ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It should have been a bigger deal, if for no other reason than it once felt unimaginable. The Fab Five, in its entirety, stripped of any nonsensical NCAA separation sanctions or any interpersonal grudges, was whole again earlier this week. Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson were all in Ann Arbor, sitting opposite the Michigan bench for a rivalry game against Ohio State. Together, they cheered for Juwan Howard’s team. Following a Wolverine win, they high-fived current U-M players and hugged as old guys do. It was the first time all five reunited in the building since playing their final game in Ann Arbor three decades ago.
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Not long ago, the whole scene would’ve been celebrated in a broader cultural context. No team shaped college basketball’s modern era like the Fab Five.
Instead, Monday’s reunion just sort of came and went.
Firstly, it was lost in the wake of what immediately preceded it. Michigan football’s national championship delivered the university a shared catharsis that everyone is still adjusting to; one that’s been immediately followed by anxiety surrounding where Jim Harbaugh might coach next season.
But the homecoming was also lost to something far more ominous — the current state of Michigan basketball and mounting questions surrounding Howard’s future.
FAMILY! 🙏🏽🙏🏽#goblue〽️ pic.twitter.com/GCwZYiqm74
— Juwan Howard (@JuwanHoward) January 15, 2024
Where do things stand? Well, with 14 regular-season games remaining, the next two months are likely going to shape the near-and-far future of the program, but perhaps not how many assume it will.
Let’s start with a cursory vibe-check. Status: terrible. The Wolverines are 7-10 overall and 2-4 in the Big Ten. As of Wednesday, they rank No. 72 in KenPom’s efficiency ratings, 10th among conference teams. They’re not particularly good offensively, not particularly good defensively, and they struggle to close games. The roster is ill-conceived, a byproduct of mangled transfer-portal recruitments and early NBA departures, among other things. Fans are either checked out or pissed off. Noise surrounding the program primarily focuses on what’s happened to a program that rode a stretch of 10 NCAA Tournament appearances in 11 postseasons (the COVID-19 tournament cancellation of 2020 withstanding) and had, as of a few years ago, seemingly transitioned gracefully from John Beilein to Juwan Howard. News is rarely good. Instead, it’s a practice clash between Howard and longtime strength coach Jon Sanderson or starting point guard Dug McDaniel serving a bizarre academic suspension for road games only.
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Add it up and every Michigan loss nowadays turns into an indictment of the program and the head coach.
That’s how you get the reactions that came two weeks ago. On the morning of a Saturday date with Penn State at the Palestra, Howard informed assistant coach Phil Martelli that he would lead the Wolverines as head coach for the game in his home city of Philadelphia. The gesture would in normal times have been a warm and fuzzy slice of nostalgia and a well-deserved honor. That’s at least how the Big Ten Network tried to present it and how those in Philly saw it. But back in Michigan? And among many onlookers in college basketball? The move didn’t land. Martelli already led Michigan in 10 games as head coach this season while Howard recovered from heart surgery. Though it was an admirable gesture, randomly and unexpectedly reinserting Martelli as head coach only created further confusion and reinforced a growing feeling that the program is incapable of existing with cohesive normalcy for more than five minutes.
This is what happens when things go bad. No one cares about sentimentality.
Michigan lost that game to Penn State as part of a five-game skid, the program’s longest losing streak in nine years. The spiral ended with the win over Ohio State, but now comes a home date against No. 14 Illinois on Thursday and a trip to No. 2 Purdue next week.
This season is on track to produce Michigan’s first losing campaign since 2009-10. That was Beilein’s third season in Ann Arbor. Then 57 years old, the former Michigan coach was, at the time, firmly on the hot seat. When the Wolverines began his fourth year with a 1-6 start in Big Ten play, the end felt inevitable. As it went, that Michigan team turned its season around, made a run to the NCAA Tournament and Beilein left nine years later as the school’s all-time wins leader.
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Today, Howard is in his fifth season at Michigan and a sense of imminent change seems to be growing. A portion of the fan base and some media speak of an end as if it’s a foregone conclusion. They cite diminishing returns. They cite behavioral concerns.
But what they don’t cite is reality. And in reality, Howard is unlikely going anywhere, unless he decides to leave himself.
In his eighth year as Michigan athletic director, Warde Manuel has withstood voices calling for change much louder than what he’s hearing now. He didn’t budge on retaining Harbaugh after 2020, when a 2-4 record in a pandemic-shortened season seemed like an obvious end for the U-M football coach. Manuel also lasted longer than anyone thought imaginable before disposing of hockey coach Mel Pearson in 2022, following an investigation into an alleged toxic culture within the program. That dismissal was, in actuality, dictated as much by the board of regents as it was by Manuel.
That’s not to say Manuel hasn’t fired any head coaches. He disposed of men’s and women’s lacrosse coaches in 2017, and terminated a women’s soccer coach in 2018, a women’s water polo coach in 2022, and a women’s volleyball coach in 2022. Notably, as Connecticut AD, he fired head football coach Paul Pasqualoni after an 0-4 start in 2014.
But Manuel’s modus operandi has long been clear. He’s more inclined to wait and see than he is to act and react. The same is likely to go for Howard, making all the current conjecture out there moot.
What’s far more likely is Howard being granted the opportunity to reboot the program after this season. What would that look like? It’s anyone’s guess, but Harbaugh successfully pulled it off post-2020. Odds are Howard will have the chance for his reset. Staff changes. A roster overhaul. A new model for recruiting both the high school ranks and in the transfer portal. A new course of action for generating NIL abilities. There will need to be a plan, and it will need to be executed.
The prerequisite for Howard making such changes, though, is surviving to get there. As long as Michigan can navigate the remainder of this season without going entirely off the rails, and avoid further unnecessary embarrassment (something that’s apparently harder than one would imagine), he will likely have the chance.
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The current team has its shortcomings, yes, but it competes. Rallying for an NCAA Tournament berth doesn’t seem plausible, but neither does some ghastly 3-17 or 4-16 conference finish, though that theory could be tested.
“I think we are a bunch of guys that want to see each other win, and a bunch of guys that understand that we’re gonna have our struggles,” senior forward Olivier Nkamhoua said after the Ohio State win.
Despite those struggles, the current team has some nice players. They simply haven’t fit together. The current makeup feels like a roster of individuals who could excel as the No. 3 or No. 4 option on a great team. Problem is, there don’t appear to be any No. 1s or No. 2s. That’s the byproduct of an odd juxtaposition.
While the program slipped in recent years, it also produced four underclassmen NBA Draft picks over the last two offseasons — Moussa Diabaté, Caleb Houstan, Kobe Bufkin and Jett Howard. All but Diabaté were first-round picks. The other 13 Big Ten schools combined to produce nine early-entry draft selections.
On one hand, it feels like a glaring inability to capitalize on talent. Not only did those NBA picks play in Ann Arbor, but they all lined up alongside All-America center Hunter Dickinson.
On the other hand, all of the above were given heavy minutes as underclassmen at a time when the pandemic shapeshifted college basketball into an older man’s game. Each was talented, but none was ready to carry a college program. That’s not their fault; it’s the program’s for not making it work.
Today, Houstan is averaging 5.0 points in 16 minutes per game in his second season with Orlando. Diabaté has played sparingly in two years with the Clippers. Bufkin missed time with a thumb injury and is currently with Atlanta’s G League affiliate. Howard began the year as a deep reserve in Orlando before being assigned to the G League in late December.
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The result is a complete lack of roster continuity, a dynamic only exacerbated this season by Howard’s on-again, off-again appearances after offseason surgery, and now a point guard that only plays home games.
“Something that a lot of people don’t realize about our team is that basically 11 guys on scholarship are in their role for the first time,” Nkamhoua said.
It’s tempting to theorize what Michigan might look like this season if it retained any of its young talent. But that comes with the territory when relying on top-50 recruits.
It’s also tempting to wonder what might have been if some recent high-profile transfer-portal commitments, including Caleb Love, hadn’t been denied admission to the university. But that’s what comes when recruiting upperclassmen transfers into a school like Michigan.
Regardless of why, Michigan hasn’t won enough. Howard’s team is 5-19 in games decided by six points or fewer or in OT over the last two seasons, including a 1-6 mark this season. His coaching is regularly questioned. But he’s also the same coach who won a 2021 Big Ten championship and twice reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
While the focus here and now will be on the back half of Michigan’s league schedule, a larger eye should reside on what’s coming next. At least four scholarships will be open for next season. Two three-star recruits are signed (Christian Anderson and Durral Brooks), while top-30 recruit Khani Rooths is committed, but remains unsigned.
It’s probably fair to expect a much broader overhaul than that — on and off the roster — but probably not in the head coach’s office. Howard has two years remaining on a contract extension signed in November 2021, back when he was the reigning national coach of the year.
Feels like a long time ago.
Especially during a season to forget.
(Top photo of Juwan Howard: Nic Antaya / Getty Images)
