Michigan HC Dusty May weighs in on exhibition debut: 'Encouraged by performance and what we can be'

The Michigan Wolverines beat the Oakland Golden Grizzlies 92-48 in Detroit on Sunday evening in what was the public’s first look at head coach Dusty May‘s program in year one. The charity exhibition served as the first dress rehearsal for the regular season, which kicks off on Nov. 4, and the early returns were extremely positive.

May was impressed by what he saw from his team in its first competitive setting outside of team practices, headlined by a 49% mark from the floor and 15-made threes (43%) on Sunday at Little Caesars Arena.

RELATED: Dusty May, Michigan players discuss exhibition win over Oakland

“It was a lot of fun to get out here and compete with these guys and see some carryover from practice,” May said after the game. “It’s a big deal to play an exhibition game in Little Caesars Arena and have the people that were here supporting our guys.

“Overall, it’s a great starting point. You never know as you get into the season where you are because you’re playing against yourself every day. So, encouraged by our performance and what we can be.”

There was plenty to like about the performance, but May singled out the fact that a trio of guards in Tre Donaldson, Rubin Jones and LJ Cason combined for 17 rebounds on the night, which helps Michigan get into its offense more quickly.

“I’m obsessed with guards rebounding down,” May said. “Tre Donaldson to get eight and LJ Cason to get five. Typically, they’re the ones that don’t have to block out as much as the bigs. They have an advantage. It’s a matter of going in and helping your teammates and going and getting them. It also just gives us such a head start on our transition offense. “

As good as Michigan’s long-range offense was, it was the perimeter defense against a three-point happy team that stood out in May’s eyes. Oakland was held to 2-for-30 from beyond the arc, which he says was a testament to the team defense as a whole.

“That switching is new to almost our entire roster,” May said. “I don’t know if anyone on our team switched one through four last season or one through five at times like we did tonight. And we won’t at times. We had some lapses. But for us to hold them 2-for-30 is a testament to our communication, our activity, and just our overall awareness.”

Connectivity and chemistry were also apparent during Michigan’s first night out. It did not look like a team that has not played a ton of basketball together.

“21 assists on 34 made field goals, and several of those made field goals were out in transition where you get a steal on the layup, there’s not going to be an assist,” May said. “Very pleased with the way we shared the ball.

“In our locker room, in our coach’s office, we just think that if you watch a team play and they look like they really enjoy passing the ball and they’re skilled enough, there’s a baseline of talent, which obviously we have a pretty high baseline of talent, then your chemistry is going to be better. You’re going to have the mutual respect for everyone playing. You look at our balance. You look at the minutes. As long as we don’t change our mindset and we stay with the same sharing approach, then we should be a good offensive team this year.”

On Michigan’s lineup combinations and an anomaly

Michigan played a consistent group of 9 players for most of the night in Donaldson, Jones, junior wing Roddy Gayle, junior Danny Wolf at the four and graduate Vlad Goldin at center. Off the bench, Cason, graduate Nimari Burnett, sophomore Sam Walters and redshirt junior Will Tschetter made up the rest of the core.

There were plenty of different combinations as May continued to tinker with lineups. Sunday was the latest step in working on those combinations.

“We’re still experimenting and we’ll take this game,” May said. “With our analytic company, we haven’t had a chance to really play the 5-on-5 in practice without non-scholarship players without having two or three guys out. We don’t really have a lot of data on our lineup combinations yet. Probably in two or three weeks, we’ll have a better indication of the guys that seem to play well together. This group, this small lineup, has been very efficient. Maybe we go to that in spurts when we struggle offensively. We don’t have that information yet. We have just what meets the eye. But with foul trouble and fatigue with our pace, it’s not as easy as it is for some other teams.”

If there were any nitpicks from Michigan’s exhibition win, it was a 9-for-18 mark from the free throw line. May believes that to be a blip on the radar and not something they have chosen to fixate on.

“The three or four times we’ve scrimmaged… most of the time it’s been one or two or we just give them two so we can continue to work on our conditioning and our pace. And I think yesterday we were 9-for-10. The scrimmage before that we were 8-for-9.

“Hopefully this is an aberration. We’re not going to talk about it a lot. We’ll probably start getting more free throws in the flow of practice when they’re winded. But for the purpose of being the best team in April, when we felt like getting our style of play and things like that are much more important than shooting fatigued free throws at this point in the season.”

Michigan will play one more exhibition game against Toledo on Friday night at Crisler Center before the regular season opens on Nov. 4 at home against Cleveland State.