Michigan Basketball: 3 Predictions for Juwan Howard’s his first season
Recruits will dig Howard
This isn’t going to be a big projection because shortly after the move was announced, a number of recruits reacted in a positive fashion.
One of those was Jalen Wilson, the player that was formerly the Wolverines top commit in the 2019 class. Wilson is a top-50 recruit that just de-committed last week. However, he said it had everything to do with the coaching situation and that he is still very interested in Michigan.
MLive even did an interview with Wilson and in it, he said he expected to be courted by Howard and essentially invited the new coach into this home to pitch him and his parents: Here’s what he said to MLive:
"“I only decommitted because I didn’t know who the coach was going to be,” he said Wednesday. His interest remained as he watched the search. Coach Beilein came to my house and had a full game plan of his future with me,” Wilson said. “I would expect the same from Juwan.”"
Michigan basketball also got a very positive reaction from Zeb Jackson, who basically said if the Wolverines kept the same level of interest, he was still solidly committed. Five-star Nimari Burnett, a guy Michigan was already recruiting also said he knew Howard very well and spoke to him recently according to a Tweet from Detroit Free Press reporter Orion Sang.
2020 5-star guard Nimari Burnett says he knows Juwan Howard "very well." Both are Chicago natives. Burnett met him when he was around 9 or 10 and has known Howard since; ran into him at the airport about a week ago and shared a brief conversation (not about Michigan).
— Orion Sang (@orion_sang) May 22, 2019
Those are just a few examples on day one. It will take Howard a minute to reset things how he wants but he is familiar with recruiting and he is well known. His NBA experience was already mentioned by Wilson and others and his endorsement by LeBron won’t hurt either.