Michigan Basketball poised to land 5-star Caleb Houstan

Juwan Howard hasn’t landed a five-star recruit yet as Michigan basketball coach but that could change very soon as U-M is trending hard with Caleb Houstan.

Over the past few weeks and months really, Michigan basketball has been trending in the right direction with five-star recruit Caleb Houstan and now it’s appears as though all that hard work by Juwan Howard and company is going to pay off.

That’s because late Thursday, Tipton Edits, which does a number of announcements for college basketball recruits, tweeted that a five-star recruit was going to make a decision in the next 24-48 hours.

Just hours after this tweet, Michigan started getting crystal ball projections for Houstan, a move that makes a lot of sense, and now the Wolverines have three predictions.

The first one came from Travis Branham an analyst for 247 sports. He went with a confidence level of seven on a scale of 1-10 and in terms of 2021 accuracy he’s a perfect 50 for 50.

Shortly after Branham put in his prediction, Eric Bossi, who recently came to 247 sports from Rivals, also placed his crystal ball with a confidence level of seven, as did Chad Lykins of the Devils Den, the Duke 247 site, so that has to make Michigan fans feel pretty good.

Obviously, the crystal ball projections have gone against Michigan before, most notable with the Josh Christopher recruitment, but back then, the predictions weren’t rolling in right before the announcement, so it’s a totally different situation.

As far as what Michigan would be getting, well Houstan is a 6-foot-8, 205-pound power forward who can shoot the heck out of the ball. He’s ranked eighth overall in the 247 composite rankings for the class of 2021 and is the No. 2 power forward.

Here’s his scouting report from 247 sports Jerry Meyer:

"“Has good size as a combo forward with shooting range. Not overly athletic, but plays with strength and has body control. Dangerous three-point shooter. Finishes well inside the arc. Is composed with the basketball. Solid handler and passer. Strong rebounder. Comes up with points off the glass. Positional defender with versatility defensively.”"

Houstan would be the ideal fit with Michigan’s other 2021 commitments and he would be the perfect player to replace the production left by Isalah Livers, who will graduate after this season and Franz Wagner, who is probably heading to the NBA, if he lives up to preseason expectations.

Howard has already filled some big needs in the 2021 class. He’s got his point guard in Frankie Collins, as well as three exciting players in combo guard Kobe Bufkin, wing Isaiah Barnes and big man Will Tschetter.

But Houstan is an entirely different player and as long as he winds up committing and signing with Michigan basketball (unlike Isaiah Todd), it will easily be Juwan’s biggest recruiting victory and another sign of where his program is headed.