Michigan HC Dusty May still doesn't feel team is 'playing up to our standards'
ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines moved to 3-1 on the season on Monday night in a 94-67 win over Miami (OH), but it was not without its speed bumps along the way.
The early stages of the game included the starters being subbed out in the early moments for a lack of a spark, and another sloppy first half put some of the team’s turnover woes on display. But adjustments were made, and head coach Dusty May’s team was able to clean up some of its woes en route to a lopsided victory.
Michigan’s resume this season now includes a pair of blowout wins over Cleveland State and Miami (OH), a 12-point win over TCU out of the Big-12, and a two-point loss to Wake Forest in a semi-neutral court game. There have been glimpses of brilliance in all of them, while still plenty of corrections to make. May weighed in on both ends of the spectrum after Monday night’s victory.
“I think the thing that excites me and our staff the most is that we don’t feel like we’re playing very well up to our standards,” May said. “We don’t feel like we’re playing anywhere nearly as well as we’re going to, and so that’s what makes it exciting that we have such a high ceiling with this group, and so we’ve got to push different buttons, better buttons.
“What keeps me up at night is the same thing. It’s been the theme from day one. They only got eight offensive rebounds tonight, and with our size, we’re the sixth biggest team in the country, so we have to be a dominant defensive rebounding team, and if we just don’t give them easy baskets because of our turnovers and our pace will improve, our decision making will improve. We just have to stay the course and be patient, yet be aware of what needs to be fixed.”
May has said before that the heights he thinks his first Michigan team can achieve have been affirmed by some of the early positives, but the identity is still a work in progress. However, that’s normal this time of year, according to one of his peers in the industry.
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“I was speaking to a coaching friend – very successful coaching friend/mentor this morning or last night, I can’t remember – and I told him that. I said I don’t feel like we have an identity yet on either side of the basketball. His response was, ‘You’re not supposed to. You’re four games in. You have a new team. You have to win in the margins now. You have to figure this stuff out. You may not have an identity until conference play.’
“What do we want it to be? A team that takes care of the basketball and plays for each other. They cut for each other. They scream for each other. They pass to the open man. They play with incredible amounts of passion and tenacity. Usually, we’re easy to please if we’re playing extremely hard and we’re very, very connected as a group. We can live with the mistakes.
“We’re getting to the point, maybe we can’t live with them. We’re going to keep fighting the good fight and keep getting better every day. No team is going to be perfect this time of year. Once again, it comes down to can you fix your issues and solve the problems? If we’re still doing this in January, February, then we haven’t done a very good job as a staff.”
Michigan is back in action on Thursday night against Tarleton State at home before heading to Fort Myers next week for a non-conference tournament that includes Virginia Tech, South Carolina and Xavier. U-M will play the Hokies on Monday night.
