The dust has settled after Dusty May departed Michigan men's basketball for the NBA, and Mike Boynton Jr. will lead the defending national champions into a 2026-27 season with high expectations.
Boynton Jr. retained the majority of the U-M roster, including the entirety of the No. 2-ranked incoming class, and has started filling out his staff while working to finalize the non-conference schedule. He spoke to The Field of 68 this week about Michigan's busy month and what's to come. Here are the biggest takeaways:
Mike Boynton Jr. knew Dusty May might leave
While Mike Boynton Jr. learned of Dusty May's departure for the Dallas Mavericks via a Shams Charania report, the U-M assistant did know the move was a possibility.
"Dusty and I had a conversation — Sunday, I think, after he returned from visiting with them — that he was really contemplating whether he would take it or not," Boynton Jr. shared.
"Part of the conversation was what would that mean for me and whether I wanted to try to take this thing over and then continue it, or maybe even perhaps join him in Dallas. And so it was a conversation that was brief. But because of the briefness of the conversation, I didn't have a whole lot of time to process, if it happened, what would be next."
As the news spread, Boynton Jr. met with Athletic Director Warde Manuel to figure out next steps.
"I wasn't told a whole lot in that moment, other than, 'Hey, we think you can be somebody that can help this team right now,'" Boynton Jr. recalled.
Player retention was Michigan's immediate priority
When Mike Boynton Jr. assumed the interim head coach role, "every player on our team became the most important thing at the moment," he said.
Between a full team meeting and individual conversations with players, their agents and their families, Boynton Jr. said "24 hours in a day hasn't been enough."
"One of those days, because I walk a lot naturally anyway, I think I walked 38,000 steps and burned through two Mophie battery packs. Two of them completely died," he said. "And then the reason I stopped that day is because after that, the phone actually died. So two battery packs and the phone dead. And then I was like, 'I've got to be done too. That means that my battery is dead as well.'"
Michigan looked at other head coach options
During the coaching transition, Michigan "did try to swing for a couple big names at that point," Jeff Goodman said on The Field of 68. Boynton Jr. said he "wasn't told a whole lot" but knew that his responsibility in the moment was to help Michigan.
He was promoted to the full-time head coach less than three weeks later on a two-year contract, with the second year enacted only if he meets certain milestones.
"I'm a super low-ego guy," Boynton Jr. said. "I've got great confidence in my ability to do the job and do it well. Again, if that means we have to go 38-2 and win the Final Four game by 40 instead this year, because that's literally the bar."
How Oklahoma State and Dusty May helped Mike Boynton grow
Mike Boynton Jr. went 119-109 over his seven seasons at Oklahoma State before spending the last two years working with Dusty May at Michigan.
The new U-M head man shared how he's grown over the last few years:
"I'm not good enough to do everything at an elite level by myself. And I had really good staffs there, had really good people I worked with. But the thing I learned from Dusty was hire people who are excellent in different areas and allow them to be excellent in those areas," he said.
"Dusty empowered me as an assistant coach to run our defense. Me and Justin Joyner and Kyle Church manned that up. We had the 12th-ranked defense our first year here, and that wasn't good enough in our mind. We thought we could be better. And so we were all driven. We were all motivated to put ourselves in position and win it all. And we ended up — as good as people talk about our offense, which it was great — we had the No. 1 defense in the country last year.
"And so now in this position that I'm in, I want to surround myself as well with people who are elite at the areas that I may not be as strong in, but also people who can challenge me to get better at some of those things."
Hard to quantify Elliot Cadeau's value for Michigan
The Wolverines return a backcourt of Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney, a duo Boynton Jr. believes can be the best in the country.
"I don't even know if I can quantify the value that he has," Boynton Jr. said of Cadeau, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2026 Final Four. "I played the point guard position. Having been a head coach for seven years, I know how much easier having an elite point guard makes your job. I think it's a pretty well consensus of most coaches: If you have a really, really good point guard, you feel like you got a shot, even if the other parts aren't the best, because they make the job of the other guys better. They make the job of the head coach better.
"Elliot, wanting to do this, wanting to be a leader, wanting to be more vocal, wanting to take on more responsibility — understanding that it will look different for him with the pieces surrounding him — was very, very important. And so, I'm appreciative to him, Trey McKenney as well."
How Michigan coaches will delegate roles this season
Mike Boynton Jr. will remain in charge of the U-M defense this season, with Mike Martin among those running the offense.
"My voice will be very, very big in our defense," Boynton Jr. said. "Again, one of the things, to Dusty's credit, I learned is to live in your strengths, right? And Dusty was an elite offensively, elite at delegating the things that maybe other people could do a little bit better.
"Hiring Mike Martin is going to help me have somebody be able to handle that. I'm going to make a couple other hires with guys who can, for the most part, deal with our offense. That'll be very, very much influenced by how Trey McKenney and Elliot Cadeau feel about what we're doing offensively. And so I'll continue to do a lot of our defensive game plan and the schematics on that side."