In his first year as Michigan head coach, Juwan Howard’s team got off to a great start before fading. The Wolverines would have easily made the NCAA Tournament, but something seemed to be missing from a team that had some really good defensive parts but still finished 19-12 overall and No. 28 in adjusted defensive efficiency in the KenPom.com rankings.

Even with an elite defender in Zavier Simpson and a big man in Jon Teske who had been a rim protector, the Wolverines allowed too many points for Howard’s liking.

One of his first orders of business in the offseason was to fix that.

“We had our coaches' meeting and I said, 'We've got to be a kick-ass defensive team,’” Howard said in early January. “It’s that’s simple if we want to give [ourselves] a chance to be one of the elite level teams in the conference and — more importantly — in college basketball.”

Michigan was both the following season. U-M finished 10th in scoring defense (71.1 points) and 11th in field-goal percentage defense (43.6 percent) in Big Ten play during the 2019-20 season but finished fourth nationally in adjusted defense this year.

When they spoke to recruits during and after the season, they had a message:

Don’t just watch how we play on offense. Also see what we’re doing on defense.

“They talked about it all the time,” incoming freshman point guard Frankie Collins said. “Coach Howard and I would talk about things other than basketball, but coach Saddi … he didn’t play. He always talked about defense.