Michigan HC Dusty May on portal philosophy, how staff has divided into 'departments' with specific roles
ROSEMONT – Michigan Wolverines head coach Dusty May spoke for 30 minutes on Thursday afternoon at Big Ten Basketball Media Days as practice continues ahead of the 2024-25 season.
May put together a roster that includes 9 new scholarship players, 6 of them transfers, which figures to be the way things go moving forward across college sports. He addressed the things he was looking for in his group.
RELATED:
• WATCH: Dusty May, Danny Wolf, Vlad Goldin speak at Big Ten Basketball Media Days
• Michigan basketball freshmen standing out: One has ‘surpassed all expectations,’ another has shown ‘exponential’ growth
“It’s kind of a new normal,” May said. “What we tried to do is identify players in the portal that come from winning programs, and they may not have been the star of the team, but one of the best players. And they had high assist-to-turnover ratios, lower usage than some other guys, and we just felt like winning would be important to those guys and they’d represent Michigan the right way. They care about their teammates.
“That’s the best way to predict future behaviors past performance. We’re very intentional about the characteristics the guys we broguht in from the portal played with.”
May also had to build a coaching staff that meshed with his vision and maximized the roster and brought in a group that included former Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton, former St. Mary’s assistant Justin Joyner and former Georgia assistant Akeem Miskdeen, along with Kyle Church and Drew Williamson, who worked with May at Florida Atlantic. Church is the team’s General Manager, while Williamson is the Director of Player Development.
May has honed in on what each staff member will be responsible for when Michigan takes the court this season.
“Everyone’s kind of settled into running their own departments,” May said. “Coach Boynton is running our defense, and he works directly with Coach Joyner and Coach Church. They’ll head up most of the scouting as far as the opponent’s patterns and sets and plays and whatnot.
Top 10
- 1Hot
Strip Club Violation
NCAA hammers current Raiders HC Antonio Pierce
- 2Trending
Shedeur Sanders, Cam Newton moment
Colorado QB addresses awkward meeting
- 3
DJ Uiagalelei
Could FSU QB have a 6th season of eligibility?
- 4
Chez Mellusi steps away
Wisconsin RB taking indefinite absence
- 5
Rupp Arena Ring
Wedding ring made from UK basketball court
“Coach Akeem is working with me primarily on offense. Drew Williamson is also assisting on offense but running our player development program. As far as the big picture plan and the day-to-day, he’s managing and making sure our guys are getting in extra work. Now that we have more than four hours a week, we can spend more time with our guys individually. That’s the biggest benefit of adding staff members. We can give our guys more personalized attention outside of practice every day.”
May was known for trotting out four-guard lineups at Florida Atlantic, but Michigan’s roster construction is a bit different than the typical teams he has worked with. He still thinks a lot of those same principles will apply.
“Danny Wolf’s as much of a guard as any of those guys we had at FAU,” May said. “Now he’s still learning the nuance as far as if you have a smaller, quicker, athletic guy underneath you and you can’t play the same way as if you have a bigger guy guarding you on the perimeter. He’s still adjusting and learning those tricks now.
“But it’s going to be the same thing. We’re going to be hunting the same shots. We’ll probably get there a little bit differently. We shot a lot of threes off the bounce at FAU. I think this year because of our size, the shots aren’t as contested, so I think we’re going to get more catch-and-shoot threes and less off the bounce. All those things will be answered by how we’re being defended and how we can adjust, because there’s still going to be some growth process.”
The team will hold an exhibition scrimmage for Forgotten Harvest against Oakland University at Little Caesars Arena in Downtown Detroit on Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. It will follow it up on Oct. 25 with a charity exhibition against Toledo at Crisler Center.
The regular season gets underway on Nov. 4 at Crisler Center against Cleveland State.
