Michigan Basketball: Mid-season grades for the Wolverines

Michigan basketball won’t be back on the floor until Feb. 11, so we decided to recap the first half of the season and hand out grades for Wolverines.

It’s been over a week since we last watched Michigan basketball and while its pause will end within a week, the Wolverines won’t be back on the court until Feb. 11 against Illinois.

That’s a solid nine days without Michigan basketball, which is still sitting fourth in the AP poll and is still being projected as a No. 1 seed in the latest bracketology update by ESPN’s Joe Lundari.

Beyond that, the Wolverines (13-1, 8-1) have actually gotten some help from other teams in the Big Ten. As expected, the lead has increased in the loss column and could be as large as three games by the time Michigan basketball is back.

Of course, the schedule is difficult once it resumes and games against Illinois, Wisconsin, Rutgers, Ohio State, Indiana, Iowa and Michigan State loom, plus who knows how many of the postponed games will be made up. Those were against MSU, Indiana, Northwestern and Penn State.

The biggest question is how will the Wolverines perform once they get back? There will be a few days of practice before the first game back, which is also at home, so those are reasons for optimism.

Juwan Howard has also done an exceptional job this season and he’s got a veteran team. All that bodes well for U-M, but since we don’t have any games for over a week, it seemed like a good time to look back on the first half of the season with our mid-season grades.

We’ll breakdown the offense, the defense and the coaching. Individual grades will follow later this week, so here we go with the offense.