Michigan’s Dusty May confident in Year 1: ‘We could have a really good basketball team’

First year coaches don’t often speak the way Dusty May did on Friday afternoon.

That is, unless they know something. Or at the very least they have a very strong suspicion that they do.

Michigan basketball’s new head coach didn’t make any promises − even when a reporter referenced a staffer who said the tone inside the building wasn’t just about a winning season, but getting to San Antonio for the Final Four. But he also didn’t back away from expectations entering the 2024-25 season, his first in the maize and blue.

It’s entirely new vibes around the hoops program in Ann Arbor. A new head coach, 10 new staffers, six transfers and three freshmen; yet instead of the predictable caveats of growing pains and tempered expectations, U-M’s head man welcomed the idea that his team could be relevant come spring.

“We have the individual pieces where we could have a really good basketball team,” May said. “Obviously, as we all know when you get to the tournament: the matchups, the breaks, the health, all those things play a factor, but we’re a confident group. These guys, most come from programs where they won a lot of games and won championships.

“I don’t think they came here to take a step back. … but once again the talk is the talk, the play is the play.”

Everything May and his staff have done since he was hired in March has been intentional. From hiring Matt Aldred as strength and conditioning coach to prepare his team for an up-tempo style, to hiring general manager Kyle Church to handle the logistics of scheduling.

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In this day and age, the more styles of play a team can see the better, which is exactly why U-M built its schedule the way it did, all the way down to an exhibition vs. Oakland on Sunday. Not only does it keep the Wolverines local, but May said without this game “we probably wouldn’t have any zone concepts (installed)” but this will force Michigan to try to mix and match personnel.

Also, he prefaced, don’t be discouraged if the early season doesn’t return oodles of victories.

By some metrics Michigan has a top-five strength of schedule, with non-conference matchups against programs like Arkansas, now led by John Calipari, at Madison Square Garden, a Wake Forest team picked to finish top three in the ACC, and TCU, led by Jamie Dixon who in May’s words “finds a way to win every year at a high level.”

May wanted his schedule to look this way for a reason.

“To be honest, we have confidence in our guys,” he said. “We felt an older group like this one, they want to play big games. Wanted Michigan to be back on national television, playing in historic environments like MSG.

“We changed our philosophy three or four years ago when we felt the teams that scheduled aggressively early really improved. They were challenged, they were exposed. … and they stayed the course and improved. Because of all that, might take some hits early, but it’s going to be fun, going to be challenging and test our resolve.”

The Wolverines are just more than 48 hours away from their unofficial season tipoff on Sunday evening in Detroit and May said as things stand, the Wolverines have nine players in their full-time playing rotation that he considers interchangeable starters.

Though he didn’t list them, here’s an educated guess of who those are: Danny Wolf, L.J. Cason, Tre Donaldson, Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr., Rubin Jones, Sam Walters, Will Tschetter and Vlad Goldin. With the versatility of these players, May said, the Wolverines feel quite confident about their abilities to mix various looks with either big or small lineups.

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“I think we have a group where we might see a number of combinations,” May said. “I look at eight or nine guys as quality-starting players, not a lot of separation between 1 and 10. We may look at these two guys play better together and the best way for that to happen is off the bench, or we may rotate game by game depending on matchup, what that games calls for.”

While May doesn’t want the offense to be in situations where it’s playing dump-down basketball and just going one-on-one, he said the Wolverines’ guy if they need a bucket right now is Gayle.

Goldin, the 7-footer from FAU, is another solid option in the paint should he get a one-on-one, while Danny Wolf, the other 7-footer, can score at all three levels; but more than anything U-M will rely on matchups to determine who scores.

May lauded Donaldson, saying his ball instincts could “play in front of 111,000 fans on Saturday” and called Will Tschetter the front-runner as team alpha as far as a tone-setter. He views Rubin Jones as a winner and “elite” defender on the perimeter and said he “can’t say enough good things” about the way Burnett has acted as a leader and tone setter for the new faces in the program.

There’s plenty to like about the shooting, too. May said he got a recent report and not counting the late-clock desperation 3-point attempts, his team has “generated good shots,” many of which are uncontested 3-pointers.

When it is in those final moments of the clock, May has an eye on the lone freshman whose name was listed among the playing rotation, Cason. He’s been shooting near 50% off the bounce on 3-pointers across more than 30 practices.

“Won state titles in high school, big time games in AAU circuit,” May said of Cason. “Past performance would predict he’ll be ready to help us as a freshman.”

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The Wolverines aren’t a trendy pick to win the Big Ten, which is newly expanded to 18 teams and spans both coasts. Michigan has its Los Angeles double-dip against USC and UCLA the first week of January, but gets both Oregon and Washington at home before it faces Michigan State twice in the final month of the year.

May said his team might not have fully found its identity until that time in the new year, but even now he likes what he sees. There was a vision that began 209 days ago when May was officially hired. It included coaches and players, buy-in from fans and belief from the higher-ups.

Though it remains early, the initial returns from May’s vantage have been fantastic. Should U-M continue to stack days, and have anything like the season May thinks is possible, more people will notice soon.

“(At FAU) we had a philosophy we had to build a program one fan at a time, brick by brick,” May said. “Here, it may be cinder walls, one wall at a time. There’s so much tradition and history here, if we put a good product on the court, we play the right way, we think we’ll be able to bring the fans back in droves.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball’s Dusty May is confident, doesn’t care it’s Year 1