Michigan Wolverines news: A huge 2024 commitment for Michigan Football, a good night for hoops and more

It was a good day for the Michigan football and both Michigan basketball teams. We cover that and more in our latest Michigan Wolverines news roundup. 

Michigan football fans know that for the Wolverines to keep contending for national championships, the recruiting is going to need to be better than it was in the 2023 class.

Well, so far, things are off to a roaring start as Michigan football landed a top-5 player in the state of Michigan and a top-200 recruit overall in the 2024 class in Jacob Oden, who announced his commitment to the Michigan Wolverines on Thursday.

Out of Harper Woods, Michigan, Oden is 6-foot-1, 188 pounds, and ranks 166th overall according to the 247 sports composite rankings for the 2024 class. In-state recruiting is always important and landing one of the top players in the state to open the cycle is huge.

Oden picked Michigan football over others such as Michigan State, Tennessee, Penn State, Auburn, Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and a bunch of others.

It’s early but the Michigan Wolverines already have six commitments in the 2024 class and five of those six are four-star prospects. Mason Curtis is also ranked in the top 200 and the lowest-ranked commit right now is international prospect Manuel Beigel. He’s a guy that’s eventually going to get a rating and has a huge upside like Aymeric Koumba in the 2023 class.

Michigan football needs to land Jadyn Davis and some top-100 commitments in this class but it ranks seventh so far and is off to a solid start.

Both Michigan Wolverines basketball teams win

The Michigan men’s basketball team faced a must-win game at Northwestern and the Wolverines finally delivered with a 68-51 win. Joey Baker was huge and hit some big-time shots off the bench, while Hunter Dickinson scored 19 points.

In short, it allows the Wolverines to work their way back into the NCAA tournament conversation if they can win their next three games at home against Ohio State, Nebraska, and Indiana.

The Wolverines have life, which they wouldn’t have had with a loss. That would have dropped their record to 11-11 overall and 5-6 in the Big Ten. Now they are 12-10 and 6-5 with three very winnable games at home.

It’s do or die.

The Michigan Wolverines women’s basketball team hosted Illinois on Thursday night and dominated the Fighting Illini en route to a 75-57 win. Leigha Brown led Michigan with 27 points. She was 10-of-13 from the field and didn’t miss a single free throw as U-M blew the game open with 27 second-quarter points.

Emily Kiser also added 10 points for the Michigan Wolverines in the win, as did Maddie Nolan who connected on a pair of 3-pointers.

Next up for both Michigan Wolverines basketball teams will be rivalry games. The men host Ohio State on Sunday, while the women will head to East Lansing to face Michigan State the same day.

Former Michigan football standout Jake Moody has himself a night

Michigan football kicker Jake Moody took part in the East-West Shrine Game on Thursday night and was the offensive MVP as he went 4-for-4 on field goals in a 12-3 win.

Moody won the Lou Groza Award as the top kicker in college football in 2021 and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if an NFL team drafted him. At the very least, he will get signed and my prediction is that he’s a starting kicker in the NFL next September.