Discussing the makeup of Juwan Howard and his Michigan Wolverines basketball rosters.

The Baylor Bears are the champions of college basketball, having won last night's national title game with a starting lineup that consisted only of veterans. The team they beat — the Gonzaga Bulldogs — also trotted out a starting lineup made up of three veterans, to go along with two elite youngsters (freshman point guard Jalen Suggs and sophomore center Drew Timme).

This year was yet another example that a team consisting of veterans and experience is the formula to use to win national championships, and not the one-and-done craze that captivated college basketball for a brief time about a decade ago.

Kentucky in 2012 and Duke in 2015 were the two exceptions to the rule, but even they had a few key upperclassmen who played significant roles as well. Veteran clubs have reigned supreme in college basketball since the Blue Devils won it all in 2015, with Villanova in 2016 and 2018, North Carolina in 2017, Virginia in 2019 and now Baylor this season making up the proof.

Perhaps the best roster makeup when aiming for a championship is to assemble a club built mainly of veterans and experienced players, to go along with an elite freshman or two who plays meaningful minutes.

Michigan head coach Juwan Howard seems to understand this sentiment fully. He's made it clear how much he wants to recruit one-and-done prospects by pursuing the likes of five-star shooting guard Josh Christopher and five-star power forward Isaiah Todd in last year's cycle, and then by signing five-star small forward Caleb Houstan and four-star power forward Moussa Diabate in the 2021 crop (we're not saying Houstan and Diabate will automatically be one-and-dones at U-M, but they'll likely at least have a chance to be).

The pursuit of the elite prep players hasn't impacted the way Howard has viewed the key veterans he already has on his roster though. He has not forced any role players out or persuaded them to look elsewhere.

In fact, he has taken the complete opposite approach. This was perhaps most evident following the 2019-20 campaign when he invited then-redshirt junior big man Austin Davis back for a fifth season, even though the Onsted, Mich., native played just 10.7 minutes per game in 2019-20.