Previewing the 2023-24 Michigan Basketball Season
In the month of October, The Floor Slap will be launching our College Basketball Preview. We will be previewing all 14 Big Ten Teams, making predictions, covering the biggest storylines across the country and more! Follow @thefloorslap to stay up to date on all our Basketball coverage before the season tips off on November 5th.
by Jordan Beckley
The past few Michigan seasons haven’t gone according to plan.
Back to back seasons with top recruiting classes and hype have led to back to back disappointments going a combined 37-31 (22-18 in conference).
Two seasons ago, Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate were the stars of a top 5 recruiting class joining returning players Hunter Dickinson, Eli Brooks and DeVante Jones. There was a lot of hype for this team. Juwan Howard had just led the Wolverines to the Elite Eight in his first Tournament as Head Coach. Dickinson was a consensus All-American as a Freshman and was coming back. The recruiting class set this Michigan team up for Big Ten Championship or Final Four kind of expectations.
The Test determined that was a lie as Michigan ended up going 19-15 finishing 7th in the Big Ten. Eventual tournament upsets over Colorado State and Tennessee earned a Sweet Sixteen appearance and saved face on what was an underachieving season overall. Houstan and Diabate were… underwhelming? Certainly didn’t light up the conference considering they were 5-star prospects. Both still went pro. Both might be out of the league by the end of this season. The Sweet Sixteen run masked how underwhelming the season really was.
Last year, Tarris Reed, Dug McDaniel, and Juwan’s son Jett were the shiny new recruits that you could project unlimited potential onto. The breakout players were Jett Howard and sophomore Kobe Bufkin, however the team failed to breakout. The Wolverines went 18-16, finishing 11-9 in the Big Ten, a first round exit in the Big Ten tourney, and missed March Madness.
After the season ended, Bufkin and Jett went pro, Dickinson gave up on trying to win in Ann Arbor, and Michigan was forced to recalculate.
After a summer of big swings in the portal and add another admissions failure with Caleb Love meant Juwan Howard’s prized portal haul would be two career bench players and Olivier Nkamouah. After two flashy recruiting classes were really just flashes in the pan, Howard brings in just one freshman in George Washington III.
A couple loaded recruiting classes lead to ultimately disappointing seasons. Now, Michigan finds itself rebuilding. The best three players from a mediocre team last season are gone and the reinforcements are less than inspiring. Where do Howard and the Wolverines go from here?
This year offers Michigan and Juwan Howard a chance to restart.
Roster Breakdown
Guards: Jaelin Llewellyn, Dug McDaniel, Nimari Burnett, George Washington III
Michigan’s backcourt was left open with the departure of Bufkin and Howard. Consequently, the Wolverines will lean on two young players and two experienced transfers.
Dug McDaniel figures to be the best player of the group. The rising sophomore likely will take the most shots on the team and the Wolverines will need McDaniel to be a gunner. Last year, he was relegated to the third banana of guards after Bufkin and Howard and 4th if you add in Dickinson. Even that role might have been too much for the young guard, but it did give him plenty of experience and hard minutes. This year somebody will have to shoot on this roster and McDaniel will most likely pick up the slack.
One thing to watch with McDaniel is his 2pt shooting percentage. The 5’11” freshman guard predictably struggled inside the arc shooting under 40%. Michigan will need him to be more efficient. He may never be a great finisher inside the arc, but maybe he can draw fouls and shoot more free throws.
Up next is Take 2 for Jaelin Llewellyn in Ann Arbor. The Princeton transfer was just beginning his season when a knee injury prevented him from showing what he could do. Personally, I am pessimistic given the history of Ivy League players in the Big Ten and what Llewellyn showed in his first eight games. The optimistic view would be that Llewellyn’s role might be simplified with fewer options and that his three point shot certainly won’t stick to how low (18.5%) as it was last season. Either way, Llewellyn has never averaged more than 3 assists a game. Coach Howard can’t look towards him as the lead playmaker.
Nimari Burnett is the other transfer via Alabama and formerly of Texas Tech. Burnett has been a bench player for his first two seasons averaging 15-20 mpg, but he will be the third guard on many lineups for Michigan and might even start. Burnett’s role will be defined by his ability to play off ball, his three point % and his defense. He made a jump last year in his outside shooting. Can he do that again? Burnett is comfortable being off ball and playing in the corners. Michigan will need guys that they can trust in those spots on the court.
GWIII is one of my favorite recruits of the 2023 Big Ten class. Read my full scouting report on him here. Washington was originally committed to Ohio State until Holtmann took one too many recruits and he flipped to their arch rival. The Dayton product is a scorer at all levels. If his skill of putting the ball in the hoop translates to the college level, GWIII will earn more and more minutes.
Wings/Forwards: Tray Jackson, Terrance Williams, Will Tschetter, Jace Howard, Youssef Khayat
Okay so Michigan has a weird roster filled with power forwards and no wings. Here are a group of guys who will play the 3 or 4 this season but really are all 4s. Olivier Nkamhoua will eat up a major chunk of the minutes at 4, so this group will be mainly supporting players.
Tray Jackson and Terrance Williams will be the guys who see a lot of minutes at the 3 and 4. Jackson is a grad-transfer from Seton Hall who is a good shooter and roll-to-the-basket guy. He leaves a lot to be desired as a rebounder and provides no rim protection. He will probably get 10-25 minutes a game.
Williams is a good rebounder and defender, but is even the staunchest Michigan homer expecting an offensive breakthrough from him? 25% from 3 is not good enough for a guy who mainly waits in the corner for wide open kickouts.
I don’t feel like wasting characters on Will Tschetter or Jace Howard. If either does something this year, I will happily talk about them being a surprise. For now, don’t expect more than a few random minutes here or there.
The last player is Youssef Khayat. Khayat is an export from Lebanon who so far has been more of a meme than a real player. His international play gives you a whiff of potential. I’m not closing the door on him being a contributing player this year, which speaks to how poor this roster might be.
Bigs: Tarris Reed, Olivier Nkamhoua, Lee Aaliya
The one true strength of Michigan is the frontcourt. Reed is a top rated recruit who was buried a bit behind Dickinson. I love him. I think he is due to absolutely explode this season. Nobody is picking him to be an All-Big Ten player, and that includes me. But before this dude leaves Michigan I think he will be an All-Big Ten player. He has great size, fantastic post moves and rebounds very well. Can he be a great defender too? Reed averaged 0.9 blocks in just 13 mpg last year. The path to Michigan being a Tournament level team demands that they be awesome defensively. Could he be a 2.5 blocks a game guy? Oh yeah and Reed needs to juice up his 40% FT shooting from last year.
Nkamhoua is a grad transfer from Tennessee who could be the go-to guy for Michigan this year. His role was often diminished in a slower Vols offense. Coach Howard will surely highlight Nkamhoua’s versatility this season. He can shoot the three a bit, post up a bit, and certainly attack boards and punch balls through the rim on lobs. Nkamhoua is used to a crowded frontcourt from Tennessee, but it will be interesting to see if he is ever the center for the team and what that looks like.
Last is the late addition out of Argentina in Lee Aliya. Aliya will play this year, but isn’t even on the team’s official roster yet. The 6’9” big had a great showing in the U19 FIBA World Cup showing great polish rolling to the rim, hitting outside shots and finishing around the basket. Seriously, he looked great for an 18 year old. Aliya is a big question mark given how little time he has probably spent on campus and that the college game will be much more cluttered than the free flowing FIBA game.
Starting Over
Beyond what happens on the court, Juwan Howard went through a heart procedure last month. I wish him well and hope he gets well soon. Michigan said at Big Ten media days there is no timetable for his return.
Until Howard’s return, Phil Martelli will be the acting head coach. Having that experienced of a coach to step up in a difficult absence is a luxury and the Wolverines are in good hands.
In more ways than one this year will be an opportunity for Michigan to take a step back and make changes.
Last year, the Wolverines struggled from having a “your turn, my turn” flow of offense. The talent and box scores looked good, but was often inefficient. In reality, Michigan’s offense was good, not great, ranking 48th according to Kenpom. The defense was the same story, ranking just 47th in the country.
We are about to enter year 5 of the Juwan Howard era in Ann Arbor and it doesn’t seem like there’s a defined culture under him. The Wolverines won the Big Ten Championship and made the Elite Eight in 2020-21. However that run was still mainly recruits from John Beilein and much of the play style resembled the Beilein era.
What play style defines Michigan under Juwan Howard?
Over the past two seasons since the Elite Eight, the Michigan offense has morphed from the Read-and-react to more isolated actions and predictable pick and rolls. More and more the supporting players remain stationary instead of moving into open space.
There is a misunderstanding about modern basketball that a classical motion offense is ‘better’ than iso ball or heliocentric offenses. While motion is aesthetically more appealing and might better represent ‘team basketball’, if an isolated zoom action with an NBA level guard gets you 1.2 points per possession compared to 0.9 points per possession on a motion offensive set, the better play is the iso.
The difference this season is Michigan won’t have the type of talent that you want to isolate so heavily. None of these players are Franz Wagner, Kobe Bufkin, Jett Howard or even Isaiah Livers. Could we see a return to the read and react motion aspects that were featured early on in Howard’s tenure?
On the other side of the ball could we see a Wolverine team who defines themselves by their defense? The 2020-21 team was the 4th best defense on Kenpom. With Reed and Nkamhoua protecting the paint, Burnett guarding the best guards and all the length everywhere else, Michigan has the bones of a top defense even with big minutes from Dug McDaniel.
Michigan will need to make some changes this season.
Juwan Howard will take some time off to recover and perhaps that step back could result in a fresh approach when he does return.
This Michigan team will easily have the lowest expectations of the past three years. Nevertheless, the 2020-21 wasn’t a hot pick leading into the season after going 19-12 and finishing 9th in the Big 10 the year prior.
A rejuvenated offense defined more by its playstyle rather than its personnel and a team that prides itself in winning on defense is something the basketball traditionalist always wants.
And that just might be the necessary schematic for an uninspiring Michigan team to have a surprise season and make this a fan-favorite team in the process.
Read more about Michigan Basketball on The Floor Slap:
2022-23 Michigan Wolverines Basketball Exit Survey
One Position Battle to Watch for Every Big Ten Basketball Team