Dick Weiss on College Basketball
Michigan went back into its storied history yesterday when they hired Juwan Howard, the big man on the Wolverines’ fabled Fab Five team, to replace sainted John Beilein as the school’s new head basketball coach. The 66-year old Beilein, a future Hall of Fame coach who led Michigan to a pair of national championship games in 2013 and 2018, left two weeks ago to take the head coaching job with the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers.
Howard is a 19-year NBA player who has the last six years as an assistant with the Miami Heat. He wasn’t the school’s first choice, but after five college coaches, including Ed Cooley from Providence, who turned the school down, he became the logical next man up.
The 46-year old Howard received a five-year deal, worth $2 million per season.
College basketball, which has gotten away from elevating assistant coaches, has turned its attention to former NBA coaches and stars lately. Vanderbilt just hired Jerry Stackhouse, a former North Carolina All American, NBA All-Star, G-League coach and NBA assistant. Penny Hardaway, the former NBA All Star and Olympian turned AAU power broker and high school coach, just completed his first year at Memphis, where the Tigers went to the NCAA tournament. Patrick Ewing, a college national champion at Georgetown, a member of the NBA Dream Team, G-League coach and 15-year NBA assistant and Naismith Hall of Famer, just finished his second year at Georgetown.
That group followed two other coaches with NBA pedigrees, Chris Mullin of St. John’s and Avery Johnson, who bottomed out. Other coaches like Fred Hoiberg of Iowa State and Dan Majerle of Grand Canyon have been pleasant surprises while Hall of Fame guard Isiah Thomas of Florida State and Clyde Drexler both flopped.
Howard, Hardaway, Ewing, Mullin, Hoiberg and Drexler all returned to their alma maters. Some like Johnson, Stackhouse, Majerle and Thomas has NBA coaching experience while others—like Mullin, Hardaway, Hoiberg and Drexler had none.
No one knows how this path will work.
Hardaway has the best chance to succeed at the highest level, given the fact he has already taken a team to the NCAA tournament in his first year and has the top-ranked recruiting class in 2019, led by 7-1 James Wiseman of Memphis East, the best prospect in the country.
Howard inherits a perennial strong Big Ten program, which succeeded at the highest level despite never signing a McDonald’s All American under Beilein.
“As a Michigan Man, I know the place our program has in college basketball,’’ Howard said in a statement. “And I embrace the chance to build onto that history and lead us to championships both in the Big Ten and the national level.’’
Howard was a member of Michigan’s Fab Five recruiting class in 1991, along with Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson. During his three seasons in Ann Arbor, Howard helped lead the Wolverines to two national championship games and an Elite Eight appearance when players took money from booster Ed Martin. He averaged 15.3 points and 7.3 during his college career.
The school later removed the Fab Five’s Final Four banners from Crisler Arena as part of self-imposed sanctions that stemmed from one of the NCAA’s largest financial scandals. Howard was not implicated in the scandal.
Howard was universally respected for his near-eternal career as a college and NBA player. Like Hardaway, Howard has travel team experience that could play significant dividends in recruiting. He has two sons who are players and college prospects.
