Michigan Basketball Recruiting: Analyzing the Wolverines’ top targets

Michigan basketball head coach Juwan Howard has quickly asserted himself on the recruiting trail. Will he be able to land any of his top targets?

There have been very few programs as consistently excellent as Michigan basketball over the past few seasons. Now, though, the program is ushering in a new era with former star Juwan Howard taking over the reigns as the head coach. While it will be difficult to follow in the footsteps of the great John Beilein (now with the Cleveland Cavaliers), many are hopeful that Coach Howard will continue the successful run of the program and potentially take them to new heights as a result of elite recruiting.

Due to Coach Howard’s long player career and subsequent time as an assistant coach in the NBA, he has a tremendous amount of connections at the next level. This, coupled with the fact that he is taking over a highly-successful program, should allow Coach Howard to be instant terror on the recruiting trail. And even though he is still relatively new to the position, it seems clear that those ideas will come to fruition. In addition to inheriting a top-75 combo guard commit in Zeb Jackson from the prior leadership, Coach Howard has already made recent cuts for a number of the top-rated players in the 2020 class.

At this point in time, it seems as though the Michigan coaching staff has settled on 11 prospects as its top priorities in the class. It is also important to mention that there is clearly plenty of mutual interest as seven of those players included the Wolverines in their recent cuts. This article will break down each of the players that seem to be advancing their recruitments individually while also taking a peek at those that could also be near the top of Coach Howard’s list.

Now, without any further ado, let’s dive in.