Only the jerseys

Tuesday, November 5, 2019 // TIPOFF 2019
3B 

W

hen Michigan’s sea-
son tips off tonight, 
only the Wolverines’ 
jerseys will 
remind you of 
yesteryear.
By now, 
most have 
grown numb 
to the fact that 
John Beilein 
is gone. The 
shock doesn’t 
register nearly 
as much as 
it did only a 
few months ago. But on Tuesday 
night, it will resonate more than 
ever before. The man who spent 
the last decade-plus building 
the Michigan men’s basketball 
team into a perennial contender 
walked out the door on a mid-
May morning, following in the 
footsteps of three early roster 
departures.
Despite coming off back-to-
back 30-win seasons for the 
first time in program history, 
the defining elements of Michi-
gan basketball suddenly felt 
unhinged. When Juwan Howard 
was hired, they went out the 
window.
And by no means is that a bad 
thing.
Howard will build his pro-
gram on a completely different 
bedrock than Beilein, who began 
his coaching career as a junior 
varsity high school coach and 
worked his way up the ladder 
to Ann Arbor. His successor, 
however, spent the last two-
and-a-half decades playing and 
coaching at the ladder’s highest 
rung. Naturally, they see the job 
through different lenses.
Take recruiting, for example. 
Beilein never signed a McDon-
ald’s All-American, but that 
didn’t stop him from coaching a 
Monday night game in both April 
of 2013 and 2018. In doing so, his 
program became the gold stan-
dard of developing talent. That 
process started at square one, 
with Beilein’s teams notoriously 
beginning each season with the 
most basic of passing drills.
Howard, on the other hand, 
has employed his NBA pedigree 
in his attempt to shoot for the 
stars. Following his formal intro-
duction at the end of May, he 
extended 13 scholarship offers to 

top-45 prospects over the sum-
mer, per the 247 Sports 2020 
Composite Rankings. Among 
that group was five-star power 
forward Isaiah Todd, who ulti-
mately chose Michigan over 
Kansas, which had been recruit-
ing him since eighth grade.
Todd’s pledge is more than 
a commitment. It’s a seismic 
shift in the Wolverines’ recruit-
ing, which now 
appears eager to 
go toe-to-toe with 
the nation’s top 
programs. Eight 
of the aforemen-
tioned top-45 
recruits have 
already commit-
ted, five of which 
selected Duke, 
Kentucky or 
North Carolina.
While adding Todd doesn’t 
automatically make Michigan 
a one-and-done factory, it sure 
defines exactly who Howard 
wants to be on the recruiting 
trail.
Howard has been as aggres-

sive as any other recruiter in the 
country since his hiring — an 
effort that appears aligned with 
the Wolverines’ anticipated tran-
sition to an NBA-like brand of 
basketball. Last season, Beilein’s 
offense finished 341st in the 
nation in possessions per game. 
In Friday’s exhibition onslaught, 
Michigan’s used every transition 
opportunity to attack the rim or 
create uncontest-
ed jumpers, while 
19 first-half pos-
sessions ended in 
shots off one pass. 
There’ll be grow-
ing pains, particu-
larly with shot 
selection, but that 
type of up-tempo 
offense was previ-
ously absent in 
Ann Arbor.
“If you’re open, I want our 
guys to shoot it,” Howard said 
on Friday. “I don’t want them to 
have a second guess or think the 
game and play like robots. I just 
want them to read the game, read 
time and possession.”

The philosophy led to 31 three-
point attempts — a figure which 
Michigan eclipsed just twice all 
of last season.
“Coach Beilein liked quick 
shots if they were wide open,” 
said junior forward Isaiah Liv-
ers. “Coach Howard likes quick 
shots, but smart quick shots — 
not a contested shot. He wants 
to run. If we get stops, we better 
reward ourselves.
“ … It’s just 
the adjustment 
of you get a steal 
and there’s two 
guys ahead of you, 
you’re like, ‘Ah, 
I’m gonna hold 
off.’ That’s how it 
used to be. Coach 
Howard’s imple-
mented you get up 
to that halfcourt 
and you get to that free throw 
line and then you make your 
decision of if you’re going to 
pull it out or go. ‘Just be a bas-
ketball player,’ that’s what he 
tells us.”
That message is in line with 

Howard’s idea of positionless 
basketball. With multiple play-
ers on the roster athletic enough 
to guard multiple positions, 
there’s room to get creative.
Against Appalachian State, 
the country will get a glimpse of 
what, exactly, that entails. And 
Ann Arbor will get a glimpse 
of what, exactly, hiring a first-
time head coach with no college 
coaching experi-
ence entails.
The transition 
won’t be seam-
less, but early 
returns suggest 
Michigan ath-
letic director 
Warde Manuel 
nailed this hire 
in the wake of 
Beilein’s sudden 
exit. It’s now 
up to the ones who wear the 
unchanged jerseys, not suits, to 
prove it.

Dash can be reached at 

dashdan@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @danieldash428.

DANIEL 
DASH

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
The Michigan basketball team is set to unveil its reinvented self Tuesday when it takes on Appalachian State, ushering a new era in which hardly anything is the same.

When Juwan Howard steps on the floor as Michigan’s coach, nothing will be the same as it was before

Coach Beilein 
liked quick shots 
if they were 
wide open.

Coach Howard 
likes quick 
shots ... smart 
quick shots.

