Michigan makes contact with Ball State transfer forward Basheer Jihad
The Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball rebuild under head coach Dusty May is fully underway with prospects added to the transfer portal board each day. One of the latest comes in the form of Ball State forward Basheer Jihad.
Jihad, who is a Detroit native and an All-Mid-American Conference second-team performer this year, has one year of eligibility remaining. He averaged 18.6 points and 8.0 rebounds per game this year while shooting 45.1% from the floor and a 35.4% mark from three.
Other schools in the mix, per The Portal Report, include Ohio State, Cal, Mizzou, Virginia Tech, Arizona State, UCF, Temple, Xavier, Dayton, Rutgers and Miami.
Jihad suited up for 32 games in 2022-23 with one start, averaging 7.1 points and 3.6 rebounds. During his freshman season in 2021-22, he appeared in 29 games with 2.7 points and 1.8 rebounds per game in 8.6 minutes on average.
Jihad is a North Farmington, Michigan native and a former candidate for the Michigan Mr. Basketball Award, averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds as a senior. He averaged 16 points and 10 rebounds during his junior campaign. His older brother, Yusuf Jihad, played the last three years at Eastern Michigan and his freshman year at Oakland.
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Michigan continues to cast a wide net in the portal with plenty of needs on the roster at multiple positions. May said during his introductory press conference that they were going to search far and wide as Michigan rebuilds the roster.
“We’re going to cast a big net,” May said. “We’ll narrow it down, we’ll be very patient because we’re not going to take the wrong guys because we have several spots. We’re going to be very thorough but we need to understand that we need to be right, we need to do our research in advance and make sure we make very calculated decisions because there’s a lot of options, and they’re not all great options.”
Michigan currently has three scholarship players with eligibility remaining with Nimari Burnett and Jace Howard having fifth years available and Will Tschetter having two more years left. Others, including Terrance Williams II and George Washington III, are in the portal but say they are considering a return to Ann Arbor.
TheWolverine.com will continue to monitor the portal in the days and weeks to come.
