Michigan Basketball: Wolverines show interest in 3-star sleeper for 2020

Michigan basketball was out on the recruiting trail this past weekend during the final evaluation period and a pair of 3-stars emerged as potential targets.

During Juwan Howard‘s first foray into recruiting as the head coach of Michigan basketball, it seems like he has an affinity for five-star recruits.

After all, when it comes to the 2020 and 2021 recruiting classes, Howard has offered a bevy of five-star prospects in those two classes and some highly-ranked four-star prospects such as Jabri Abdur-Rahim and Hunter Dickinson of 2020.

Yet, Michigan basketball and its new coaching staff hadn’t expressed much interest in three-star recruits until this past weekend, when there were a couple of reports of the Wolverines scouting some three-star guys.

According to UMHoops, Wolverines assistant coach Howard Eisley spent time this weekend watching 2020 three-star Noah Collier, a 6-foot-7 forward from Pennslyvania. He’s ranked 30th among power forwards and is the sixth-ranked player in his state.

Collier is long and athletic. He also looks like more of a three than a four at the college level, although he could be a guy that plays both positions like Isaiah Livers. Collier does have offers from Syracuse, West Virginia, Cal, Maryland and Penn State.

While he’s not ranked super high right now, things can change and with his athleticism, his upside is tremendous, especially if the Wolverines are wanting to play at a faster pace under Howard.

While Collier is one three-star Michigan kept an eye on during the final live evaluation period for June, another three-star that said Howard and company are recruiting him is Karim Mane, a three-star guard from Canada.

Mane told 247 sports that Michigan was among the teams recruiting him and with the Wolverines previous success with Canadian players such as Nik Stauskas and Ignas Brazdeikis, it makes sense.

Mane is listed as a three-star according to the 247 composite rankings, however, he is a fast-rising prospect that surged all the way to No. 30 in 2020 according to just the 247 proprietary rankings. 247 also the 6-foot-5 guard, as the No. 6 combo guard.

This past weekend, Mane was playing in the FIBA U19 World Cup and put together a stellar showing against Australia, scoring 23 points and knocking down 5-of-9 shots from 3-point range.

“Right now, Maryland, Texas, Xavier, Kansas, all of those schools keep texting me,” Mane said. Yet, he also listed Michigan basketball among the other teams currently recruiting him. The post also indicates he has taken just one official visit to Maryland, so his recruitment appears wide open.

When he was hired, Howard said he was going to search far and wide for talent, whether they were five-stars, four-stars or whatever and so far, that’s proving to be true and when it comes to a top Canadian talent, Michigan basketball seems to make a lot of sense.