Michigan Basketball's Chaundee Brown Celebrated Waiver With New 'Family'

Chaundee Brown had waited patiently for weeks while the NCAA mulled over his petition for a waiver to play immediately. The Wake Forest transfer finally got his answer Friday, but not before head coach Juwan Howard had a little fun with him.

He had good news and bad news for his team, he announced, and he delivered the positive first — the Wolverines had landed five-star recruit Caleb Houstan.

Then he looked at Brown with a frown, as though he had bad news from compliance. He quickly followed with a huge smile, yelling, “Chaundee Brown … your waiver has been approved!”

His teammates mobbed him as though he’d just hit the winning shot in a Final Four game.

“It was just a great feeling,” Brown said. “My teammates were hyping me up, jumping on me. It just showed how important it was to them, as well.”

Something Howard promised him when he arrived for his last year after a season in which he averaged 12.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. They were a family at Michigan, the former Fab Fiver said, all for one, and he thought Brown would fit perfectly with his group.

It didn’t take that moment for Brown to find out. He already knew after spending months with his new brothers.

“It’s really a family here,” Brown said. “That’s what Coach Howard touched on in my Zoom calls I had with him months before I committed — that it was a family here. Everyone gets along, laughing, giggling, everything like that.

“I’ve never had a team like this.”

He’ll be one piece of what appears to be a deep and talented squad, one with great potential still picked by many to finish in the middle of the pack or lower in the Big Ten. He’s been playing shooting guard and wing, competing with Franz Wagner, Eli Brooks and others for playing time and not the least bit worried about his minutes, just happy to be healthy after a season in which he battled aches and pains half the year, he said, and “tore my calf muscle up.”

Though he’d like to up his 32.2 three-point percentage, he won’t have to alter much more to make an impact.

“I can see myself helping this team by playing my game,” Brown said. “Coach Howard recruited me because he liked my game, so there’s no need to change it. I’ve got to be the player I am on the defensive end, getting stops, being vocal, talking, helping the younger guys out, getting into the lane, getting fouled like I’m good at, shooting open threes, pull-up, mid-range (and) just leading by example.

“Just showing that I can handle the ball really well — I’ve been really practicing that before and after practice, handling the ball. “Testing the NBA waters, they told me that’s something I need to work on. Coming off ball screens as well, making the right decision … making the right play, not forcing it.”

There’s a lot of talent, he noted, and all of them have accepted him. He’ll embrace his role, whatever it is.

To win a National Championship, to win a Big Ten title, you need a lot of pieces,” Brown said. “Knock on wood, but some injuries are going to happen during the year. It always happens every year so having that next man up is key.

“We know that can be anybody on our team that can step up and give some big minutes.”

And now he knows he can be one of them, a huge relief after months of waiting.

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