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F
or the Michigan men’s
basketball team, Juwan
Howard’s undefeated start
is a pipe dream-turned-reality.
Just seven games into his
tenure, the
first-year
coach has
already
scored a
pair of top-
10 wins. In
doing so, he
slayed two
coaching
juggernauts
in North
Carolina’s
Roy Williams and Gonzaga’s
Mark Few — both of whom
rank top-10 in all-time winning
percentage — en route to
claiming last week’s Battle 4
Atlantis.
When Howard was first
introduced, it appeared he’d be
inheriting a shell of last season’s
Sweet 16 team. The Wolverines’
three leading scorers jumped
to the NBA, while the coach
who built the program into a
perennial contender followed
suit soon after.
With only one recruit set
to join the program following
the decommitment of four-star
forward Jalen Wilson, it seemed
as though Howard’s first season
could be discounted given
the surrounding uncertainty.
Instead, he retained four-star
guard Cole Bajema’s pledge and
lured Franz Wagner away from
Alba Berlin of the EuroLeague.
For a program that was
widely expected to take a short-
term step backward under
Howard, early returns have
produced the opposite. And now,
six months after losing Jordan
Poole, Ignas Brazdeikis, Charles
Matthews and John Beilein,
Michigan is ranked No. 4 in the
nation after a record-tying leap
from unranked territory.
It’s not a fluke — rather, it’s
a product of Howard’s hiring
and the culture he’s already
established.
“First and foremost, (Howard
is) just telling us it’s a player-led
team and allowing us and giving
us responsibility,” sophomore
guard David DeJulius said after
beating the Tar Heels. “When
you get that responsibility, you
take ownership of your own
team. Other than that, he does a
great job of having open, candid
conversations with us on and off
the floor.
“When you have a coach
that you know cares about you
genuinely, both on and off the
floor, then you’ll run through a
brick wall for him.”
This type of immediate
success isn’t run of the mill,
even in the highest-profile
coaching gigs. By now, Howard
has made it tough to believe
he’s only a month removed
from his first game at the
helm, in which the Wolverines
came dangerously close to
squandering a 30-point lead
against an Appalachian State
team that finished 11-21 last
season.
In each game since, Michigan
has taken a step forward. An
eye-opening one, at that. It’s
a credit to Howard’s culture,
which the nation noticed for the
first time in the Bahamas.
“(There’s an) open-door
policy,” junior guard Eli Brooks
said after Michigan’s win over
North Carolina. “Anytime you
need (Howard), he’s there. He’ll
let you know that, too. You can
really feel it. Some people say
it’s not real, but with him, it’s
real.”
For Howard, such a culture is
representative of his coaching
style. By putting the power
in the players’ hands during
games, his preachings become
more than just words.
“Coming out of half, usually,
most coaches you may know
want to adjust and control the
game as much as possible,”
junior forward Isaiah Livers
said in Atlantis. “But we’re
lucky enough to have a coaching
staff where they let us dictate
our own coming out in the
second half, and then we rely
on (Howard’s) words. He’s more
of a players’ coach where he
understands the game. You can’t
play the game if you’re being
controlled the whole time.”
From a technical standpoint,
Howard has been equally
effective in the same capacities
that made him a well-regarded
NBA assistant coach. During
his six-year stint on the Miami
Heat’s staff, he was responsible
for the ascension of centers
Hassan Whiteside and Bam
Adebayo.
Senior center Jon Teske
is the perfect case study of
Howard’s early impact in Ann
Arbor. After posting 9.5 points
and 7.0 rebounds across 27.9
minutes per game last season,
he’s averaging 13.3 points and
9.7 rebounds on a career-best
56-percent clip from the field
across fewer minutes per game
(27.4) so far this year.
Howard’s impact on Teske
was most apparent against
the Tar Heels and Bulldogs, in
particular, as the 7-foot-1 center
tallied a combined 29 points
and 23 rebounds en route to
tournament MVP honors.
“Since the first day, (Howard)
has been teaching me, showing
me tips,” Teske said. “He’s got
a lot of knowledge of the game,
so just asking him questions
and he’s more than willing to
help me, and it’s showed the last
couple of games.”
At this point, Howard appears
to be well on his way to crafting
the perfect marriage of culture
and fundamentals.
Granted, most of this group
was part of last season’s team,
which climbed as high as No. 2
in the national poll following a
program-best 17-0 start. After
mid-January, though, Michigan
lost seven of its final 20 games.
To first-year associate head
coach Phil Martelli, who
spent the last 34 years at St.
Joseph’s, the attention around
Howard’s immediate success is
anything but an overreaction. In
Howard, he sees someone with
everything needed to reach the
pinnacle of coaching.
“I’m here to help Juwan
Howard coach on a Monday
night in April,” Martelli said in
October. “ … Because he’s going
to do that.”
A month into Howard’s
tenure, that proclamation is
starting to sound a whole lot
more plausible.
Dash can be reached at
dashdan@umich.edu or on
Twitter @danieldash428.
Howard’s marriage of culture and fundamentals shines through
DANIEL
DASH
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan coach Juwan Howard has emphasized a culture of open communication en route to a 7-0 record after winning the Battle 4 Atlantis on Friday.
8 — Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com