One of the discussions on this week’s Future Brew revolves around how Michigan basketball head coach Juwan Howard was able to get two 2022 big men on campus at the same time last weekend — four-star commit Tarris Reed and five-star Yohan Traore. Von and Stephen discuss how that move could go a long way in Traore’s recruitment, and how it was vital to speak with both of them on how they’d be utilized together in Ann Arbor.
Von: It was a busy weekend not only for the football team at the Big House, but there were a couple basketball prospects visiting with Nuwan Howard and his program as well. Four-star commit Tarris Reed was on campus, and a huge target in the 2022 class was also visiting and that’s five-star big man Yohan Traore. He’s 6-10, 225, lives in the state of Arizona, hails from France though. Back in the summer, Traore was ranked as low as No. 91 overall, and after a strong showing this summer he has skyrocketed all the way to No. 10 overall on the composite and is a consensus five-star player. Back in August, he released a top 10 list. Michigan is on that list along with Louisville, LSU, Memphis, Oklahoma State, Tennessee, UCLA, Texas Tech, Utah and the NBL — a pro league in Australia. His first official visit was to Texas Tech the week before his visit to Ann Arbor, so they may be one of the top schools for him as well. Stephen, I think this was strategically planned here — I think the move to get Reed and Traore on campus the same weekend was a brilliant strategy to convince the two of them they can coexist together on the court, work off each other’s strengths and really benefit from each other. I really like that move from Juwan to plan that out and get them on campus at the same time. Do you think they can coexist together on the court?
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely, just because of the versatility Traore brings in his game. You can mention any skill that you could use as an athletic center and Traore will have that. It was nice to pair his visit with commit Tarris Reed because I think that’s a big question. How will they coexist and not step on each other’s toes and ensure it’s a healthy bond between the two? It goes back to simple team-building exercises. If the team isn’t going to be on the same page, not get along with each other, the team suffers overall. Getting ahead of that, and I’m sure Juwan Howard has spoken with both Tarris Reed and Yohan Traore about the vision of how they will play, what that relationship between the two will look like. I’m sure they’ve talked separately about that, and being able to bring the two together while Reed is committed, Traore is obviously a top target at this point — having that right up front and building that bond and ensuring that is strong will not only become something that is a positive thing between the two players, but it takes away any potential negative recruiting from other programs as well. So getting ahead of that right away is such a smart way of nipping that in the bud right away. There’s no chance other schools can use that. It’s really smart to do that, and the closer a commit can get with a potential recruit, the more comfortable that recruit will feel if they do decide to commit. It’s brilliant, and it shows how smart a recruiter Juwan Howard is.
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