How Dusty May, Michigan will approach increased scholarship cap, revenue sharing

In 2025-26, the NCAA will implement a new enforcement model that allows revenue sharing to student athletes (around $21.5 million per year at a given school) and has new roster limits. All Division I student-athletes will be required to be on at least a partial scholarship. For head coach Dusty May, Michigan Wolverines basketball and programs around the country, it means new roster-management strategies will have to be implemented.

While it could impact athletic departments in a number of ways, most coaches — May included — have been in favor of revenue sharing.

“I’m all for it,” May said this month. “There’s a lot of revenue generated by certain sports, and those players deserve to be compensated accordingly, in my opinion.”

Roster limits, or increased scholarship caps, depending on how you look at it, are a wildcard. Men’s basketball currently has a 13-scholarship limit, but that will be increased to 15 beginning in 2025-26.

There are multiple ways of approaching this change. Some teams don’t even use the 13 scholarships they’re allowed right now. Michigan, for example, is only at 12 coming into May’s first season in Ann Arbor, and while there’s a chance the Wolverines add one more scholarship player (or put a walk-on on scholarship), it seems unlikely there will be a new addition to the roster.

Perhaps coaches will use full or partial scholarships on walk-on type players. Two reasons for that: 1) It could be difficult to recruit up to 15 players typically worthy of a full-ride at their school. 2) The university may not be willing to pay for 15 scholarships plus revenue sharing splits for each individual.

But Michigan isn’t Florida Atlantic, the school that May came from and took to a Final Four. The Wolverines’ athletic department got approved by the Board of Regents a budget of more than $250 million for the 2024-25 academic year. For comparison, FAU had a $33 million budget for the entire athletic department in 2023-24.

The money will likely be there for May, and he wants competition. It will allow Michigan to take players that need to be developed before they make significant impacts, too.

“Our sport’s a meritocracy, where if you’re self-aware, then you realize when you should be playing and when you shouldn’t,” May said of the concern expressed by some coaches that it will be hard to recruit 15 players who all want to see the floor. “We welcome having a couple more spots.

“It allows you to take potentially a developmental player, someone that might take a year or two longer than [someone] you would sign otherwise. I like it, because we love the developmental part. We love working with guys. We enjoy having players in our program.”

In short, May alluded, it’s nothing completely new. He hasn’t recruited 13 players that expect to be the go-to guy on a night-in, night-out basis, and won’t start doing that going forward. Everyone has their role.

“Not everyone’s a star player,” May continued. “Not everyone’s a quarterback for [Michigan football head coach] Sherrone [Moore]. Not everyone is the starting pitcher.

“So that’s part of being … we’re in team sports. So we welcome having more talented players for long-term development and short-term development, as well. We’re excited to add a couple spots.”

Michigan wants players befitting of a big stage

May has scheduled a difficult non-conference schedule for year one, and there will also be heightened competition in the first year of an expanded, 18-team Big Ten. He welcomes all of that, too.

Michigan has 12 non-conference contests on the books, six of which will come against high-major opponents. The Wolverines will play Wake Forest in Greensboro, N.C., in the Fort Myers Tip-Off tournament, Arkansas at Madison Square Garden and Oklahoma in the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, N.C.

We want that block ‘M’ to be on national television and the biggest games as frequently as we can,” May said. And we want to recruit players that want to play in these games. So when you look at our schedule I don’t think the metrics are out because most schedules aren’t released — I would be shocked if we don’t have one of the most competitive schedules in the U.S., and that was intentional.

“We want to play in the biggest games. We do believe that if we play a very challenging pre-conference schedule, then we’ll be more prepared once conference play begins because you have to be able to go on the road and win in tough environments. You have to be able to travel and play on a short window, a short week, or a long week, whatever the case.”

Michigan will be on a big stage, in some NBA gyms, and May and his team are excited.