Michigan basketball: What to make of the Emoni Bates announcement
Now that the Emoni Bates recruiting saga is over, here’s a look at what it means for Michigan basketball.
If you haven’t noticed by now, Memphis basketball is going crazy with their commitments right now. On Wednesday, they secured the commitment of 5-star basketball wing phenom (Michigan native) Emoni Bates.
Prior to Emoni Bates joining Memphis, they had secured the services of former Michigan-target, center Jalen Duren, another five-star.
The funny thing is that both of those players were reclassified into the 2021 recruiting class. They would both still be in high school right now had they both not reclassified.
How does this affect Michigan basketball?
The commitment doesn’t really affect Michigan. Unfortunately, Emoni’s commitment moved Michigan basketball down to the #2 spot in the 2021 recruiting rankings. Memphis has now moved up past Michigan to #1, but just barely.
To be honest, I don’t even care that that happened. In my mind, Michigan basketball still has the top class in the country. Most prospects don’t take as long as Jalen Duren and Emoni Bates to decide what they want to do.
A lot of their decisions had to do with new wrinkles being added to college basketball. Various professional sports leagues like Overseas Elite, The G-League, etc, have really stolen a lot of elite prospects from the college ranks.
This doesn’t even include NIL and all the pitches that various colleges have to now implement into their recruiting strategies.
Jalen and Emoni didn’t go professional, but they both still thought long and hard about possibly going those routes. If they didn’t have to think about it, then they would’ve committed to a school a lot sooner.
How does this affect Juwan Howard?
None of this affects how well Juwan can recruit. Just because Penny Hardaway shows he can recruit doesn’t mean Juwan can’t recruit.
Like I said before, the key to a program’s success is balancing out the one-and-dones, and the multi-yes players. No college basketball team can be successful if they keep having to replace half their roster or replace all of their good players every single season. Juwan knows this and that’s why he doesn’t just go after only the “superstars”.
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This is essentially what Penny Hardaway is doing. Yeah, he accrued a good coaching staff, which I’m sure had a little to do with winning the recruitments of Jalen and Emoni, but at the same time, is it sustainable?
Memphis is in the AAC conference, a conference with some rich basketball history (past teams like Houston and Cincinnati come to mind) but overall, does not have a strong conference top to bottom like the Big 10 at all.
Memphis has had one good year when Coach Cal and Derrick Rose led them to a Final Four in 2009. Other than that, the program has been irrelevant. Meanwhile, Michigan has had a relevant program for about a decade now, and it just keeps continuing. So, no, Michigan doesn’t need to prove themselves as Penny and Memphis do.
Juwan is at a program that’s sustainable. Juwan has some pressure to perform, but it’s nothing like being at a small school like Memphis and being asked to revive a program from the ground up. Penny had to shoot for the moon to keep his job. All eyes are on him constantly. He has to perform, especially with being a big-name hire.
Also, who’s to say that Memphis will still even be that good? Yeah, they’ll probably win their conference this season, but beyond that? Nothing is guaranteed.
A team with more balance and more experience can beat a team like Memphis. We’ve seen countless examples of “super teams” (or teams with seemingly endless loads of talent) being stopped in their tracks in the past with no championship to show for it. 2015 Kentucky, 2020 Gonzaga, 2017 Villanova, etc come to mind.
What we all need to remember is each coach recruits and coaches differently. Juwan cares about bringing a family atmosphere first.
He wants all of his guys to buy in to the “we” not “I” mentality. If this mindset means missing out on one or two guys that might spoil this mentality, so be it.
Yeah, it sucks to miss out on elite players, but long-term success is more important than one year of potentially being great.
Having to deal with those player’s NIL would be a massive headache for Juwan Howard and his coaching staff. I’m sure for any coach.
Overall, it sucks that Michigan got passed in the recruiting rankings. Juwan still did an amazing job and his recruiting strategy will pay off more in the long-run for Michigan than Penny’s for Memphis.
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Penny can’t recruit like that every single season, so it is what it is. Lastly, at least Emoni didn’t go to MSU, so there’s that too. At least that’s something we Michigan fans can all agree on.