pay Harbaugh vs what we pay basketball coaches, we can’t ignore the economics. Football is the bell cow.
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I just read through the last 200 or so comments and all I’ve gotten from the arguing is that the same people saying “we have to be super careful to pick the correct coach or everything’s gonna get blown up and Michigan will be ruined forever” are the same ones saying “Argh it’s been 5 days why don’t we have a new coach yet???”
Patience, folks. Patience.
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Howard seems like an excellent candidate. It’s a bit nervy to hire a first-timer in a head coaching position, but especially given the other options it seems like the reasonable thing to do.
I would like to know more about how serious an NBA head coaching candidate he is. Ewing has been the comparison here, and my original thinking was that Ewing was ignored as a head coaching candidate over the 16 years he was in assistant, whereas Howard is drawing some interes after six years. Ewing did have a few head coaching interviews one year before he jumped to Georgetown. it would be comforting to know that Howard is a legit NBA head-coach candidate and not actually a guy teams talked to to boost the number of interviews they conduct.
It’s beyond my desire to google prior years at this point, but the only NBA job I have heard him attached to in this cycle was about 5 days ago, he was on a list of 4 candidates the TWolves had asked permission to interview.
Howard also interviewed for Cavs and Lakers gigs, I believe.
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If it does, the likely reason will be that our recruiting has gotten a little dirty. It was about as clean as it could have been under Beilein, but no one consistently lands elite 5 star recruits without paying them, directly or indirectly. There are really no programs that recruit at an elite level that are not dirty. Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, Louisville… None of those programs get top recruits because of their reputation alone, they get them by outbidding other schools. That’s the way it is now in college BB, and it’s clear that the NCAA and the sports media have no interest in doing anything serious to change that.
So we have to decide what kind of program we want to root for.
Exactly. It’s silly to just say “So-and-so will never leave where they are, so don’t bother”. You never know who’s willing to make a move until you ask and offer. And you aim high. Just like drafting a QB…you go for somebody elite, high in the first round, because so much depends on it. You may miss, but you swing for the fences.