Yes, Juwan Howard Can Coach
That didn't take long.
There will be losses. There will be disappointments. There will be legitimate criticisms. That's unavoidable in any competitive endeavor. However, what we can no longer question is whether Juwan Howard knows how to coach a basketball team. For in only his second game he answered his skeptics, with three in-game adjustments that were the difference in a 79-69 victory over Creighton in the Gavitt Games.
This is a win that could look pretty good on the Wolverines' NCAA Tournament resume come March. The Blue Jays were a top 40 team in KenPom's renowned analytics coming in. Michigan even doubled the point spread as well. Yet at halftime it looked as if the Wolverines would be fortunate to come out of this with any type of win whatsoever.
Defense wasn't optional in the first half for Michigan, because it wasn't an option at all. The Wolverines played plenty of "you got em" on the defensive end, unable to slow down the pace or keep up with Creighton's perimeter quickness. The Blue Jays averaged a dynamite 1.26 points per possession, with a dominating plus-13 rebounding advantage (including an astounding plus-10 on the offensive glass).
Creighton was getting any shot it wanted, and if the Wolverines got a stop at all it was usually because of a miss.
How bad was Michigan's defense in the first half? Put it this way, the Wolverines were a torrid 7-of-13 shooting threes, and were still behind at halftime. Something had to change, and it was up to Howard and his staff to change it.
The Wolverines came out in the second half with renewed defensive intensity. Their rotations were still off, which was helping Creighton attack the offensive boards, since the Wolverines were frequently out of position. But there was no denying the effort and intensity were finally there. That was adjustment one.
Adjustment two was switching to a three-guard alignment, which not only put more quickness on the floor, but also helped Michigan dial the pace down from frenetic to manageable. Slowing the pace had the added benefit of taking away Creighton's biggest weapon -- transition scoring. As a result, the Blue Jays shot less than 40% in the second half and scored only 28 points.
Which brings us to third and final adjustment.
Jon Teske was a non-entity in the post in the first half, despite having a huge size advantage over anybody in a Creighton uniform. Michigan succumbed to the pace, which took one of its most important players out of the flow.
But in the second half Howard was insistent the offense run through Teske when it was winning time. Including on consecutive possessions that cemented the outcome, with an animated Howard directing on-court traffic in real time to demand Teske get the ball. Teske responded by scoring 10 straight points for the Wolverines to put the Blue Jays away.
And with that, a game that looked to be slipping away from Michigan ended up becoming a solid, potential resume-building victory. Thanks mainly to those three adjustments made by Howard and his staff.
And if we're noticing that, how about the players? Let's face it, when you're replacing arguably the best tactician in college basketball with a guy with no head coaching experience, there has to be some doubts in the minds of the players -- regardless of what they're going to say publicly.
Those doubts should be gone after Tuesday night.
Sure, Howard still has plenty to learn. He's going to lose games, especially with the difficult slate that still awaits this season. Rome wasn't built in a day.
But Tuesday night Howard proved he's up to the task. And if you know his inspirational life story, then you know Howard has been overcoming the odds since the day he was born. So we shouldn't be all that surprised.
