Wolverine Watch: Coming Attractions

They come and they go, Hobbs. They come and they go…

— Max Mercy, The Natural

They’re going, again. But they’re coming, in force, for Juwan Howard’s basketball team.

The voice of Michigan basketball for radio, Brian Boesch, talked a bit about that process on TheWolverine.com podcast.

Here’s a taste of what he’s been observing, about the goings and comings.

• Franz Wagner goes, but might never have come.

Wagner, of course, is heading for the NBA, a likely first-round pick. His two seasons at Michigan included a run to the Elite Eight, and nearly a Final Four.

People say the Wolverines were a shot away from the latter, and it’s true. It’s also true it could have been one of dozens of shots throughout the UCLA game that could have put Michigan into that coveted quartet of remaining teams.

But it’s a couple of Wagner misses that stick out, ones he’ll always think about with a tinge of regret. On the other hand, he might never have been around at all to help U-M win the Big Ten and push as far as it did in the NCAA Tournament.

Wagner was just getting ready to leave his native Germany when head coach John Beilein decided HE was going, to the NBA. That could have been a deal breaker for Wagner.

“That day was a whirlwind for everybody,” Boesch recalled. “No more so than for Franz Wagner…

“That was John Beilein’s program until that day in May of 2019 … [Wagner] admitted it was a difficult decision, just like this [leaving for the NBA] was a difficult decision to make. Had things broken a little bit differently, who knows? Maybe he would have elected to stay in Germany. He still probably would have been a real NBA prospect.

“A lot of credit goes, as he alluded to, to [U-M assistant coach] Saddi Washington, and also to the departed Luke Yaklich and DeAndre Haynes. They stabilized things, month to month, with their contracts. They ultimately brought Franz home.

“Coach Howard deserves a lot of credit, because that was one of his first bullet points when he took the job — to build that relationship. Obviously, a lot of great things happened from there.”

• Howard’s departure remains far down the road.

We’re settling into the now-annual ritual of (gasp!) this or that NBA team getting interested in Howard himself. Boesch points out, that is NOT a negative.

“There was going to be one of two potential options for the Juwan Howard era,” Boesch noted. “It was either going to be, he was going to struggle and this program was going to struggle, and there was going to be outside noise about moving on from quote-unquote experiment.

“The alternative, the much better option, was that he was going to thrive, like he has and like this program has, and NBA teams are going to come calling.”

Howard, on the other hand, can remain happy to be in Ann Arbor — indefinitely. He’s not going anywhere in the short term, agree Boesch and anyone else close to it. With a son on the team, another son a distinct possibility for maize and blue and the incredible early success Howard has enjoyed — not to mention it’s the program he played in and cried over, upon his return — there’s no rush to go anywhere else.

And it’s always better to have a coach somebody else wants.

• The next wave is coming.

Boesch is gathering deep background on all of Michigan’s incoming freshmen. For the Wolverines to be all their fans hope them to be in the coming year, the nation’s No. 1 class can’t be a seen-and-not-heard-from crew in 2022.

“From all I’ve heard, not only is it a talented group, but it’s also a well-rounded group of good people and good students,” Boesch said. “That’s been the one thing that, you just never know.

“We knew John Beilein had that. To have that carry over with Juwan Howard is really special. It shows, it’s not a Beilein thing or a Howard thing — it’s a Michigan thing…

“Some of these guys are going to have to play, and play pretty good amounts, and play well for this team to do what it wants to do this season. That wasn’t necessarily the case last season.

“I think even if Hunter Dickinson didn’t play a whole lot, Michigan could have still been a good team. This year, I find it hard to believe that you’re going to have a Michigan team shine and none of these freshmen contribute.

“Just from a numerical and a talent standpoint, I don’t think it’s possible. I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

They come and they go, and the ones Michigan has coming these days are as good or better than anyone in college basketball. That alone takes the sting out of the going.

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Here's the full podcast with Boesch.

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