As ugly season ends, Michigan basketball needs a change

Michigan basketball battled on Wednesday night at the Target Center on the first day of the Big Ten tournament, but like most of the 2023-24 season, it was nearly close to good enough.

Despite cutting an 11-point deficit down to four points in the second half, Michigan basketball doesn’t have the talent to compete in the Big Ten. That was obvious watching Rutgers get beat for the sixth time in seven games. You know that one win? A 30-point win by the 13th-place team over Michigan. It was also evident in the 66-57 win by the Nittany Lions.

Michigan basketball needs a change

That tells you all you need to know about the state of the program. The fact that a near double-digit loss to the No. 11 seed felt like some sort of moral victory is pathetic. Juwan Howard makes way too much money for moral victories.

The Michigan basketball program has fallen off a cliff. Juwan Howard drove it off that cliff and it feels like asking that man to course correct is the wrong thing. I don’t want Juwan to be fired. I don’t want him to fail. But you are what your record is and his hasn’t been good enough with Michigan.

If it was just this season, that would be one thing. However, this is the third straight season the Wolverines have underachieved, in a big way. There are promising recruits and Juwan can promise to hit the transfer portal, but outside of his first offseason, his forays into the portal haven’t made a difference.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. It feels like running it back with Juwan Howard would be doing exactly that.

It might work, but there is no logical reason to believe it will and Wednesday night was another reminder of how badly this Michigan basketball program needs a change.