Michigan Basketball: Predicting the 2020-21 Big Ten standings

Predicting how Michigan basketball and the rest of the Big Ten conference will finish in the 2020-21 season.

Some people from rival fan bases like to view year one under Juwan Howard as a failure. They see 9th place in the conference and use that as their only talking point. But when you really break down last season for Michigan basketball, it was mostly a success for year one of a head coach.

The Big Ten had extremely good parity last season. Only three games separated 4th and 9th place. The conference was likely going to send nine teams to the NCAA Tournament including Michigan.

That’s why that 9th place finish is only a pointless talking point and doesn’t come close to telling the full story.

Michigan basketball showed flashes of being a top-10 team a season ago. The Wolverines grinded through a good chunk of the Big Ten schedule without their top scorer in Isaiah Livers. The Big Ten was as tough as it has ever been and U-M played like it belonged for most of the season.

Heading into year two of the Juwan Howard era, don’t expect the conference to get any easier this season. Throughout this article, I’m going to break down every single Big Ten team and predict what the conference standings will look like come the end of the 2020-21 season.

Let’s start with 12th-14th place.