Michigan basketball: Predicting the depth chart with Franz Wagner

Now that the 2019-20 Michigan basketball team looks to be complete, its time to breakdown where everyone fits positionally on Juwan Howard’s first squad.

Nothing was bigger for Michigan basketball than the addition of Franz Wagner. Based on the evidence, Franz could become a bigger star than his older brother Moritz Wagner who is playing in the NBA Summer League with the Washington Wizards – he was traded to free up cap space from the Lakers following the acquisition of Anthony Davis from the Pelicans.

Evan Daniels, 247Sports Director of Recruiting, provided the following evaluation of Wagner:

"In terms of Franz’s game, he was a kid that was playing up in a terrific league. He’s got good size for the position. He’s a natural scorer, he’s a good athlete. He’s a shotmaker. I think he brings a lot of talent to the table. This is equivalent to a high four-star type pickup if he was in the states. He’s an impressive get."

Daniels also said that Franz would likely be a top 50 level recruit had he been in the United States.

Drew Hallett from Rivals spoke strongly about how much the addition impacted Michigan: jumping them in the ranks, specifically the T-Rank which is a rank determined by Barttorvi. Barttorvi explains on their website the ranking is calculated using “offensive and defensive efficiency: points scored and points allowed per possession.”

Hallett explained, “Now, after the addition of Wagner, T-Rank projects that the Wolverines will be 28th nationally. In the last 10 seasons, only six teams total who were ranked 28th or better in T-Rank failed to participate in the NCAA Tournament, and two of them were the result of postseason bans. Excluding the teams imposed with postseason bans, only 1.4 percent of the teams ranked in the top 28 of T-Rank in the past decade missed the NCAA Tournament.”

Assuming Franz starts right away, let’s see where he and everyone else fits in for the 2019-20 season.