Michigan Tuesday: How Good Is Michigan Basketball This Year?

We had high hopes for the team that plays next door to Crisler when the season started in the late Fall.   Those hopes ended quickly.  The interest of Michigan fans will now point to the basketball led by former Fab 5 great Juwan Howard.   His season tips off tommrow at 4:00 against BGSU.   So how good is this squad?

Juwan knew that this might be a tough year for the Wolverines so, he hit the transfer portal hard and picked up 3 players.  1 guy didn't qualify and the other 2 did - Guards Chaudee Brown from Wake and Mike Smith from Columbia.   Michigan does have Livers coming back and of course the high ceiling of Wagner.   Austin Davis and true fresman Hunter Dickinson will rotate the center position.  

The issue is that the Big Ten might be the best and deepest team conference in the country:

Iowa might have the best player in the country with Luka Garza and Wisconsin is deep with uperclassman.  They have 5 seniors in the rotation, which is very rare in today's basketball.   

Illionis and MSU make up the next tier as Illinois is very talented and athletic with Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn.  MSU always recruits great but will have to replace Winston but still has talented but often injured Langford.  

I see Michigan in the next tier that is full of "could be" programs that could make some noise at the top or win enough games to be dangerous and stay in the middle of the rankings.   I would also put Ohio State, Purdue, and IU in this patch as well.  

I know we forgot, but Rutgers played some pretty good basketball last season and might have been headed to the tourney, before COVID hit.   These teams are pretty good but my lack the fire power with the rest of the league.  Also in this tier: Minnesota, Maryland, and PSU. 

Northwestern and Neabraska I feel will pull up the rear of the conference.  

Michigan has some experience and talent, but how quickly will they come together?  The best thing a basketball team can do is to get better as the season moves on.   This will be a difficult season with COVID and Michigan will need to be safe and play hard.  If Franz goes off and becomes the scorer we think he is, it could be a really good season for the Wolverines.  Livers needs to stay healthy and shoot 40% from 3.