Dusty May allowed various coaches, from high school through the NBA, to attend Michigan basketball practices this summer. They offered a perspective on Michigan that May and his assistants, so close to the action every day, couldn’t necessarily see.
Every so often, May would step outside the lines. “We’ve got a chance to be pretty darn good, don’t we?” he’d asked an observer.
A typical answer: No question.
They were right. Michigan, coming off one of the worst seasons in program history, won the Big Ten Tournament on Sunday and is headed back to the NCAA Tournament as a 5 seed.
May’s work over the past 12 months resembles one of those extreme makeover shows. Michigan went 8-24 last season, missing the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year, and lost most of its roster.
May, tabbed to replace Juwan Howard after six seasons at Florida Atlantic, went to work. He hired close to a dozen staffers, brought in six players from the transfer portal, and signed three freshmen.
No word on whether he was the university’s Employee of the Month.
The Wolverines gelled quickly, earning a trophy before Thanksgiving by taking the Fort Myers (Florida) Tip-Off with a pair of impressive wins. They followed it up the next week with a win at Wisconsin, which served as a national coming-out party for Danny Wolf and Vladislav Goldin, Michigan’s 7-foot frontcourt. They left Madison with a valuable win and a clever nickname, “Area 50-1.”
The nonconference wasn’t so kind. Michigan suffered consecutive losses, by a combined three points, to Arkansas in New York and Oklahoma in North Carolina, the latter thanks to a four-point play in the final seconds.
Michigan regrouped before heading to Los Angeles and putting the Big Ten, and all of college basketball, on notice.
Out in Hollywood, the Wolverines delivered two entertaining, captivating performances. Wolf and Goldin connected on several plays worthy of an Oscar for Best Original Score. May, the director, was overseeing a project that had come together better and faster than most expected.
Assistant coach Kyle Church peeked at the Big Ten standings before leaving LA. “You start to look up and be like, ‘OK, we might have a real shot at this thing.’”
The Wolverines did not in fact win the Big Ten regular-season title, finishing in a two-way tie for second. This past weekend in Indianapolis, they took down Purdue, Maryland, and Wisconsin on consecutive days to claim the conference tournament title.
Michigan will open the NCAA Tournament on Thursday against 12 seed UC San Diego in Denver (10 p.m. ET, TBS).
Should Michigan lose this week, the idea that it would be a disappointment says everything about May’s rebuild. The school has put a men’s basketball team on the court every year since the 1917-18 season. Michigan’s 24 losses last year were the most in program history; the winning percentage was the second worst in that span. On top of the losing, there were several off-court issues.
May was undeterred.
“I do feel that we need to put a good team on the court in Year One and then continue to build,” he said at his introductory press conference in Ann Arbor, before he’d hired an assistant or signed a player. “We want to win and want to be able to sell that going forward.”
The transfer portal made Michigan’s quick turnaround possible. May is the first to admit that. Success, though, depends on far more than throwing money at talented transfers. Plenty of schools overhauled their rosters with minimal returns.
Michigan’s path to the Big Dance had its bumps. The Wolverines entered March at 14-2 in the Big Ten with their previous nine wins all by four points or fewer. Michigan’s fortune in close games masked underlying issues: turnovers and poor outside shooting chief among them. Michigan arrived in Indianapolis having lost three in a row and four of six.
That the Wolverines won so much despite unreliable 3-point shooting is a credit to the coaches. Michigan’s defense remained engaged, and mostly effective, even through scoring droughts. That was evident again on Sunday, a 59-53 win.
Afterward, May was asked to reflect on what he said about winning nearly a year ago, right after he arrived in Ann Arbor.
“You know, winning is so subjective,” he said, though there was nothing subjective about the commemorative hat and t-shirt he was wearing. “I didn’t know what winning looked like, but I thought that this team had a chance to do something like this.”
May stayed focused on the process with the idea that the desired results would come.
“I don’t think I envisioned an actual championship,” he said, “but I knew it was possible because of the guys that were in our locker room.”
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