Tuesday Thoughts: On Papa Kante, state of Michigan basketball

Michigan basketball is losing another player, but this one isn’t to the NBA or the portal. This one — frosh Papa Kante asking for his release from his National Letter of Intent — has been in the works for a while.

There have been rumblings for weeks, in fact — first, that he might have more work to do in the summer before being admitted, then that he might not be admitted at all. Whatever the situation, Kante ended any speculation with today’s request.

In short — this isn’t a surprise, but it is a disappointment. If Hunter Dickinson leaves, as expected, there would have been immediate playing time for him. At the same time — and keep in mind — the Wolverines might not have landed Kante in the first place had he thought there might be a chance Dickinson would return in the first place.

Regardless, head coach Juwan Howard did a great job recruiting Kante, on him from start to finish. It just didn’t work out in the end, and it wasn’t the staff’s fault that he isn’t here. With his absence, the scholarship chart looks like this:

Keep in mind, Michigan has yet to announce any of the transfers, and probably won’t until they are officially admitted. Some will have classes to take before they can enroll, for example … until it’s done, it’s not official … and some have more work to do than others.

But as of now, there’s at least one more spot. Assuming Dickinson moves on — and it’s looking more and more likely he will — Michigan will be looking for another big man. Enter Tennessee power forward Olivier Nkamhoua, who many believe is just waiting for Dickinson to pick another school before he announces for U-M. We feel — strongly — that Michigan is in a good spot here (though again, nothing is official until it’s made public).

And yes, Michigan coaches are still recruiting others, as well, including Florida State wing Matthew Cleveland. While there’s only room (technically) for one more, and we don’t anticipate any more attrition at this point, you never stop recruiting. As one coach told us, a lot of recruiting these days is to potentially get kids on the “rebound” — their transfer school — if things don’t work out at their first (or, in Nimari Burnett’s case, the second).

This team is nothing like many would have predicted a few years ago. Ideally, Moussa Diabate and Caleb Houstan would have been sophomores on a team competing for a Big Ten title, while Jett Howard was vying for time and prepping for his second year at U-M after playing a smaller role.

This is college basketball in the 2020s, though, and the Michigan coaches have had to adapt.

Michigan 2023-24 roster will have a much different look

To their credit, they have. We’ll be the first to admit that building a team through the portal isn’t ideal. There’s a balance coaches are trying to strike between recruiting preps and the portal, but it’s been thrown off at U-M by the NBA early entries, portal defections, and now the loss of Kante.

On paper, Howard and Co. couldn’t have responded much better. Burnett is an outstanding defender with a better offensive arsenal than he’s shown. Some kids play better when they’re not looking over their shoulder — that will be the case for the Chicago native this fall. We like Reed’s response, too, knowing he’s probably going to have to be “the guy” at center.

What we don’t know — how this team jells, especially if Love ends up in Ann Arbor, as anticipated. As one former college coach told us recently, “it’s a red flag if you’ve got a guard shooting less than 40 percent overall.” Love had a brilliant NCAA Tournament two years ago, but he shot 37.1 percent overall that year and 37.8 percent last season.

His shot selection will have to improve quite a bit.

On paper, this team — especially with Nkamhoua — has the potential to do some damage. We saw some portal-constructed teams rise up to play well above expectations this year (Kansas State, Xavier, etc.), but it’s really about chemistry and how quickly they pick up the offense.

As for the long run … the Michigan coaches are making progress with the 2024 and ’25 classes (articles on that in the days to come), so there’s hope there, too. As of now, Michigan ranks No. 13 nationally in On3’s transfer portal index measuring a team’s production during the transfer process, compared relative against its roster and not a comparison against other schools. This proprietary algorithm determines if a school has improved its overall team talent, stayed the same, or declined in talent during the transfer window.

Keep in mind, that’s before a potential Nkamhoua addition.

So … there is talent here, and this is still a work in progress. We’ll see how it all plays out, but it will be intriguing to see how it ends up and how it plays out in 2023-24.

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