With yet another impressive victory last night at Rutgers to improve to 17-9 overall, Michigan Wolverines basketball head coach Juwan Howard continues to cement his first year in Ann Arbor as one of the best debut campaigns in school history.
He has already moved up to fourth place on the wins list among U-M's 16 past first-year head coaches, only needing two more to match the 19 that Bill Frieder (1980-89) compiled in his debut season of 1980-81.
Granted, simply judging Howard by his win total is a bit skewed, especially when considering his club will likely take part in more games than any other first-year head coach in Michigan history.
Big Ten programs (and college basketball teams in general) are simply playing more games per season than ever before, especially with the introduction of the league's conference tournament in 1998.
With that in mind, it's no surprise the top three first-year head coaches on U-M's all time wins list are men who have coached since the 1980s, with Brian Ellerbe (1997-01) leading the way with 25, Steve Fisher (1989-97) checking in second with 23 and Frieder coming in third with 19.
Howard should undoubtedly pass Frieder on that list, and will have a legitimate shot of passing both Fisher and Ellerbe as well if this year's Wolverine club can make significant runs in both the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments.
One of the main reasons why Ellerbe holds the top spot on the aforementioned list is because his debut 1997-98 team picked up three wins in the Big Ten Tournament on its way to the crown, defeating Iowa, Minnesota and Purdue (in that order) to win the debut event.
Howard's squad this year has five regular-season games remaining (at Purdue, Wisconsin, at Ohio State, Nebraska and at Maryland), a likely maximum of four contests in the Big Ten Tournament, and then however many showdowns the Maize and Blue can ensure themselves in the NCAA Tournament, if and when they make it.
Winning percentage is oftentimes a more accurate indicator when measuring a coach's success, and Howard's current winning percentage of 65.3 percent places him fifth on U-M's all-time list of first-year head coaches.
The 81.2 victorious mark (13-3 record) George Veenker posted in 1928-29 is the best in school history, while Fisher in 1989-90 (74.2 percent), Ellerbe in 1997-98 (73.5 percent) and Ernest McCoy in 1948-49 (71.4 percent) round out the rest of the top-four.
