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Gonzaga looks like the team to beat this year, Baylor is close to second and the third hottest team in college basketball is … Michigan?
It is true.
The Wolverines are now 11-0 after destroying No. 9 in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, 77-54. Wisconsin was a fierce opponent, having lost just two games previously. They beat Michigan State’s No.12 on Christmas Day in double digits and earned back-to-back top 10 wins with Michigan’s No.7. But it was never close on Tuesday. The Wolverines led by 40 at one point and had a 43-6 run connecting the first and second halves. Four players finished in double digits, and this is the first time in college basketball history that a team has beaten three consecutive ranked opponents by 19 or more points.
“They were determined to make everything difficult for their opponent and it is not easy,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said after the game. “It’s the adhesion of breaking it into practice, watching it on a movie and putting it into practice when he feels uncomfortable.”
In two short seasons, Howard managed to take over Michigan’s schedule.
Before taking over as head coach of his alma mater, Howard was one of the nicest coaches in the NBA and was building a successful career as an assistant for the Miami Heat. When Howard took over at Michigan, former head coach John Beilein had just taken on an NBA head coach job in Cleveland after a 12-season run in Ann Arbor.
There have been former NBA players who have taken over college programs in the past, but no one has been as successful as Juwan Howard so quickly. Avery Johnson was Alabama’s head coach for four years and had little success; Penny Hardaway had a few recruiting victories in Memphis with James Wiseman and Precious Achiuwa, but only had one ranked team once in three seasons.
Michigan made an early statement in the 2019-20 season, starting 7-0 and defeat Gonzaga to win the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. Howard was able to do this with a team inherited from Beilein, filled with players he didn’t sign. The Big Ten was the toughest conference in college basketball last season and the Wolverines still managed to finish with a 19-12 record. Howard wasted no time in the offseason and brought in some top talent in high school including four-star rookies Hunter Dickinson, Zeb Jackson, Terrence Williams and also Howard’s son, Jace.
The Wolverines lost just two seniors and returned key players like Isaiah Livers, second student Franz Wagner and graduate students Austin Davis and Mike Smith. Michigan was ranked No.25 heading into the season and it took five weeks and a 6-0 record for Howard’s team to start climbing the standings steadily.
“Everyone’s there. Everyone’s bought into the culture in two years and I still think there’s another step for us,” Isaiah Livers said after Wisconsin’s victory. “It’s similar to my second year, this 17-0 start, but I think this team is much deeper.”
It’s a Michigan team that lives and dies by its defense.
“To play for Coach Howard’s team you have to play defense,” Livers said. “We just said, ‘Why not try to stop each team from handling their attack?’ And that just led to this culture of being disruptive and blocking hits, hovering into the void, talking, just stealing. We want to play as if there are six players defending.
Michigan had nine blocks against Wisconsin and has plenty of depth and height on the front court with Dickinson, a 7-foot-1 freshman, 6-foot-9 sophomore Wagner and Brandon Johns Jr.
Wagner, the younger brother of former Michigan player and current Washington Wizards forward Moe Wagner, is the Wolverines’ most improved player and was the best player on the field Tuesday night. Wagner came in his freshman year at just 205 pounds and worked with his brother in Washington during the extended quarantine period and now plays at 226 pounds.
“He’s just been training his butt all spring,” Michigan strength and conditioning coach Jon Sanderson told Brendan Quinn of the Athletic. “I mean, he pushed it. It wasn’t perfect. He didn’t have a real weight room, but he made the most of that three-month period, then returned to campus determined to be physically different.
Wagner has scored in double digits in the last five games and finished with a double-double Tuesday night with 15 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and one block. Due to the extra weight he no longer gets pushed around in the lane and finds different ways to score.
Michigan does not have five-star rookies on the team. All of the players on the list bought early what Howard wants Michigan basketball to look like. Other elite high school players want to be a part of it and learn from a coach like Howard and it has helped tremendously on the recruiting trail. Michigan has the No. 1 recruiting class heading into next season, led by five-star winger Caleb Houstan.
“We’ve worked really hard to identify the top players and the pieces that will help our program,” Howard said. “We want to make sure that we have quality young men, from quality families who can come and represent Block ‘M’ and this university with dignity and grace.”
It took six seasons for Shaka Smart in Texas to finally gain ground and what Howard has done in two years in Michigan is nothing short of remarkable. There are so many moving parts at the college level, from recruiting and preparing for the game, to hiring the right coaching staff and building a winning culture that everyone embraces. Gonzaga might have all the fanfare as the top team this season, but Michigan is lurking in the shadows and has all the tools to be there as one of the Final Four teams in Indianapolis.
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