Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard's search for a point guard in 2021 continues. The Wolverines are still in on a few, but the list is dwindling.
Angelo Brizzi committed to Villanova several days ago ... over the weekend, top target Jalen Warley chose Florida State. The Seminoles came from back in the pack over the last few weeks to land the four-star.
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Michigan was considered one of the top contenders in Warley's recruitment given assistant coach Phil Martelli's ties to his family. Martelli coached both Warley's father and uncle at St. Joseph — in the end, however, FSU and head coach Leonard Hamilton won out.
Another target, Jaden Akins, is set to announce Thursday.
Akins will choose Michigan State barring a remarkably unexpected change of heart.
Howard and his coaches, meanwhile, continue to extend offers. They extended one to four-star Carter Whitt recently, and just days ago followed up with an offer to Nevada's Frankie Collins.
Whitt was considered a Florida lead until recently, when his offer list picked up considerably.
"Twenty-two of the top 35 point guards in the 2021 class have already found their college homes for next fall," Rivals.com's Corey Evans noted. "This is crazy to think about since it is just the middle of August and already programs have been forced to find alternatives for their alternatives.
"It is also why Carter Whitt has become such a heavily discussed prospect in recent weeks. Whitt is someone that is relatively still wide open with his recruitment compared to most others."
Collins included Michigan in his top eight before even receiving an offer. The offer appeared to mean a lot to him.
"I’ve known Juwan Howard since I was young," he told ZagsBlog last month. "I actually have a couple of pictures with him when I was little. I played against his son growing up so I would always see him around in the gym. Then, when he got the coaching job at Michigan, coach Saddi Washington hit me up and watched me play a couple times. We had a Zoom call last week that was about two hours long. I think we’re going to do another Zoom call in a couple days.”
New Mexico, Arizona State, USC, Howard, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Auburn and Kansas round out his top nine.
Another possibility, and a bit outside the box ... Howard and Co. are recruiting five-star Harrison Ingram with the idea that he could play on the ball. Some believe that's intrigued him and moved the Wolverines up a notch on his list.
Stanford and Purdue have long been thought to be the teams to beat, but Ingram (a Michigan camper early in his high school career) hasn't tipped his hand. We believe U-M is a player here.
There's also a chance elite 2022 Skyy Clark will reclassify, Evans reported. Michigan isn't considered a favorite here, but the Wolverines did make his final eight along with Kentucky, Memphis, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee State, UCLA and USC.
Clark did tell North Carolina Rivals he plans to stay in the 2022 class.
Finally, Evans put in a futurecast for 2022 Dug McDaniel recently, with Michigan as the choice. McDaniel's Team Takeover coaches told us January might be decision time for him — Takeover, of course, produced U-M freshmen Terrance Williams and Hunter Dickinson.
We like U-M's chances here as of today.
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