If your on athletic scholarship - the first, and only lesson they teach you - is Fats phone number !
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Something worth keeping an eye on: Juwan Howard appears to be ahead of schedule when it comes to recruiting with the blue bloods. It looks like 5* guard Josh Christopher is close to pulling the trigger for the Maize and Blue. If fellow 5* and likely one-and-done Isiah Todd makes his way to Ann Arbor (there are rumors he’s interested in going overseas), Michigan would have a pretty nasty “Fab Five” next year.
http://bit.ly/383EnGE
It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider how much Michigan’s success this year (yes they’ve fallen off from their Top 5 ranking after the Battle 4 Atlantis) has accelerated Howard’s vision. Watching what he’s done with a moderately talented (but experienced!) roster must have excited some of these recent commits.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Wrong thread? What does Juwan Howard's recruiting have to do with Duke?
Also, "fallen off" is putting it mildly. Michigan is down to #21 in KenPom and #23 in T-Rank. The jury is still out on whether Howard will be a good head coach of a P% school.
(Full disclosure: living in DC and watching Howard's career for the Wizards, on and off the court, may be influencing my view of his coaching.)
Duke tends to recruit against a relatively small group of heavyweights. If Michigan is poised to become one of those recruiting heavyweights, then Howard becomes relevant to Duke recruiting. In fact Michigan recently got a commitment from a Duke target. I expect to see Duke and Michigan target a lot of the same recruits in the future.
As always, YMMV.
More of a general recruiting update... the comings and going’s of big 5* recruits tend to be posted in this general recruiting thread even if there isn’t a direct Duke connection, as these decisions do impact Duke’s future prospects. Am I wrong there?
More to your point: yes, Michigan isn’t the NC contender that people thought after Atlantis. But remember that many people didn’t even have Michigan pegged in the tourney field in the preseason. Also, in two of Michigan’s most recent losses they’ve been missing arguably their top scorer in Isiah Livers. All of that is to say the following: yes, it’s way too early to anoint Howard as anywhere near the next great college coach. But he has accomplished something worth acknowledging in his first year coaching that shouldn’t be completely ignored.
I expect Howard, with his Fab Five and pro background and a fairly big name program, to recruit well. What I don't know is how well he can put together and coach a team. I'm not ready to anoint him as a good college coach. Lots of college and NBA greats haven't done so well in coaching, especially in college.
I don't want to get into a Michigan tangent in the recruiting thread, so I'll end this convo by largely agreeing with you (a rarity on message boards, I know, haha). In fact, most of the Michigan fan base shared your skepticism when he was hired, but then anointed him following Atlantis. I, too, am not willing to anoint him as anything yet, although I do think that the early returns are promising if nothing else (I think most would argue that, even though they've faltered after Atlantis, this Michigan team is still out-performing expectations for this year).
Howard needs to, at minimum, A) show he can win on the road, B) show he can make coaching adjustments, particularly in guarding the post (which has killed the Wolverines so far in B1G play), and C) beat MSU, before I'd be willing to claim anything more than he's shown good promise.
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Seems like Howard realized he needed help on the nuts and bolts of putting a team together and running practices. At least, that's how I interpret his hiring of Phil Martelli, long-time coach at St. Joseph's as a key assistant.
“I have to make sure that the table’s set along with the other assistants, we have to make sure we put him on the proper plane," Martelli said. "He’s going to be Juwan Howard, the coach. He’s not going to be Juwan Howard, the Fab Five member, he’s not going to be a two-time NBA (champion). But we’re going to have that clip. We’re going to say, this is who you’re going to trust your son to play for. And then all of the other things that Michigan offers away from basketball and away from facilities.
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/c...li/1361205001/
This is such an interesting situation in Ann Arbor. Under Beilein, the program had built a deserved reputation of finding and developing hidden gems. They recruited from the top 100 but mostly avoided the top 25/one-and-done players with notable exceptions like Mitch McGary. And they produced a number of very good NBA players as well as a few great NCAA Tournament performances. Now with Howard, they are flipping the switch entirely, going after the one-and-done players and opting for a fast rebuild.
To be frank, I didn't expect much from Howard and Michigan this season based on their personnel. The team was offensively challenged last year and lost their three best scorers to the NBA. They have sagged a bit after the Battle for Atlantis tournament but I think this has been a successful year for Howard. He has put the team back into the national spotlight and reeled in a good recruiting class. We'll see if he can keep up the momentum. I wouldn't be surprised to see him succeed.
FWIW Michigan had 10 players on opening day rosters in the NBA this year. That’s eighth most, behind only the traditional blue bloods and (somewhat surprisingly) Texas. https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2019-10-21/here-are-colleges-most-players-2019-20-nba-opening-day?amp
All that’s to say Beilein’s strategy seemed to work, both in terms of college success and translating to the NBA. Howard obviously has a very different strategy. Time will tell how successful he is, although the transition is sure to be interesting.
(Side note: to me that’s what makes Howard’s mild success encouraging thus far this year... he’s doing it with a roster that probably won’t look at all like that he’ll have in 2-3 years with his own recruits. If he can maximize a good but flawed roster, as Michigan is definitely offensively challenged especially without Livers, it’ll be fascinating to see what he can do to maximize his style of recruits.)
McDonald's All-American Games released their nominees for the Boys and Girls games. Of note, Jalen Johnson was not listed as a nominee. He hasn't played this year and is not currently at a school as far as I know. Maybe we'll see him in another all-star game.
All the other Duke commits were included in the initial cut, including Jaemyn Brakefield, Henry Coleman, Jeremy Roach, DJ Steward, and Mark Williams.
This is an unprecedented situation for one of our recruits. I am not penciling Jalen Johnson into my rosterbate rotation yet. With our returning players in addition to our incoming class, we're more than fine no matter the outcome.
Expecting a vicious response from certain someone in 3, 2, 1...
The only thing that is unprecedented about the situation is that we are not aware of why Johnson left IMG. Other recruits have come to Duke old for their class (see Stanley, Cassius) or left school unexpectedly (see Bagley III, Marvin). There have even been players that have left their school mid-season (see Giles II, Harry). The thing that makes this situation unique is that lack of follow-up information about Johnson. There was no information given.
I don't have any details on the situation, but I can see a few reasons for this. One is a disagreement with the coaching staff. This could be an issue about an injury where Johnson felt fine but the staff didn't want to risk anything. Or vice versa (anyone remember when Kawhii Leonard left San Antonio?). That could have led to a simmering disagreement between the player and his family and coaches. Another reason could be entirely separate from basketball. Perhaps Johnson committed a violation of some kind, either academic or drug-related. I've seen rumors on social media to that effect.
At the end of the day, the situation is what it is. Johnson is committed to Duke at the moment and I am sure the coaching staff will work with him up until the point that he is either on campus or decides never to come to Duke. From everything I have read about him, the kid seems like a great kid and he is strongly committed to being at Duke next year. I'll choose to believe that unless there are other, more compelling reasons to change my mind.
The real risk here is dealing in speculation. Could he go pro? Will he even be eligible? Is he in some kind of trouble? Those questions have no answers for us on this board. And asking them has the downside risk of tarnishing his name, his reputation, or alienating him from Duke fans without any evidence. I choose not to peddle in that. To each their own, I suppose.