Let's Try To Make A Basketball Roster
Dusty May is in, baby, and it's time to acquire… well… a basketball team. Michigan currently has four scholarship players and nine empty chairs. Two of the guys in hypothetically full chairs, Nimari Burnett and Terrance Williams, walked on senior day, and a third is the son of the recently departed head coach. There is a nonzero chance the roster right now is Will Tschetter.
Dusty May's got work to do. How does Michigan fill those chairs?
RETAIN… uh… CROOT
Durral Brooks is in.
RAID FAU
FAU did not go with an internal hire, instead picking off Baylor assistant John Jakus. Most insider chatter was already very positive about Michigan grabbing some former Owls; the chances just went up further.
Three starters and four rotation players still have eligibility. Starters Johnell Davis, Vladislav Goldin, and Alijah Martin all have COVID years should they desire them. They would be grad transfers, so Michigan's persnickety admissions department shouldn't be a problem. Those three were the highest-usage players on a top-50 Kenpom team and should up-transfer just fine. Goldin entered the portal yesterday. He is also testing NBA draft waters. Martin and Davis both went through portions of the draft process last year, FWIW, and people seem to expect they'll be in the portal sooner rather than later.
Reserves Giancarlo Rosado and Nick Boyd also entered the portal. The path to Michigan for those guys is murkier. Rosado would be a grad transfer but he's a below-the-rim 6'8" post who was a low usage player; it's not clear he's a fit in the Big Ten. Boyd is a 6'3" guard who played about 20 MPG and was an efficient shooter. He should be a grad transfer as well since he enrolled in 2020, and he should have two years left since year one was the COVID year and he did not play in year two due to injury.
The other rotation guys are midway through degrees and are probably not going to get through admissions. And it's likely that some of them will prefer the prospect of starter's minutes to another year behind FAU's core.
Then there's May's recruiting class. I'm particularly interested in Elijah Elliott, who's 6'4" and gets described as "twitchy" and "ultra-athletic." 6'4" + twitchy + ranked #185 means he's got some limitations but I'm willing to roll the dice on a dude who seems like a high major athlete and deploys that athleticism in the service of perimeter defense sizzle reels. Just have him shoot threes for a couple years and you've got Chaundee Brown.
Ty Robinson and Lorenzo Cason, both guards, are so deep down the rankings that there's nothing out there on them. If May believes one or both could work in the Big Ten, though, may as well bring them along. Stu Douglass and Zak Novak were not exactly batting away tons of P5 offers.
[After THE JUMP: portaaaaaal]
RETRIEVE MICHIGAN PORTAL GUYS
Dug McDaniel is likely un-retrievable.
On the other side of things, George Washington III attended May's press conference and told reporters things that made it seem like he was strongly considering a return. He and May will have to sit down and see if there's common ground, but "you are a guard" seems good enough given the state of things.
Tarris Reed is somewhere in between Washington and McDaniel. He just took a visit to Kansas State and is clearly exploring high-major options, but there were some insider rumblings that Reed would consider returning. On the other hand, McDaniel was on the visit to KSU with him. Slight decrement to already limited optimism there.
May as well throw Khani Rooths and Christian Anderson in here, too. Anderson is likely gone since he waited until after Michigan named a new coach to hit the bricks; maybe you could talk to Rooths but the chances either guy returns to the fold are slim.
HIT NON-FAU PORTAL
Names that Michigan has been linked with:
- Connor Essegian, SG, Wisconsin. Essegian made the All-Freshman team in 2022-23 and then disappeared into the Wisconsin bench this season. Insider chatter very positive that if interest is mutual this will get worked out. Shot 47/36/88 as freshman on pretty high usage. Back injury supposedly responsible for major dip in performance.
- Danny Wolf, C, Yale. Skilled inside-outside big was first-team All-Ivy as a sophomore after playing very little as a freshman. Sort of Moe Wagner-ish on tape. Heavy-footed compared to Moe. Performance in Top 100 KP games concerning, but is a legit 7 foot and blew up this year. Michigan supposedly in good shape.
- J'Vonne Hadley, SF, Colorado. Low-usage, high-efficiency wing played 80% of Kenpom #22 Colorado's minutes. Grad transfer. Leaving a good team you started on seems like an NIL play. Hadley is zoomin' with Iowa State and MSU, with a short-term timeframe for a decision.
- Dante Maddox, PG, Toledo. Put Michigan in a top eight. 48/40 from the floor, 86% from the line, solid TO rate. Team had a very low assist rate overall and his was just 15—secondary playmaker-ish—but that might fit May, who had a bunch of guys pick up middling assist rates the past two years. OTOH, he can definitely go to the tournament at teams elsewhere on his list.
- Jason Rivera-Torres, SG, Vandy. Freshman was an inefficient bench player on a bad Vandy team; just outside the top 100 to 247. May has a pre-existing relationship as FAU was on his shortlist as a recruit.
- Cade Tyson, SF, Belmont. 6'7" sniper is a career 45% deep shooter with 86 FT% to match. Has been Not Just A Shooter at the MVC level; these guys usually get more perimeter-oriented after up-transfers. Guys with his profile are in huge demand because everyone can use a Duncan Robinson, so I'd imagine he ends up at a blue blood.
- Rowan Brumbaugh, SG, Georgetown. Former top 100 recruit redshirted at Texas and then left for GTown after that; was not exactly efficient but the outline of a good player is there: top-200 assist rate, 79 FT%, 37% from three. Bad two-point shooting sticks out but in the context of an abominable GTown team might be ok in a less dire context. High school teammate of Wolf. (In the midst of getting Brumbaugh items I discovered that Georgetown has a guy named Supreme Cook. I shake my fist in his general direction.)
Notably, almost all of these guys are 6'4" or taller so I think we can assume that FAU's four guard lineup was out of necessity, not desire.
FWIW, EMU transfer Tyson Acuff went off the board to Rutgers.
ATTEMPTED CARIS
May is hitting up some high school recruits, most notably Indiana decommit Liam McKneely:
“Dusty May said I was his first recruiting call,” McNeeley said. “That was special. Right now, my primary focus is preparing and practicing for the upcoming McDonald’s game and Chipotle Nationals. I am going to hold off any college visits until those basketball events have concluded.”
May swooping in on a five-star who's going to be a burger boy is exceptionally unlikely, but FWIW. A more likely occurrence is that May narrowly missed on some guys who went to bigger conferences and is now in the Big Ten. If some of those guys get caught up in coaching transitions, May could revisit. No names here.
BEST CURRENT GUESS
PG: Johnell Davis (FAU), Durral Brooks
SG: Alijah Martin (FAU), Connor Essegian (Wisc), George Washington III
SF: Nimari Burnett, Jace Howard
PF: Will Tschetter, Terrance Williams
C: Vlad Goldin (FAU), Danny Wolf (Yale)
Realistically Martin is likely to be the main ball-handler when Davis is out and that SF spot is going to be some Burnett and then a lot of guards, so all four of Davis, Martin, Essegian, and Washington would have significant roles.
That's 11, with two open spots for flier recruits. It is also unlikely to be correct.
We get Jace but lose Xavier Worthy? Jip.
If you don't think that half of athletes 'get into it' with the strength staff at some point, then you haven't been around teams much. Especially guys that want to play but haven't been cleared yet from an injury. (remember that Jace played about 2-3 weeks later, so he was close. In his mind he was probably already there)
From the very limited details that I know, I don't hold judgement against Jace. ( I don't flat out clear him either)
If May and Howard agree that Jace should be here. I am a) very surprised, and b) completely good with it.
Also it was reported somewhere part of his frustration was he was seemingly misdiagnosed at first which is why he basically didn't play almost all year.
We just had our beloved strength coach of 15 years that has meant so much to this program resign after an incident stemming from Jace "berating" a coach. That isn't normal. I dont know what being around teams has to do with this. You don't see strength coaches resigning like this.
Didn't Sanderson say he wanted to stay with the program and Warde was the one who directed him to stay away from the team (see The Athletic article where Sanderson gives his side of the story)?
Also, to be clear, if he did resign, it wasn't because of Jace. It was because of Juwan.
There's no point in litigating it now but Sanderson's version of events always leaves a conspicuous gap where he doesn't explain the actual content of his interaction with Jace but makes sure to for everything right before and after it.
Aside all that which I agree with - Jace wouldn't play for a top 6 team in the B10.
Granted we won't be that next year but eff lol Jace.
Essegian and Wolf are the portal types that seem off-limits due to transfer credit issues in Admissions. It will be a positive sign if they can get in and stay eligible with transfer credits from a BTAA and Ivy league school, respectively.
Essegian grew up a big Michigan fan so he may be more likely to be ok starting over and spending extra time at Michigan. Wolf apparently almost walked on at Michigan so he may another case of wanting to here.
They are both current sophomores so they likely haven't hit the 60 transfer credit threshold, or are pretty near it. So they shouldn't lose too much in the way of credits unless they took courses M doesn't offer a comparable course to.
If admissions can't admit at full transfer value students from YALE and WISCONSIN, then just fire them into the sun. The absolute height of Michigan arrogance.
The individual colleges need to admit them to the program. It's not just "admissions" like everyone likes to yell
But Yale...
Exactly. Coming from Yale, you'd think he'd be a lock.
I'll show myself out ...
Myles Hinton transferred from Stanford and had to retake a freshman writing class IIRC (along with several other courses). Yeah, Michigan is seriously f'd up on their transfer policies.
I kinda like it. I like having standards that other schools can only dream of. Makes our degree mean something ... and any event, it's just fun. "Oh, you went to Stanford?? We're going to need to teach you how to write." :-)
I joke, but I don't. It's absolutely possible to win and maintain high academic standards. We've done it before, and we'll do it again. Meanwhile, how many national championships have MSU and Rutgers had in recent years?
Don't dumb down the school. Have some fucking standards, and demand that incoming students meet them.
This has been said before, but it's not about dumbing down our standards. It's about being reasonable in accepting credits for classes taken at other schools. And the admissions office has continually shown itself to be unreasonable in denying credits, athletes or not. The current setup is anti-student in how it denies credit for even basic freshman and sophomore-level classes.
This has been rehashed so many times. No, it's not about quality of the institution, ours or theirs.
It's about the College of LS&A not offering the class 1-1 in terms of content alignment. If LS&A doesn't offer that course, then they aren't going to give credit for 'eh close enough: you wrote a few papers, let's call it Comp 220.' And they aren't accepting 2/3 credits for the class if most of the content aligns with a UM course. The fidelity level is course accepted/not accepted.
It is what it is, but I can't blame the deans of the colleges. Atheltics doesn't have power to overule any of the colleges in the UM
Listen, I’m all for having academic standards. But we’re talking about not accepting credits from Ivy League schools and Stanford right now… this isn’t a general studies major from Mississippi State.
Nobody is suggesting letting anyone and everyone transfer in. Seems like there’s a middle ground to be found where its reasonable to allow credits from other high quality institutions transfer over.
The middle ground is we'll accept 60 credits.
We'll transfer up to 60 credits from a good college, but we'll never transfer more than 60 -- no matter where they are from.
If Caleb Love and Terrance Shannon just got done leading us to a tourney run would any of us be any wiser? Would we look down on U of M in any way shape or form? We need to knock it off. If we are in D1 we need to be on par with D1 standards. If Duke, Illinois, and UNC are good with it we need to get over ourselves. You WILL NEVER KNOW if we admit kids/allow credit transfers. EVER. But you will know when we dont.
Individual colleges (College of Engineering, LSA, etc.) decide how many credits to accept.
Individual colleges (gen Ed courses) and Departments (degree courses) decide what credits to accept.
What is the impetus for say the college of Engineering and it's EECS department to acccept these credits? They already reject 80% of students - they don't need more. What is their benefit in accepting them? A good sports team they largely don't care about?
A sub-100 level writing class.
No department at Michigan is accepting a sub 100 level course for credit from anywhere.
1) Admissions has nothing to do with accepting credits.
2) No one is transferring in more than 60 credits from anywhere. Michigan will not give you a degree unless you earn half of your credits at Michigan.
And we will always be transformational not transactional. Well at least not for another few months after that was said. Things change this can change.
I realize that we may want to start from scratch, but do we have interest trying to get Tarris, Dug or GWIII back? Whatever issues led to his suspension may have soured Dug on Michigan, but we can always try and I think he was a solid Big Ten point guard. Tarris was making progress. Regarding Washington, he played so little that it's hard to tell what kind of player he could become but he was a solid recruit out of high school.
Dug wasn't ever going to be back with Michigan regardless of the coach.
If only this article had a section called RETRIEVE MICHIGAN PORTAL GUYS that talks about this very thing
Oops -- scanned it too quickly the first time through. As Emily Litella used to say on the original SNL -- never mind.
GWill tried hard and would like him back. Reed seemed to half ass it.
Dug doesnt play any form of defense. Give me the MAAR, Brooks and Simpsons all day please. Id take Dug off the bench but I know he isnt down for that.
As good and Dug was I would not want him back. I really think he was part of the downward trajectory of the team this year. Not much defensive effort, a better scorer than playmaker. I just really soured on Dug after her look really good early in the year.
Johnell Davis has never been a PG. He mostly moonlight as a PF at FAU, but if I had to guess, he'll play a lot of SG and SF at Michigan.
Supreme Cook!!! I wonder how he makes his scrambled eggs?
The boys look really grim in the picture. Where/when was this taken? Cheers to better times ahead.
Isn't that from May's introductory press conference?
What are the odds of us landing Danny Wolf?
Apparently, Michigan is in the lead for Wolf and Wolf may be okay backing up next season then start the following season. Michigan is in needs of multiple bigs so Goldin/Wolf platoon would be a good thing for Michigan.
Who says Goldin wouldn't be the backup?
Huh? Goldin would absolutely be penciled in as a starter
Think we will probably also go after Boyd from FAU who is a ball handler and has 2 years of eligibility left. Could see him as the starting 1 or at least heavy in the rotation and slide Davis down.
I also think it’s more likely May adds a 4 not listed above rather than having Burnett and Tschetter starting.
The article talks about Boyd.
I don’t know the circumstances surrounding this, but he was a full time starter in 22/23 but only started half the games this season. Seems like there’s a chance he might have some reservations about playing under May.
I can remember only one "nuclear" event (replacing ten football starters on offense with just a partially filled cupboard in 2008) this century that even approaches what we're seeing now in basketball.
Chipotle Nationals
Dang, there's a burrito-eating competition these kids do now?
I feel like Sauce Castillo could have done really well there.
I'm curious about how he pronounces Chipotle. The RIGHT way means he is a take, the other... not so much.
Chip-uh-topple
I think we can assume that FAU's four guard lineup was out of necessity, not desire.
I considered that a foregone conclusion. At a place like FAU, your only choices (beyond a throwback center in Goldin) are big guys with bricks for hands or oompa-loopmas who can ball, because anyone who's big and talented will be too highly ranked. May opted for the latter.
Not sure why Boyd’s path to Michigan is “murkier” than Goldin’s. Both are presumably grad transfers and are in the portal. And Boyd was a significant contributor at FAU.
Comments