Dusty May has brought the University of Michigan Wolverines to the mountain top of men’s college basketball, a height the program hasn’t reached since 1989.
In only his second year since coming from the Florida Atlantic University Owls to take on the Wolverines’ head coach position, May has asserted himself as one of the nation’s top coaches and has re-established Michigan men’s basketball as a powerhouse.
May has done an incredible job of putting together a juggernaut of a team and has worked miracles to rebrand with a whole new roster of players and re-establish the Wolverines as a top team in the country in only his second year as their head coach.
The Michigan players deserve their flowers just as much as coach May does, too. Yaxel Lendeborg made an incredible leap from playing for the University of Alabama Birmingham Blazers , a mid–major school, to being Michigan’s best player this season. Freshman Trey McKenney was another key factor at just 19 years old, and Morez Johnson Jr. fit seamlessly with this Michigan team after transferring from the University of Illinois Fighting Illini.
While these three paved the way to the championship, the Wolverines couldn’t have won the championship without Elliot Cadeau, Nimari Burnett and Roddy Gayle Jr. all playing their roles perfectly to make sure Michigan was firing on all cylinders. From Cadeau’s keen ability to set up his teammates for easy baskets to Burnett’s and Gayle’s three-point shooting, they were all key contributors.
The overarching theme with every player I listed, though, is that May brought them to play for the Wolverines. Burnett is the only exception to that, as he was on the team before May took the head coaching job before the 2024-25 season, but Burnett’s loyalty and intrigue in May led him to stay.
May believed in each and every one of these guys, even when it was tough to see the vision. Cadeau, for example, was down on himself after media strife at his previous school, the University of North Carolina, where he didn’t live up to expectations as a highly-touted high school prospect. Regardless, May saw the potential, brought him to Michigan this season and Cadeau became the starting point guard for the now national champions.
In fact, aside from Burnett, only two other players on this season’s roster were at Michigan before May’s arrival last season. Will Tschetter, who played meaningful minutes this season, started his career at Michigan in the 2022-23 season. Harrison Hochberg didn’t appear in any games this season, but is also one of the few who were with the Wolverines before May became coach.
This goes to show how impressive it is that May has reached the absolute pinnacle of success in only his second season as Michigan’s head coach while also having to revamp his roster completely.
Last year, in his Michigan debut, he took the Wolverines to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 5 seed and went all the way to the Sweet 16. That in itself was extremely impressive for a first-year coach who had to almost completely reinvent the wheel and field a brand new team in just one offseason.
This past summer, though, Michigan went all in. May went deep in the transfer portal and landed some of this season’s key contributors. Lendeborg was the No. 1-ranked player in the entire class of players transferring schools last summer, and Johnson Jr. was ranked at No. 26. Cadeau and starting center Aday Mara were also brought in during that window.
That means four of Michigan’s five starting lineup players were transfers playing just their first season with the team: Lendeborg, Johnson Jr., Cadeau and Mara. Burnett was the lone starter who had previously been with the Wolverines.
The way May was able to put together the nucleus of his team in just one summer and have them learn to play and win as a team so quickly is truly mind-blowing. Not only that, but it’s absurd how he absolutely hit on all of his transfer targets, as well as the freshman McKenney, who also just joined the team this past summer.
It has been no secret that May is an incredible coach as he brought the No. 9 seed Owls to a Final Four in 2023. Regardless, he has blown expectations out of the water at Michigan and deserves to be regarded as one of the best, if not the best, coaches in the entire country. Michigan basketball is all the way back to peak form, and May is the one who deserves the praise.
Jack Muldowney is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Jack Muldowney about their column? Email/tweet them at jm760224@ohio.edu or @JackMuldowney1
