How Dusty May Rebuilt Michigan

Dusty May walks Rich through the reconstruction project that just turned Michigan from an eight-win team into national champions, and the math he had to do in real time as his roster kept moving.

Year one, Vlad Goldin was out of eligibility. Danny Wolf, who May expected to coach for two more years, went first round after one. That forced an immediate pivot. The staff landed on Elliot Cadeau as the centerpiece sell to recruits, a point guard who would get the ball where it needed to go and break down defenses himself.

From there, it was casting a wide net for bigs. May got Aday Mgbako and Morez Johnson. Then Yaxel Lendeborg, after failing to secure a first round guarantee in the NBA, decided he still wanted Michigan even knowing the frontcourt was already full.

May is blunt about what the math required. Three guys who played center on their previous teams had to trust he could make it work. He calls it a testament to them, or insanity on their part.

The inside tracking mattered as much as the outside adds. May gives Rich the receipts on Will Tschetter, Rody Gale, Namari Steele, and LJ Cason. They were told exactly what was coming and what the rotation was penciled in to look like. No coach-speak about players deciding who plays. May told them up front, unselfishness was going to bring a national championship. He tells Rich he forgot he had texted Will that exact line until Will reminded him after the fact.

Speaking it into existence, then watching it happen.

On Lendeborg specifically, May doesn't hedge. He is scratching the surface. Naive to the game, which May says like a compliment. Open to everyone. The kind of kid who would sign autographs for 80,000 people if Coach Boone didn't pull him away from the arena.

May watches a lot of NBA games. Every time he leaves, he comes away convinced Lendeborg is a rotational guy or a starter on a good team right now. Smart. Defends multiple positions. Plays multiple positions on the other side of the ball. Does whatever the coach asks.

On Aday Mgbako, May tells a story that coaches rarely share. Early in the year, Aday turned it over on a behind the back pass, a behind the neck pass, a hook skip 50 feet. Initial reaction was frustration. Then May went back to the film.

He had to apologize a couple times. The passes were the right read. What Mgbako needed was for the staff to install those actions in practice so his teammates could see what he was seeing. The film made May a better coach, not the other way around.

The thread running through every answer is the same. May built this by being transparent with his returners, honest about his own mistakes, and willing to pay the cost of recruiting three centers who had to share a frontcourt.

Really good guys can be champions. That is the line May lands on, and it is the first thing that actually explains what just happened in Ann Arbor.