Last than one year ago, Devante Jones committed to Michigan after a strong career at Coastal Carolina.

Jones was following in a long and a consecutive line of Great Wolverines point guards.

And the most recent one, Mike Smith, was following the same path as Jones.

They put up big numbers at a mid-major school.

They missed out on previous NCAA tournament opportunities,

and they were searching for a bigger platform to hopefully lead to college basketball success

in winning and then NBA interest. The end point for each player in terms of their Michigan

careers, they were ultimately pretty close to the same. Both Smith and Jones reached the second weekend of the NCAA tournament in their first

ever taste of the dance, and then both went into the NBA draft process, hoping to turn

heads and do what few can do, carve out an NBA career as a projected undrafted player

at the start of the process.

But yeah, the journey to get to that end point at

Michigan for Devante Jones from 12 months ago to now was quite different from Smiths. Jones

had some growing pains. Many Michigan fans had some doubts. The Wolverines did not have the type of

regular season that many projected.

Yet, Jones turned off social media, ignored the critics near and far, changed his

workout regimen, and really buckled down and won people over the way that is most

noble and most praiseworthy with just continued improvement and no hate, no

disrespect, understanding that, hey, the job's not done. The Devante Jones we saw in November

would have been beat down by the Devante Jones we saw in January, in February, in March.

And unfortunately, we did not get to see a full Devante Jones experience in the NCAA tournament

due to an unfortunate string of events.

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