Seeking complete two-year turnaround, Tarris Reed Jr. and Michigan now stand in one another’s path

INDIANAPOLIS — Nimari Burnett and Will Tschetter, the holdovers from Michigan’s 2023-24 team, have talked frequently about how unforeseen this two-year turnaround has been for them.

Right there in the trenches of the worst season in program history was Tarris Reed Jr. For the now Connecticut forward, that year was just as desolate, and the path to this point, just as arduous. 

“It has been tough. I mean, you can’t let doubt and fear creep in because that’s the biggest enemy,” Reed said Feb. 3, 2024, following a loss to Rutgers. “That’s the biggest lie of the devil. So I’ve been able to try to focus on where I’m at now, what’s now and I don’t worry too much about the future.” 

In that moment — Michigan had just lost to the conference’s second-worst team, Rutgers — the future was hard to see for a once-promising recruit. Reed often talked about his faith and finding joy even as the Wolverines were swiftly plummeting past the depths of obsolescence into a historic disaster.

“He’s always been just a happy person, someone who is always joyful of the moment and just a joyful teammate even during that time, that year where things weren’t as happy, and it was, most of the time it was low,” Michigan graduate guard Nimari Burnett said Sunday. “He brought joy. He brought enthusiasm. He’s just a great person, and we also have similar beliefs and faith. So I have a good connection with him and with that.”

When the season ended fittingly with a blown lead in the late-night slot on Wednesday of the Big Ten Tournament, and Juwan Howard was fired later that week, Reed was finally forced to evaluate where the hardship had left him and what was next.

Reed entered the transfer portal almost immediately after Howard’s dismissal. When Dusty May was brought in to replace him, Reed had some initial talks with May about what a continued future in Ann Arbor could look like for Reed, under the correct assumption that Vlad Goldin would join the Wolverines. But when Danny Wolf committed to Michigan from Yale, Reed’s return became impossible.

For Reed, the answer was a program in pole position. The caveat, of course, was the expectations that come with a program coming off back-to-back titles.

“Knowing that UConn just won back to back and were going for three in a row that hasn’t been done since Wooden, so knowing that the expectation was going to the season, I mean, it did even surpass that,” Reed said. “Especially like just thinking back to Maui, how tough and difficult that was for the whole team morale. And to see where we are now. So that three-peat year was one of the hardest years of my life playing basketball. So to see where we are now, see how far we’ve been from there is just a blessing.”