Michigan Basketball: 3 reasons getting Franz Wagner is huge

Juwan Howard gets momentum from a recruiting win

Since Howard was hired at such a late date on the recruiting calendar, we haven’t gotten a chance to see how he would do in some key recruiting battles.

Howard obviously wasn’t able to bring Jalen Wilson back into the fold and that hurt, however, by landing a guy like Wagner, it shows that high-level prospects still want to come to Michigan.

Wagner could have stayed at Alba Berlin, under a long-time coach respected for his ability to develop players. Instead, he chose to play for Howard. Saddi Washington played a huge role but Wagner is expressing a belief in Howard too and that’s huge heading into 2020. Here is another excerpt from Daniels:

"This is a massive pickup for Juwan Howard not only for how good of a player he is, but he is also a tremendous talent. It gives Juwan Howard a lot of momentum. This is a kid that visited the day that John Beilein was announced to go to the Cavaliers. So, the fact that he was able to hold this recruitment together, and I think a lot of credit goes to Saddi Washington, is really impressive."

With potentially as many as five scholarships to offer for 2020, it’s going to be a key recruiting class for Howard and Michigan basketball going forward. Zeb Jackson is already committed and has re-affirmed that. Yet, there is still plenty of work to do and this momentum was needed.

Wagner is the first legit NBA prospect to commit to Michigan with Howard as the head coach and hopefully, there are more from the 2020 class that join him in the coming months.

Either way, for the 2019-20 season, landing Franz Wagner was enormous and it now gives the Wolverines a chance to be one of the top teams in the Big Ten once again.