Michigan Basketball: 2020-21 season preview for the Wolverines
By Adam Childs
The Michigan basketball team will head into year two of the Juwan Howard with little expectations from the experts, but will they prove them wrong?
The Wolverines were in the headlines a lot during the offseason, but it wasn’t always for the way they were hoping. Juwan Howard followed up his first year as head coach with some big-time recruiting news, but unfortunately, a couple of the headlines were about players not heading to Michigan Basketball.
Howard got a commitment from Isaiah Todd, but he decided to skip the college route and head to the D league. Shortly after that, Joshua Christopher shocked a lot of people by picking Arizona State over Michigan. It was two big blows to the Wolverines, but he was still able to bring in some good recruits.
The new recruits plus a couple of transfers, will try and help the Wolverines build off a decent first season for Howard. The Wolverines ran through a loaded Battle 4 Atlantis field only to struggle during the Big Ten part of their schedule.
A lot of what hurt them was an injury to Isaiah Livers. Livers was probably the Wolverines best player and when he went down Michigan couldn’t seem to win many games. He returns after putting his name in the early entry list for the NBA draft and that is a huge plus for the Wolverines.
The Wolverines do lose one of the best point guards in the country in Zavier Simpson, but Eli Brooks got a lot of time running the Michigan offense, so it shouldn’t be such a big blow.
Howard is changing things in Michigan, but they are still being overlooked this year and they are out to prove a lot of the “experts” wrong. If they can gel early, this could be a very good team. But before we get to the season, we preview what to expect in Ann Arbor in what should be a crazy college basketball season