Michigan portal target Jose Perez will stay at WVU
West Virginia guard Jose Perez was supposed to visit Michigan July 28-30, a candidate to fill one of the guard slots the Wolverines were still pursuing. Instead, he announced Friday night via social media he would remain in Morgantown for his last season. Perez had yet to play for WVU after failing to get a waiver after transferring from Manhattan, but now he’ll get that chance.
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Michigan will likely continue to look for other options in the portal and beyond if they want to bring in another guard. As of now, U-M has Dug McDaniel at point, a recovering Jaelin Llewellyn (ACL) at shooting guard along with freshman George Washington III, and wing and Alabama transfer Nimari Burnett as ball handlers.
Perez (6-5, 220) spent his first two seasons at Gardner-Webb, where he averaged 15.1 points per game in 2018-19 and 15.2 in 2019-20. He played in 10 games after transferring to Marquette, averaging 3.1 points per game before a coaching change sent him back to the portal.
From there, Perez ended up at Manhattan, where he scored 18.9 points per game with a career-best 4.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game. He transferred to West Virginia and tried to get a waiver to play immediately, but he was denied — as was an appeal. With Bob Huggins out at WVU, Perez is on the move again, and Michigan is on it.
Though he’s not known as a shooter (more a scorer), Perez has been a high usage guy in his career. He did make 38.1 percent of his triples in his first year at Gardner-Webb, shooting 44.8 percent overall, but he was at 39.9 percent overall and 25.9 from long range last season. He also shot a career-best 80.2 percent from the free throw line going into the preseason as the 2022-23 MAAC player of the year.
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Howard and his staff have had a busy offseason after losing Hunter Dickinson to Kansas and Jett Howard and Kobe Bufkin to the NBA. They added Tennessee forward Olivier Nkamhoua, Seton Hall forward Tray Jackson, and Burnett. All three are expected to play big minutes this year.
The Wolverines also received a commitment from North Carolina’s Caleb Love. He had admissions issues, though, and ended up at Arizona.
Only two starters — point guard Dug McDaniel and forward Terrance Williams II — return from last year’s NIT team.
