Back in 2021 I wrote that there was no coherent reason to hire an “IU Guy” to be the next head coach of the Indiana basketball program.
But of course no one was asking me, and suddenly Mike Woodson came out of left field just days later.
If there was one contemporary comparison at the time that likely emboldened the decision to hire Woodson, it was the success had by Juwan Howard at Michigan. That success was reaching its pinnacle right as Indiana hired Woodson.
It was difficult to ignore.
Named the national coach of the year in 2021 by multiple organizations, Howard led the Wolverines to the Big Ten title that year, along with a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
It was one of the best stories in college sports at the time: Famous alumnus comes home and leads his alma mater to glory. Who wouldn’t want some of that?
Howard was in the NBA for 25 years as a player and assistant coach, and that experience seemed attractive to recruiting prospects. For whatever he may have been lacking when it came to his readiness for the college game, Michigan hired Phil Martelli to be Howard’s assistant coach.
Indiana even appeared to try to mirror that setup, hiring longtime successful college coach Thad Matta in the Athletic Department when they hired Woodson.
The NBA appeal seemed to carry a lot of weight with recruits in the early days of the Woodson era. Several recruiting targets and their parents mentioned his NBA experience as an attraction to Indiana.
Some variation of “he spent a long time in the league and knows what it takes to get there” was a common refrain from high school prospects when asked about Woodson’s appeal.
Buoyed by the transfer portal and NIL, IU built some good early rosters. And just so you know I’m not tooting my own horn here, I also wrote in April of 2021 that the Woodson hire had a chance to prove people wrong.
But that 2021 Michigan season turned out to be a flash in the pan, as Howard lost 55 games over the next three seasons and was fired in 2024. It was a turn of events difficult to foresee at that moment in March of 2021, but with the benefit of hindsight, Howard’s time in Ann Arbor looks a lot like the tenures of many other NBA-to-college, or famous alumnus-to-alma mater stories.
And Indiana, after reaching the NCAA Tournament in each of Woodson’s first two years, followed a similar trajectory. Like Howard, Woodson’s best season at Indiana was his second. And since then the wheels have seemingly come off, if perhaps not to the same disastrous degree at the end.
Howard’s demise came in 2024, at the conclusion of an 8-24 season. And his firing last spring led to Michigan hiring Dusty May, who has led the Wolverines back to first place in the Big Ten after he took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four.
May, of course, is another “IU Guy,” albeit one who was not on anyone’s primary radar as a potential Indiana coach in 2021.
May led FAU to the Final Four in 2023, just as Woodson was having his Howard moment, with a second place Big Ten finish. Woodson put two players in the NBA that summer, and got a raise from Indiana.
If Indiana wanted May a year ago he likely would have been a lock to take the job in Bloomington. But influential people thought Woodson deserved another season after a disappointing 19-14 campaign a year ago.
And while the height of Howard’s tenure likely influenced IU’s hiring of Woodson, Howard’s demise complicated things with May and the Hoosiers.
With Woodson departing in a month, May is now probably the No. 1 target on Indiana’s list of coaching candidates.
But now a less than a year into his tenure in Ann Arbor, May’s decision seems much less clear than it would have been a year ago.
It’s all Juwan Howard’s fault.
For complete coverage of IU basketball’s 2025 coaching search, GO HERE.
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