3 Biggest questions for Michigan Basketball heading into 2020-21

Despite bringing in six new faces to this team, when you look down Michigan’s roster, its surprisingly deep. This could create some minute distribution issues.

There are three players that I could see this potentially being an issue for this year. Let’s start off with Brandon Johns. He is coming into his junior season and is once again not expected to start. That’s a tough situation for such a talented kid.

Juwan Howard will have a tough challenge trying to get Johns the minutes he deserves. He will have to find a few creative ways to get him extra minutes like playing him as a small ball center or even going with a big lineup that includes him, Livers and a center.

Brandon Johns is good enough to start. So how will he handle getting less than deserved minutes in his junior season?

Another player I want to look at is Adrien Nunez. He’s another junior who will be looking to break through and contribute this season.

The problem with that is, I do not see a clear path to any minutes. For this scenario let’s assume that Chaundee Brown is given his waiver to play like is expected.

Michigan is set at the three spot with Franz, Livers, and even Chaundee Brown. They are set at the two spot with Brooks and Chaundee Brown. And he might not even play in front of a guy like Zeb Jackson, who in my opinion, is good enough to make an impact as a freshman.

I don’t see Nunez playing ahead of any of those guys and that’s a tough situation for an upperclassman looking to break out.

The last player(s) that I want to point out is the trio of Mike Smith, Eli Brooks, and Brown. All of these guys are former high minute starters. They are all great players but the fact is, only two out of these three will be able to start this season.

I’m extremely interested to see how the minutes will be distributed between those three guys and how comfortable they are in their roles.

Michigan has talented pieces on their roster this season. If they can answer these three big question marks, Michigan basketball can make some noise in the Big Ten.