Michigan Basketball head coach Juwan Howard Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
The 2022-23 season was the fourth that Head Coach Juwan Howard was at the helm of Michigan Basketball. The Wolverines entered the season at No. 22 in the Associated Press rankings and reached a peak of No. 20 by the second week. Despite being the second-highest scoring team on top of being the best rebounding team in the Big Ten, their conference record of 11-9 and subsequent second-round loss to Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament was enough to prevent the Wolverines from being invited to the NCAA Tournament.
The most glaring challenge Coach Howard has to face as he enters the new season is the loss of his three top scorers from that conference best scoring roster. Just as Artemis changes the seasons to suit her needs, Coach Howard has changed his roster in order to suit his. With an incoming trio of starters from the transfer portal to add to the two returning starters, It will not only give the Wolverines a different look, it will give them different results as well.
Last season Coach Howard had nine players average double-digit minutes but was not afraid to give a handful of minutes to the twelfth man. When it is taken into consideration that they have no top 100 freshman recruits, and just one freshman in total, plus taking into account the fact that a number of players will be used at multiple positions, it all adds up to an early season indication that Coach Howard will have a shorter bench this season as the Wolverines look to make it back to the NCAA Tournament.
A prospect that pre-season bracketology does not project the Wolverines doing as one of the eight teams from the Big Ten predicted to do so.
