Michigan Basketball: 11 candidates to replace Juwan Howard as Head Coach

Will Wade

There’s a lot riding on this hire. Michigan basketball was in a pretty dark place in that era between Fisher and Beilein and failing to get this right could plunge the Wolverines back into long-term irrelevance. It’s impossible to say on the surface that one particular coach or another would or wouldn’t achieve success with these Wolverines, but we know that this next name can certainly produce winning basketball.

Wade grew up in Nashville and found coaching success earlier, heading to the Final Four before he turned 30 as an assistant at VCU back in 2011. His head coaching career has had four stops, with success at Chattanooga and VCU before recruiting violations ended his time at LSU. Wade bounced back this season at McNeese, leading the Cowboys to a 30-3 record and a Southland title, making this the third team he’s led to the Big Dance.

Wade is a great recruiter and a proven winner and his resume certainly shows that. In less than a year he’s built perhaps the best team we’ve ever seen in the Southland Conference and he’s already been a winner in the SEC with the Tigers before his dismissal. It’s a move that would raise eyebrows considering his recent history, but Wade has the tools to win for any power conference that lures him in the coming years.

We’ve completed our thorough look at eleven different candidates for Michigan to consider in the coming days and weeks. Who do you think the Wolverines will hire as the next head coach or their basketball program?