Michigan coach Dusty May: 'The Big Ten regular season championship is extremely important'

Michigan Wolverines basketball is the favorite to win the Big Ten regular-season title (+390), according to DraftKings, ahead of UCLA (+400), Michigan State (+425), Illinois (+450) and Purdue (+650). The Maize and Blue finished last in the league a year ago but sit at 10-3 overall and 2-0 in league play, with wins over Wisconsin and Iowa already under their belt.

First-year head coach Dusty May‘s team is looking to go from worst to first, and doing so is one of the biggest goals of the season. May has held winning the conference in high regard ever since he was a student manager for late Indiana head coach Bob Knight from 1996-2000, before he became a member of the Hoosiers’ staff.

“Without a doubt: The Big Ten regular season championship is extremely important,” May said. “Going back to the Coach Knight in me, that’s what he stressed the most.”

As former Michigan head coach John Beilein has said, winning the Big Ten shows a team is good enough to compete in the NCAA Tournament. Under Beilein’s watch, in addition to having tremendous success in nationally, the Wolverines collected two Big Ten regular-season titles (2012, 2014) and a pair of conference tournament championships (2017, 2018).

“You go through a three-month season, and when you look at the mental fortitude and the physical health that goes into being good that long, it’s extremely demanding, it’s tough,” May explained. “Obviously, it’s nice to win three games in three days or four in four and win the conference tournament. But if you can go through the grind of the regular-season championship, I think if you go out on the road recruiting or if you see other coaches, you give them a tip of the cap if they were able to go through a conference season, because it’s a big, big difference to finish first and second or third or fourth in a league.

“It’s daunting to win a conference regular-season championship, especially now with the number of games, with the amount of travel, with the logistics that come with television and whatnot. So, yeah, to make a long statement short, it’s extremely important that we’re competing for a Big Ten regular season championship.”

Michigan is about to enter the thick of Big Ten play, beginning with two games in Los Angeles, against USC (Jan. 4) and UCLA (Jan. 7). The Wolverines have grown immensely even from the last time they played a conference game (Dec. 7 vs. Iowa).

“We as a staff feel like we’re much better than we were two weeks ago,” May noted. “It seems like — and obviously we’re gonna be tested in LA — the things that we’ve stressed as a group are starting to clock, and our guys are taking it to heart and they’re doing a great job of applying it. 

“We give them a lot of freedom and creativity to play and be the best versions of themselves and be who they are, and then get them to buy into the overall system with how the sausage needs to look like after it’s made. Our guys are figuring each other out, they’re playing off each other better.

“I do think we’re competing and playing with more aggression than we were a month ago. And that could be conditioning, that could be us focusing on the right things at practice. You never know what it is because you try so many different things, but when you watch our guys play, us guarding the basketball, us attacking rebounds, those things have really improved over the last couple weeks.”

Rubin Jones expected back, freshman guards improving

Michigan graduate guard Rubin Jones missed Sunday’s non-conference finale against Western Kentucky, a 112-64 win, with a knee injury. While he was dealing with an injury earlier in the season, forcing him to miss the opener against Cleveland State, this isn’t the same ailment.

“We expect him to suit up and be a full-go,” May said of Jones ahead of the USC game. “I don’t know … it’s a minor injury. There’s not much more than that. It’s not the exact same injury as before.”

Jones being out gave Michigan the chance to hand more opportunity to its freshman guards, namely Justin Pippen and L.J. Cason. Pippen (17 minutes) and Cason (19) combined to play 36 minutes, and both impressed. Pippen posted 7 points, 1 assist and 1 rebound, while Cason put up 9 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

May wasn’t just impressed with how Michigan’s freshmen played against the Hilltoppers — he loved the way they came back from some time off for Christmas the prior week.

“Rubin going out in practice gave those guys more opportunity, and I think the combination of those 20 minutes — I don’t know what Rubin plays exactly, call it 20 minutes — opened up,” May noted. “And then they came back from Christmas break with an excitement and like a renewed energy, which means when they went home they had the right conversations or the people around them had the right conversations, because they came to work.

“Their attitudes were great, they weren’t sulking, they weren’t worried about themselves and they just had a really good perspective of coming back with the mindset of, whatever we need to do to help the team win, and we’re gonna go at the starting group every single day and hold them accountable with their effort in practice. But also, getting in and spending extra time.

“Pipp, he looked confident, he looked aggressive. L.J., same thing. I was most pleased with L.J.’s defense and rebounding. I don’t know what his line was scoring-wise — we were pretty balanced — but I just thought he made several really, really tough, physical, aggressive invisible plays.”