Five-star guard Nimari Burnett’s first Michigan visit, when John Beilein was still head coach, was cut a bit short. Burnett and his family made the trek back to Ann Arbor for U-M football’s weekend with Army, and this time they saw everything they wanted to see.
Burnett was in last winter and left without an offer when he didn’t get a chance to see the entire campus. He picked up his offer a few months later … and then Beilein accepted a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“[Former Michigan assistant coach] Luke [Yaklich] coached Nimari in first and second grade. We knew him well, so that was really one more reason we were actually entertaining Michigan,” Brian Burnett, Nimari’s father, said. “Once Beilein left, of course … when a coach leaves, we didn’t know about the scholarship and didn’t know if Luke was going to stay or leave.”
It became a moot point when Howard was hired. Burnett and Howard went back to grade school, and Nimari attended several of Howard’s Chicago summer camps over the years. He even became friends with Howard’s son, three-star senior Jace Howard, and the families grew to know each other.
