Michigan basketball was a major disappointment in the 2022-23 season and here are five thoughts moving forward on the Wolverines.
It’s been clear for a while that something hasn’t been quite right with Michigan basketball. Youth has been part of it, but there is more than that.
Michigan didn’t live up to preseason expectations or the “for competitors only” moniker that Juwan Howard and the Wolverines have adopted.
You certainly didn’t see the competitive fire in the Wolverines enough this season. Giving up a free basket because no one boxes out — on a free throw — when the season is on the line, is inexcusable.
It’s not the first time that the effort of this team has been questioned. The effort certainly wasn’t good enough on defense for much of the season and when the going got tough, this team wilted, over and over again.
Frankly, Michigan basketball underachieved in 2021-22 as well. The Wolverines made the tournament with 19 wins and 14 losses. If it wasn’t for the Sweet 16 run, that season would have felt similar to this one.
So, we try to examine what has gone wrong for the Wolverines and what can be fixed as we offer five thoughts on the future of Michigan basketball.
No, Juwan isn’t on the hot seat
Let’s start here. Disappointing seasons happen and if Michigan had been able to pursue transfers freely like Illinois and others, things might have been different.
The Wolverines are handcuffed by NIL and we’ll get to that in a moment. But looking at Juwan’s resume, while not perfect, it’s been pretty darn good.
There were two Sweet 16 appearances and the 2019-20 team would have made the NCAA tournament if things hadn’t gotten canceled. Michigan basketball also won the 2021 Big Ten regular-season championship and reached the Elite 8.
Michigan has also lost double-digit games in three of four seasons and 15 in each of the past two. That’s not acceptable but it’s still too early to fire Juwan or even have that conversation.
Michigan needs to get older
College basketball is a veterans game right now with the transfer portal and the extra COVID year. Michigan basketball struggled this year in large part because it was so young.
That happens though when you sign such large recruiting classes. Jett Howard, Tarris Reed, and Dug McDaniel played a lot as freshmen, then you had Kobe Bufkin and Will Tschetter also playing lots of minutes too.
Of course, if Caleb Houstan or Moussa Diabate had returned, Michigan wouldn’t have been in that tough spot. The four was a huge weakness all year for the Wolverines and if Diabate was back, Michigan would have had an NBA talent. The same goes for Houstan, which could have allowed Jett Howard to come off the bench.
Jett is a great shooter. But he’s not a complete basketball player yet and he’s not alone. Reed struggled with the same issue, although his issue is the offensive end, where Jett needs to improve his defense, awareness, and frankly, effort.
Part of that is being young though. If Michigan is able to get Hunter Dickinson, Bufkin, and Jett back next season, that will go a long way. Regardless, Michigan needs more upperclassmen and more experience, which has hurt each of the past two seasons.
A roster makeover is still needed
The Wolverines need to recruit over some guys and it starts with the four spot. Under no circumstances, can Michigan basketball be in a situation where either Terrance Williams or Will Tschetter should be starting as was the case this season.
Williams took a big step back. He lost confidence in his shooting and he just isn’t a good defender. He does a good job on the boards and has awareness, but he isn’t a great athlete, isn’t a consistent shooter, doesn’t have a position, and can’t defend.
To be honest, his best spot in the transfer portal. The same can probably be said about Isaiah Barnes. He didn’t take a step forward this season and Michigan can’t wait forever.
Michigan needs a four. That was a huge weakness this season. Illinois got Matthew Mayer — there’s no reason the Wolverines can’t, although NIL didn’t help last offseason.
The Wolverines also need a wing that can consistently make shots and defend. In other words, Michigan needs to try and find what it was hoping to get from Joey Baker. Instead, Baker shot the ball inconsistently and became borderline unplayable.
Half of the rotation was filled out with guys who shouldn’t have been on the floor at all. Tschetter basically brings nothing. He doesn’t make shots, is a poor free-throw shooter, and fouls way too much defensively. Reed is an offensive liability, while Baker and Williams are too inconsistent to count on. That’s why Michigan lost 15 games.
Hopefully, there is some turnover, because the Wolverines need to retain their best players and supplement the roster through the portal. It will mean tough conversations but it’s time for Juwan to be brutally honest because some dudes need to move on.
Recruiting more like Beilein
John Beilein had an interesting recruiting strategy. Most of the time, he wouldn’t offer recruits until they took a visit to campus, and rarely, did he go after one-and-one type players.
Some of his players developed very quickly and wound up leaving for the NBA draft sooner than expected. That’s going to happen, but if Michigan loses Bufkin and Howard to the NBA draft, it will make two years in a row that potential stars leave early.
Imagine if Houstan and Diabate had come back? Michigan would have had five All-Big Ten caliber talents. It might not have worked out that way with different shot numbers but there’s no doubt, depth wouldn’t have been an issue.
So how do you strike that balance? You need to get guys like Jalen Wilson. He was a Michigan commit before Beilein went to the NBA and he’s still leading Kansas.
Dug McDaniel is exactly the right kind of player. He will be a four-year point guard. That’s more of what Michigan needs. The Wolverines don’t have the NIL game to land five stars anyway, so they need to find their sweet spot in the 50-100 range and hit on those guys, as well as the portal.
One-and-done types bring talent, but most of the time, unless they are the elite of the elite, their impact in the first year is limited and just when they are about to become productive, as with Houstan and Diabate, they head to the NBA.
Juwan has already done a good job of recruiting those multi-year guys, but it just needs to become a higher priority and the evaluations need to be better or the development does.
The culture needs to be re-created
Two years ago when Michigan basketball had so much success, the culture was a huge reason for it. You could feel how close that team was and it’s a reason it made the Elite 8.
You could tell that last year’s team wasn’t as close and that carried over to this season. You could see the fighting among the players on Thursday and it happened more than a few times.
Part of it probably has to do with a lack of depth, but there needs to be accountability. If guys mess up the rotations on defense, fail to box out, or don’t show effort, they need to see the bench and Juwan needs to be able to do that to Jett if he decides to return.
Juwan didn’t do a good enough job of holding Jett accountable. But at times, there were effort issues that seemed to be team-wide, especially on the defensive end early in the season.
Dickinson said he felt the culture was going to be more like that 2020-21 season leading up to this year and clearly, that didn’t happen. He’s on the right track though. A talent upgrade is needed, but the culture needs to be repaired too, or the talent won’t really matter, as it didn’t in 2022-23.