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INDIANAPOLIS — Twenty years ago, well before he’d piece together a roster to produce the best basketball team in Michigan history, Dusty May didn’t know a ton about the school.
He was living a stone’s throw from Ann Arbor at the time, working as a low-level assistant coach at Eastern Michigan. But all he really knew was that the Wolverines had won a national championship in 1989 — of course the Indiana kid was a fan of the game.
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By the time May was offered an opportunity to become the head coach of that same school in 2024, he knew a lot more. He thought Michigan could be the right place at the right time to take advantage of the changing college landscape, a school that could attract and retain top-tier talent. May thought Michigan could be a place that would be hard to leave.
Those who stay will be champions, as legendary football coach Bo Schembechler once said.
And that’s undoubtedly true for the trio of Wolverines who bathed in maize and blue confetti after winning a national championship here on Monday night, just two years removed from a bleak eight-win campaign in Juwan Howard’s final season. Think about this: Nimari Burnett started at guard in the title game after enduring 24 losses — a Michigan program record — in 2023-24.
But it’s time to update Bo’s famous saying. In the NIL and transfer portal era, those who come to Michigan will be champions, too. They got to cut the nets down, too.
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May’s Michigan team became the first to win a national championship with five starters who had all transferred over the course of their college careers. Four of them transferred in ahead of this current season, with Yaxel Lendeborg coming from UAB, Elliot Cadeau from North Carolina, Aday Mara from UCLA and Morez Johnson Jr. from Illinois.
That they could mesh, meld, and then mold themselves into a championship-caliber team in one season is a testament to the players themselves. It’s also a credit to the coaching staff, which wasn’t…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/michigans-mix-size-versatility-suffocated-065803170.html
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Publish date : 2026-04-07 06:58:00
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