Behind the scenes of Kobe Bufkin's turning point at Michigan: When Juwan Howard knew he was 'going to be special'

Former Michigan Wolverines basketball guard Kobe Bufkin went from McDonald’s All-American and top-50 recruit to out of the rotation as a freshman, before breaking out as a sophomore and becoming the No. 15 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft to the Atlanta Hawks.

From an on-floor production standpoint, the inflection point for Bufkin, a Grand Rapids, Mich., native, was a Feb. 2, 2023 game at Northwestern, when he put up 15 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists in a big victory over an eventual NCAA Tournament team. From that game to the rest of the season, he averaged 17.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per contest.

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When asked about a turning point in Bufkin’s game, Michigan head coach Juwan Howard thought back to a different moment.

In Bufkin’s freshman season of 2021-22, the Wolverines were blown out by North Carolina, 72-51, in Chapel Hill in early December. At that point in the season, Bufkin totaled only 21 minutes in three games against high-major opponents, including three versus the Tar Heels.

Howard, the coach of a team that had already lost three games, was working in his office attached to Crisler Center late the following night.

He got a knock on the door.

“I’m like, ‘Who is that?’ the Michigan coach recalled in an interview on Sirius XM’s Big Ten This Morning. “I’m the only one in the building, I thought.”

It was Bufkin.

“Coach, can I come in? Can we talk?” Bufkin asked.

“Sure,” Howard replied.

“Coach, man, whatever chatter that you’re hearing from my camp, it’s not coming from me,” the Michigan guard stated. “I am all in. I’m going to work and do whatever I can to help this team. I am all in.”

Howard said that was the “turning point” in Bufkin’s career.

“That was the point I knew that this kid was going to be special,” the Michigan coach proclaimed.

“A lot of people look at it from what happens on the floor, what happens statistically, when it comes to the numbers or who’s scoring what, how many rebounds you’re averaging, how many assists you’re averaging. But I look at it and view it as the mindset.

And the mindset — once you have your mind focused on the right things, and the thing for him was developing and proving that he’s going to get out on the floor one day. That let me know that he was going to be a special player in our program.”

Bufkin couldn’t keep himself in the rotation as a freshman at Michigan. He was actually a healthy scratch in the contest immediately following the North Carolina loss (a win over San Diego State), and played double-digit minutes in just seven Big Ten games.

The next season, Michigan lost two of his classmates to the NBA in Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate. His mentor, Eli Brooks, one of the program’s most steady players in recent history, (finally) ran out of eligibility after five years with Michigan.

There was a big opportunity, but there were also a lot of question marks, after Bufkin struggled on defense and couldn’t hit open jump shots as a freshman.

While he heated up as the Michigan season went along, from the gate it was clear Bufkin was a different player. He transformed his body in the offseason, working closely with renowned strength coach Jon Sanderson, who’s said he’s one of the hardest workers he’s trained, and elevated his game.

At practice before Michigan’s second regular-season tilt of the 2022-23 campaign, a quasi-home game at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, home of the Pistons, Howard had a revelation about Bufkin.

“Originally, I was thinking, ‘Who am I going to have guarding [EMU guard] Emoni Bates?’ In walkthrough, we had [freshman guard] Jett [Howard] guarding Emoni.

“As we had one of our scout team players who was going to be Emoni, Kobe walked over to him and said, ‘I’m guarding Emoni.’ I said, ‘Oh, shucks.’ This is where this young man says, I am going to be a two-way player.

“With that, I knew, I said he was going to be special.”

Playing to the mixed crowd, Bates dropped 30 points in a losing effort. He went 9-for-13 on twos and 3-of-6 on threes, but as Howard noted, many of his makes were tough shots. Bufkin took the matchup personal and didn’t give Bates — the former No. 1 recruit — anything easy.

“I said, ‘Kobe’s not only a scorer,” Howard recalled. “If he can turn into one of my best defenders,’ … because the year before, his freshman year, everything was moving too fast for him.”

He did just that. Bufkin was Michigan’s top defensive player and carried a huge load offensively, turning himself into a top-15 pick.

“His sophomore year, he just turned the corner, made that huge jump,” Howard said.