'Tis the season for roster movement and too many moving pieces to count when it comes to college basketball, with the late signing period just behind us, NBA Draft decisions to be made and well over 1,000 players having entered the transfer portal since the conclusion of the 2020-21 campaign.
Here, we take a look at Michigan basketball's scholarship chart for the next four seasons, and break down what the roster could look like next season and beyond.
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Note: Scroll to see entire chart with legend.
• Senior guard Eli Brooks announced two weeks ago that he will return to the program for one more season. Since he is using the NCAA's extra year of eligibility (2020-21 was a 'free year' for every player in the sport), he will not count against the Wolverines' scholarship number next season.
Meanwhile, senior guard Chaundee Brown, fifth-year senior forward Austin Davis, senior forward Isaiah Livers and fifth-year senior guard Mike Smith have all elected to pursue professional careers instead of returning for one more year.
• Michigan is waiting on a decision from sophomore wing Franz Wagner, who has the choice to make between declaring for the 2021 NBA Draft or returning to school for at least another season with the Maize and Blue. We discussed what we're hearing on Wagner's upcoming decision on Tuesday's episode of Wolverine TV.
• Wagner's decision is important when it comes to scholarship numbers, since head coach Juwan Howard is pursuing transfers in the portal. If Wagner, who is projected as a first-round draft pick, does stun and return to school, Michigan would be at its limit of 13 scholarship players — 14 with Brooks (again, he doesn't count) — if nobody transfers out of the program.
• If Wagner enters the draft as expected — and keeps his name in through the May 30 deadline for underclassmen — the Wolverines will have one open spot, and it appears that Howard and Co. are eager to fill it. The top transfer target at this point is Coastal Carolina guard DeVante Jones, who was the Sun Belt Player of the Year this past season and averaged averaged 19.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.8 steals per game.
The Wolverines, along with Memphis, Texas and Texas Tech, are still the mix for his services. Our latest update on Michigan's chances with Jones can be read here.
• There is a lot of time — exactly one year — between now and next spring when the roster craziness in college basketball will return ahead of the 2022-23 season, but there are some certainties, and possibilities, that can be examined right now.
• As it stands now (shown in the scholarship chart at the top), Michigan has three open scholarships to be filled by either 2022 prep recruits or incoming transfers. That number is deflated, however, seeing as it's extremely unlikely that Wagner would be around for 2022-23 and the fact that freshman center Hunter Dickinson would leave for the pros and incoming freshman wing Caleb Houstan could be a one-and-done, as he's projected by some to be a first-round pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.
That leaves Michigan with at least four spots — and up to six or seven — to fill in the 2022 class (plus transfer market), and possibly even more, considering the Wolverines are one of a handful of schools to not have outgoing transfers so far this offseason. Not having any two years in a row seems almost statistically impossible.
Here is our latest update on the state of 2022 recruiting, with intel on each top target that the Wolverines are in on.
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