Michigan basketball's regular season is over and the program somehow managed to limp to a 9-9 record in the conference, losing the last two games of the season it could not afford to drop and sitting at an 8-seed in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament with the right to face No. 1 seed Purdue later this week with a win.
Outside of a miracle tournament run to secure the automatic bid, the Wolverines' NCAA Tournament chances are bleak.
With the month of March coming in with a renewed sense of focus, it looks very much like it'll end with a whimper as the program will be left to assess what went wrong and what needs to change moving forward.
In fact, what the program chooses to do next is going to define the rest of the Juwan Howard era for good or for worse. No matter how long, or short, his tenure in Ann Arbor will be.
It's an intriguing inflection point that really doesn't have any easy answers or quick fixes. But when is it ever easy in college basketball?
Let's address some key issues the program had this season.
The team played through some growing pains.
OK, great, the team had inexperienced players that had to work themselves out on the court. Some played out of necessity and others are gearing up for much bigger roles in the future. That's going to be a one-time excuse that can explain some of the constant issues that plagued the team this season. A lack of killer instinct, continuous mistakes, and a lack of identity. You can't keep using that as a crutch to buy time, at some point that youth has to grow up.
The program has a 'players leaving early' problem
A sign of a healthy program is players leaving early for the NBA. Franz Wagner is the perfect example of someone leaving eligibility on the table to head to the NBA where he is currently succeeding in the NBA, no one is going to fault him, Howard or U-M for that.
However, other players who have departed, especially the likes of Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate, would've helped this team immensely this season. Instead, both are playing sparingly. This is fine but it's clear both could've played major roles with the Wolverines this season and their experience would soften the blow of having to play some younger players.
The ultimate test is going to see what happens to both Kobe Bufkin and Jett Howard this offseason. At some point, the basketball program has to have some football-like wins when it comes to player retention. Of course, it's easier to do so when you're on the cusp of winning big but getting both players back will help the experience level of the team immensely. Both players will be team leaders and can take another step forward on an upward trajectory climb both players have been on this season. For players that are on the cusp of NBA-level interest, Howard needs a few wins and be able to bring some players back. If both go, you're right back to square one.
Transfer portal luck has run dry
Howard started off with a bang with his transfer portal pursuits by having major hits with the likes of Mike Smith and Chaundee Brown. Since then, players really haven't had the same kind of impact. This is no slight on DeVante Jones, who came into his own when it mattered down the stretch, but the impact just wasn't there the whole season like Smith and Brown had.
For this year, Jaelin Llewellyn gets a pass after an unfortunate knee injury. This allowed Dug McDaniel, again with the youth, to get some crucial time to adjust to life in college. However, the Wolverines didn't have a true backup point guard and that's why going the transfer portal route and not having a true point guard recruit outside of McDaniel hurts. The Wolverines didn't get the consistency from Baker, which is unfortunate.
Heading into the offseason, will the Wolverines have scholarship space to pursue transfer portal candidates? We can talk about the misses with Terrence Shannon, credits transferring and all of the other narratives until we're blue in the face but if Howard can strike gold with Smith and Brown, there's no reason why he can't identify further talent. Again, if scholarship space provides, adding some much-needed veteran presence will be something this team needs.
Is the NIT worth it?
I don't think the Wolverines should turn down an invitation to play in the NIT. Of course, it's not the ultimate prize. However, it provides the team to play more basketball against someone that's not themselves in practice. More basketball, the better for the younger players who need to figure things out.
Perhaps Howard uses this opportunity to have a deeper bench than he normally would. Perhaps players like Youssef Khayat, Isaiah Barnes and others can see extended minutes which will only help the players.
It's not exciting and it's not flashy but there can be some value in playing in the NIT from a program standpoint. A fan standpoint is a completely different conversation.
The team lacked a killer instinct
The funny thing about this team is that it's not a bad team, just wildly inconsistent. There were very few blowouts and the Wolverines took the best teams in the conference down to the wire at multiple points this season. In some cases, holding big leads late only to let it slip and lose the game. Flip those results in the other direction and we're talking about a very different basketball program and the temperature and mood surrounding it would be very much different.
How do you fix a closing-out game problem? Youth plays a part but also basic mistakes fall on coaching, too. There's no easy fix and there's no gameplan on how to coach a team to close games but being able to avoid mental lapses and simple mistakes is always a good start.
What happens beyond this point is going to define the tenure of Howard in Ann Arbor. Do the Wolverines take this year as a lesson only to get better for it or is a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten program something fans should expect moving forward?
Time will tell after decisions will be made.
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