The 2019-20 Michigan basketball season tipped off Tuesday with a roller-coaster win over Appalachian State that saw Michigan nearly surrender a 30 point lead (for the love of everything holy, stop scheduling this team. In any sport.) Will this game be a symbolic preview of what’s to come in Juwan Howard’s maiden voyage as Michigan head coach? Join me as we calibrate our expectations for the upcoming season.

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Big shoes to fill

278-150 record | 4 Big Ten Titles (2 regular season, 2 tournament) | 8 NCAA Tournament appearances the past 9 seasons | 2 NCAA Championship appearances | 11 players selected in NBA draft

That, of course, is the resume of former Michigan head coach John Beilein, who has now taken his talents to the Cleveland Cavaliers (did you catch that Lebron reference I just dropped?).

The accolades speak for themselves, and that isn’t even an all-inclusive list. Beilein’s departure is a massive blow to the Michigan basketball program. They are now handing the reins to a familiar, but much less accomplished, face in Howard.

John Beilein has 41 years of collegiate coaching experience. Juwan Howard falls just short of that, coming in at (carry the one…) zero. He will be learning on the job, and that might account for some bumps in the road.

Player development guru

Of all John Beilein’s accomplishments listed above, there are some under-the-hood numbers that I put particular stock in:

Beilein took a preseason unranked Michigan team to the NCAA Tournament four times, including the 2018 team that reached the finals. Michigan enters this season unranked.

The number of top ten recruits Beilein landed over his 12-year Michigan career: 0

Why are these numbers significant? Because they speak to Beilein’s player development wizardry. Nearly every notable player who came to Michigan over Beilein’s tenure maximized their potential. Of the 11 players Beilein coached that were selected in the NBA draft, 10 of them exceeded their recruiting class rank. Trey Burke, who was national player of the year for Beilein in 2012-13, was barely a top 100 recruit (93). 

Michigan basketball in the Beilein era in many ways was like the anti-Michigan football. The basketball program made a living on entering the season with modest expectations, going through their growing pains early, steadily improving throughout the year and riding a wave of momentum to (and sometimes straight through) the NCAA tournament. While they couldn’t cash in on either national title opportunity, Michigan routinely finished the season playing their best basketball, and rarely failed to show up when the lights were bright. 

Howard is showing nice early returns on the recruiting front. He retained a commitment from 4-star guard Zeb Jackson, who was recruited by Beilein, and landed his first big fish in 5-star forward Isaiah Todd, the #12 player in the country for 2020. It is still very early, but Michigan is in the running for the #1 overall player in 2021, F Jonathan Kuminga, who has Michigan among the schools he is considering. It is clear that Howard is swinging for the recruiting fences, which is a smart move for an up and coming head coach who is just getting his feet wet. But bringing in talented players is only half the battle, as any Michigan football fan can attest to.

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New philosophy?

Howard smartly retained assistant coach Saddi Washington from Beilein’s staff, which should help smooth the transition to a new system and help keep the players comfortable. He also hired Phil Martelli as an assistant, who has been a head coach for nearly as long as Beilein. This should help offset Howard’s inexperience, and give him time to form his own identity as a head coach.

You couldn’t watch a Michigan basketball game over the past decade without hearing the announcers mention how disciplined John Beilein’s teams consistently are. Year after year, regardless of personnel, Beilein’s teams had among the fewest turnovers and fouls committed in the country. Howard would do well to continue this philosophy, as these are some of the more coachable skills, transferrable from roster to roster. 

3 (pointers) & D (efense) is the way of the future in the new world of analytical basketball, and John Beilein’s teams were consistently strong in these areas. That includes sporting the #2 defense in the country last season, allowing only 58.3 points per game. Howard should be able to take care of the D part, being a big man and the product 1990s NBA basketball, which might as well be the stone age compared to today’s game. Will Howard recruit and develop enough high-level shooters to keep pace with the modern focus on efficiency and maximizing possessions? That remains to be seen.

The cupboard isn’t bare

Howard inherits a roster that has seven 4 star recruits, and some very experienced and polished pieces in key spots of the lineup.

The names you know

Senior PG Zavier Simpson is the leader and floor general, an old school type player who facilitates first and scores when he needs to. Who’s ready for another year of announcers obsessing over his hook shot? 

Senior C Jon Teske is a mountain of a man at 7’1″ 265lb., and has a game that extends out to the 3 point line, though he does his best work in the paint. There just aren’t many bigs who can match his size and skill combination. He also is a big fan of the bow and arrow taunt, which has held a place near and dear to my heart for a long time. He doesn’t give off “swag”, but bless his heart, he tries.

Isaiah Livers is a junior forward who can play multiple positions. He will likely be settling into a small forward role with more opportunities on the perimeter this season, with Howard opting to play bigger lineups that don’t tether Livers to the paint. This should be good for business, as Livers led the team in 3% (.426) last season, and reportedly has been working to transform his body and play style to fit this role. He is the most likely candidate to break out this season, as he has already flashed some of his potential, but wasn’t relied on heavily given Michigan’s depth the past two seasons.

The core of Simpson, Teske, and Livers, who have a combined 30+ games of NCAA tournament experience, should give this team a fairly high floor. The ceiling will be determined by the development of some of the less proven guys, many of whom will be getting their first real opportunities following the departures of Ignas Brazdeikis, Jordan Poole, and Charles Matthews.

Next men up

There are a lot of minutes, and shots, to be had given the departures of three of Michigan’s leading scorers from last season. Let’s go over who we will be getting to know much more this season.

If the opener against App State is any indication, we will be seeing a heavy dose of Eli Brooks this season. The junior SG actually started 12 games early in 2017-18 as a freshman, but the plug was pulled on that experiment as he proved to be too inefficient to warrant being thrown into the fire so early. He made modest gains last season, but still couldn’t carve out a role greater than a spot role player. But game 1 this season may have been his coming-out party.

Brooks returned to the starting lineup and dropped 24 points, obliterating his career-high (9) while playing a massive 37 minutes. Consistency will likely be an issue with Brooks, as he lives and dies by the 3. Over half of his career shot attempts have come from distance, including 11 of 15 in the opener. But if he can cash in around 40% of those he will prove to be a valuable weapon for Juwan Howard.

Sophomore Adrian Nunez also started in the opener, as Michigan went with a three-guard lineup. He didn’t do much in his limited action, logging 13 foul-plagued minutes (which is a big no-no at Michigan), and wasn’t a highly regarded prospect. It is very possible he is just a placeholder for Freshman Franz Wagner, who is a more natural fit at small forward (or simply as a bigger guard) than Nunez. Moe’s younger brother was a 4-star international prospect who offers much greater upside, but is currently sidelined with a broken wrist. Expect to see him play meaningful minutes upon his return, hopefully in late November. In the meantime, Nunez will have a chance to prove his worth.

Sophomore PG David Dejulius will back up Simpson, who will be given all the minutes he can handle given his experience and leadership. Dejulius is another 4-star prospect who barely saw the court last season, but offers the type of upside you look for in a future floor general. If things go according to plan, the Wolverines won’t need Dejulius to play 28 minutes like he did in the opener, and can simply watch and learn from Simpson for another season.

Of the sophomores looking to make a second-year leap, power forward Brandon Johns Jr. and center Colin Castleton offer the most intrigue. Both figure to play key roles as bigs off the bench, and if one of the two makes the leap to consistent role player Michigan will have a bench with depth as well as upside. My money is on Castleton, who is the latest Michigan big man to get the weight room body transformation.

What to expect?

Vegas has set an over/under win total at 19.5 for Michigan this season, with an 80-1 shot to win the national title (23rd best odds). These odds would suggest that, despite Michigan’s unranked distinction, they are knocking on the top-25 door, likely floating in the 26-40 range currently. This also means that the oddsmakers fully expect Michigan to be an NCAA tournament team, and so do I. 

Michigan enters the season with a lot of questions, and much of it stems from their head coach. How much will Howard try to change what has been working for so many years at Michigan? If he eases his way into molding this team to fit his vision as a coach, Michigan may not miss much of a beat, and finish in the top third of the Big Ten. Wait…can we do top third? How many teams are in the Big Ten these days, 14? Let’s rephrase that: Michigan may not miss a beat, and finish in the top five-fourteenths of the Big Ten. 

Juniors and seniors who have been on an upward trajectory don’t need to have their play styles altered by a coach who didn’t recruit them. Howard would do well to play to the strengths of his veterans and focus on developing his young bigs and incoming recruits. Next season, when Howard’s players begin to filter in, he can start to make changes to scheme and tempo to fit his personnel better. 

To draw on recent history, Michigan won 21 games twice under John Beilein (2009, 2011), which is the closest comparison to the 19.5 wins vegas is projecting. They made the NCAA tournament both of these years (#10 seed and #8 seed, respectively), and even won a combined three tournament games in these years. 

I think this is a good place to house our expectations for 2019-2020. A solid NCAA tournament team, with a good chance to win a first-round matchup. High-floor, low-ceiling is how I view this team. Michigan’s best players are just too experienced to let the bottom fall out, and will limit Juwan Howard’s growing pains to a minimum. 

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