Dusty May on how confidence, expectations have changed since taking Michigan job: 'We expect to win'
The Michigan Wolverines are a little less than two months into the Dusty May era of the men’s basketball program, and the early returns have been tremendous as he re-works things in his image. During his opening press conference, he stated a desire to win right away in Ann Arbor to the best of their ability.
Fast forward six or so weeks later, and Michigan has landed six transfers, added a pair of freshman signees and is in a much healthier spot then they were during the coaching change. Not only is this a team that appears can tread water, but it might be a roster that ranks somewhere in the top half of the Big Ten.
May feels a little more confident now that he has a roster and coaching staff in place, and says there will not be a day that goes by where winning is not the first priority.
“Probably more confident saying that now than I was then,” May said during a meeting with the Michigan media on Tuesday. “We expect to win. There won’t be a night where we walk on the court this season where we say, hey, we need to do this in preparation for later. We’ll have expectations when we set foot on the court to win every single night or be in a position to win. A lot goes into winning. Coach Knight used to say a lot, you put yourself into position to win every single night and then you end up winning a lot more than you lose and you put yourself into position to win championships.”
It goes beyond the talent that has been acquired, though. May and his coaching staff are a competitive bunch that wants players with a chip on their shoulder and that find ways to win. Michigan will do everything it can to keep bringing those types of guys into the program.
“The mindset is extremely important,” May said. “We’re trying to find guys who are incredibly competitive, love the game of basketball and what comes with it. We’ve typically been attracted to those guys and those guys have been attracted to us. Luckily, now, when you look at our roster, there’s always a connection. We felt like we could get real information on players. They can get real information on us. They were direct messaging our former players, checking up on us and making sure.
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“It’s a different era where it’s very difficult to be dishonest and not be held accountable for it. The mindset was extremely important. As far as the pass-first and stylistic stuff, there has to be talent, skill, also, we feel like if they’re really, really competitive then they’ll figure some things out. That’s what competitors do, they find ways to win. It wasn’t that we had to have this or we had to have this guy who didn’t shoot this percentage, if he didn’t fit the criteria perfectly, we just kind of analyzed why and maybe he could support the team in different areas. There’s always a give and take with every player.”
Despite the confidence in the process and what Michigan has built this far, May does not want to put a specific goal or label on anything they set out to accomplish. It comes with a day-to-day mindset of squeezing every drop out of the task ahead.
“Actually, I shy away from goals every single day,” May said. “I have no idea what our goals are other than be really, really good this next possession, this next practice and this next workout and this next conditioning segment. Really, other than that, the long-term goals, I never think about it.
“We expect to put a team on the court that is going to compete at a high level every single night. With the talent level we have, there’s no reason why we couldn’t expect to win a lot of those.”
