Michigan Wolverines head basketball coach Juwan Howard lost out on a pair of five stars this week, Josh Christopher spurning U-M for Arizona State and Isaiah Todd decommitting to play overseas.
The first one was a stunner given how Michigan seemed the prohibitive favorite (and for good reason). The latter — not so much to anyone who has been following this one since Todd’s pledge last October. The second Howard offered him, our phones started buzzing with texts and calls.
“What’s Juwan doing?” was the common theme.
There were various reasons, though, from “This kid is never going to play college ball” to “his people will never let him go to Michigan.”
One of those people was rumored to be his mother’s boyfriend, Eric Leak, whose sketchy history landed him in prison: https://www.wral.com/former-ncsu-bo...o-paying-bribes-to-college-athletes/18284969/
So there were red flags from the get-go, causing programs like North Carolina and even Kentucky to back off:
It was even more surprising when U-M got his commitment, though again, we never expected it to stick. We’d done our research at that point, reaching out to several analysts, assistant coach buddies of ours now at other schools and others, and they all told us there was “no way” Todd would play at Michigan, that his mother would call the shots and that he was “going to get paid” in the fall of 2020.
We checked, just for the hell of it, each time there was renewed optimism or a declaration from Todd that he was “definitely planning on playing at Michigan.” The latest came only a few days back when he was chatting on Instagram with NBA player Will Barton and got the fan base excited by saying he was going to U-M.
The odds seemed to go up, of course, when the Coronavirus hit and seemed to limit the options, and we said as much. But again, people close to it continued to tell us it was “never going to happen,” and even sources at U-M were “50-50 at best” when we checked in. That’s one of the reasons the Wolverines were pursuing five-star forward Greg Brown out of Austin, Texas.
Brown will announce April 24 and we expect it to be Texas, though Memphis and others are turning up the heat. We believe Michigan is on the outside looking in.
Oh, and all the talk of academics, etc., being the reason Todd wouldn’t enroll at U-M? Simply not true.
The big question now — how does this affect Howard’s recruiting strategy? Some were of the mindset that taking Todd couldn’t hurt no matter what … that “top kids want to play with other top kids,” and it would get the ball rolling. We can assure that Todd’s decision had nothing to do with four-stars Hunter Dickinson and Terrance Williams pledging.
We’re more on the side of time spent recruiting Todd could have been better spent on a candidate more likely to sign and perhaps be here more than a year. This one and the Josh Christopher recruitments have been a learning experience for Howard, and while chasing the occasional and rare recruitable one-and-dones isn’t a bad idea, it’s never wise to put all your time into those kids alone.
Fortunately, Howard didn’t. He’s got a great trio coming in around which to build, all likely at least two-year players (most at least three), and he still has the top class in the Big Ten. And now that he’s gone through one full recruiting cycle, we expect him to be able to have more time to do a bit more homework and get an even better feel for the can and cannots of recruiting.
Keep in mind, though, he’s still got the No. 1 class in the Big Ten … not a bad start.
The first one was a stunner given how Michigan seemed the prohibitive favorite (and for good reason). The latter — not so much to anyone who has been following this one since Todd’s pledge last October. The second Howard offered him, our phones started buzzing with texts and calls.
“What’s Juwan doing?” was the common theme.
There were various reasons, though, from “This kid is never going to play college ball” to “his people will never let him go to Michigan.”
One of those people was rumored to be his mother’s boyfriend, Eric Leak, whose sketchy history landed him in prison: https://www.wral.com/former-ncsu-bo...o-paying-bribes-to-college-athletes/18284969/
So there were red flags from the get-go, causing programs like North Carolina and even Kentucky to back off:
It was even more surprising when U-M got his commitment, though again, we never expected it to stick. We’d done our research at that point, reaching out to several analysts, assistant coach buddies of ours now at other schools and others, and they all told us there was “no way” Todd would play at Michigan, that his mother would call the shots and that he was “going to get paid” in the fall of 2020.
We checked, just for the hell of it, each time there was renewed optimism or a declaration from Todd that he was “definitely planning on playing at Michigan.” The latest came only a few days back when he was chatting on Instagram with NBA player Will Barton and got the fan base excited by saying he was going to U-M.
The odds seemed to go up, of course, when the Coronavirus hit and seemed to limit the options, and we said as much. But again, people close to it continued to tell us it was “never going to happen,” and even sources at U-M were “50-50 at best” when we checked in. That’s one of the reasons the Wolverines were pursuing five-star forward Greg Brown out of Austin, Texas.
Brown will announce April 24 and we expect it to be Texas, though Memphis and others are turning up the heat. We believe Michigan is on the outside looking in.
Oh, and all the talk of academics, etc., being the reason Todd wouldn’t enroll at U-M? Simply not true.
The big question now — how does this affect Howard’s recruiting strategy? Some were of the mindset that taking Todd couldn’t hurt no matter what … that “top kids want to play with other top kids,” and it would get the ball rolling. We can assure that Todd’s decision had nothing to do with four-stars Hunter Dickinson and Terrance Williams pledging.
We’re more on the side of time spent recruiting Todd could have been better spent on a candidate more likely to sign and perhaps be here more than a year. This one and the Josh Christopher recruitments have been a learning experience for Howard, and while chasing the occasional and rare recruitable one-and-dones isn’t a bad idea, it’s never wise to put all your time into those kids alone.
Fortunately, Howard didn’t. He’s got a great trio coming in around which to build, all likely at least two-year players (most at least three), and he still has the top class in the Big Ten. And now that he’s gone through one full recruiting cycle, we expect him to be able to have more time to do a bit more homework and get an even better feel for the can and cannots of recruiting.
Keep in mind, though, he’s still got the No. 1 class in the Big Ten … not a bad start.
