Michigan Basketball: 3 things to watch vs Maryland

3. Juwan’s seat is getting exponentially hotter, how does he respond?

We were blessed with Juwan Howard’s fantastic introduction to College Basketball after knocking down Gonzaga and North Carolina in the same tournament, but many forget (since it was the COVID-19 year) that Michigan finished that season 19-12 with some pretty ugly losses.

While we’ve seen what Juwan is capable of, he has not exactly proven anything. Michigan made it to the Elite 8 losing to what would become a very respectable and amazing UCLA team who was a buzzer-beater away from the National Championship, but that’s as far as Michigan has gotten with Juwan.

Granted, the year prior there was no Tournament but Michigan realistically was not making it as a high seed the way they played, they were an AP #4 at one point, and suffered their first loss in an ugly showing to Louisville. Juwan Howard’s finally got all his guys with the exception of a few, this is his talent and his team that he recruited, so what gives?

Beilein never recruited classes as good as Juwans, but Beilein hardly struggled when it came to game time. You knew the team would progressively get better regardless of the talent, and come March they were a force to be reckoned with. With Juwan, it seems he’s unable to coach this talent to their respective heights.

Juwan’s got plenty of time to turn the ship around and fix what has become the worst Michigan team in nearly eight years, since the 2014-2015 Michigan Wolverines who finished 16-16 and had no bids to either the NIT or March Madness.

Can Juwan turn it around? I personally think so, but it needs to start now.