[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Michigan has a new men's basketball head coach. Dusty May has been hired as the new sheriff in town and was formally introduced in Ann Arbor earlier this week. Big changes will be coming to Michigan's roster and coaching staff in the coming days and to be prepared for some of those changes, I thought it would be a good idea to comb back through his six seasons at Florida Atlantic. Today we'll be looking at how the roster construction and coaching staff changed year by year, how their results evolved, and see what lessons can be learned for Michigan's sake: 

 

Dusty May's Arrival at Florida Atlantic

As has been repeatedly mentioned in the days since May's hiring by Michigan, the FAU program that he inherited was really bad. They had struggled for over two decades with next to no success, drifting from the Atlantic Sun to the Sun Belt to the C-USA by the time May arrived. The Owls had one NCAA Tournament bid in program history pre-May, a 2001-02 season that saw them go 19-12 (13-7 in ASUN play), finishing 3rd in the conference before winning the conference tourney to gain the autobid. They lost to Alabama as a 15 seed in the opening round, finishing 191st in KenPom. 

That was more or less the program's high watermark before Dusty arrived. Mike Jarvis led the program into Conference USA, but most of their time in that league before May was under May's predecessor, one-time Detroit Piston player and coach Michael Curry. The Curry era was pretty terrible, as FAU went 39-84 overall and a woeful 19-53 in conference play. Dusty May remembered years later about arriving at FAU: "I walk in the room and I started crying and said, 'I just committed career suicide,'" in reference to the dire state of affairs in Boca Raton. May would be building a program from scratch, one that was lacking in facilities comparable to even peer schools. As stated in the article linked a couple sentences earlier: 

The locker room had these old, ugly wooden lockers. It was exceptionally tiny. There was more square footage for the six showers than the actual space for people in the locker room. The arena sat 2,500, had an outdated scoreboard and looked superannuated. High school teams in the area were playing in better facilities. 

May was handed a team that was disastrous. They were 12-19 the last season under Michael Curry, 6-12 in C-USA play. The team was 321st in KenPom offensive efficiency, compared with a 112th-ranked defensive rating. May got straight to work, hiring three assistants in Kyle Church, Akeem Miskdeen, and Erik Pastrana, and then re-assembled the roster. Curry's last team was on the older side and that contributed to May's first team having only three returners of consequence from Curry's final team. Those were Jaylin Ingram, a 6'7" wing who played just eight games, plus 6-1 guard Anthony Adger and 6-9 power forward Simeon Lepichev. The rest of the team was entirely new, which meant that FAU had only 15.3% of returning minutes from the year before, which ranked 345th in KenPom's continuity metric. It was starting fresh. 

[FAU Athletics]

That first Dusty May team (2018-19) added players from a variety of sources. 6-7 wing Xavian Stapleton was a down-transfer from Mississippi State and 6-11 big Karlis Silins was a down-transfer from Ole Miss. He added three players from the JUCO route and then brought four recruits on board, two of which became starters in Kevaughn Ellis and Michael Forrest. This team had a remarkably international complexion, featuring a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Senegalese, two Canadians, and a Latvian. Players were acquired from all different means and the team was stitched together by the coaching staff.

Interestingly, they were a much bigger group than what May would have in his later years, starting the 6-9 Lepichev at the four and the 6-11 Silins at center, which allowed them to be a decent rebounding team. The team improved some over Curry's last team offensively but were still very rough (263rd in efficiency). They took a lot of threes, establishing what would be a hallmark of May's program, but shot them extremely poorly. They shot poorly from 2 as well, with an eFG% that ranked 298th as a team, just narrowly better than the 303rd they finished in TO rate. Defensively they were much better, 91st in efficiency, and that was able to carry the Owls to a 17-16 record in spite of the woeful offense. They were 8-10 in C-USA play, 9th in the league, which was a marked improvement on Curry's entire tenure. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't easy, but the May era started out on okay footing in Boca. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: the rest of the tenure and some lessons]

And Plink-O Was It's Name-O

"Meet me in St Louis, Louis...meet me at the fair. Don't tell me the lights are shining...any place but there."

Two years ago was supposed to be THE YEAR. It wasn't. Last year was not supposed to be THE YEAR despite having THE PLAYER. It also was not. This year was not supposed to be THE YEAR. So, will it be? I don't know. That would be very college hockey, though. For a long time, it looked like Michigan wouldn't even make the Tournament. Their PK was in shambles; their defense gave up Grade As like Michigan State professors; and their roster looked like a MASH unit. However, as winter turned to spring, both the Kill and Blue Line units picked up their play. The bottom six rounded into form. Sans some erratic play in net over the last month, this team has never looked better. 

Last year's freshmen are now sophomores. Transfers (grad and otherwise) have filled out several holes in the roster. The draft picks and elite talent are still there. The team really is starting to gel. The only issue is the draw. They'll most likely have to beat two top ten teams in order to make it to their third straight Frozen Four. Did they mess around too long and make their road too difficult?

First up: the long time Badland-laden foe, North Dakota.

 

The Field

Michigan’s Regional (Maryland Heights, MO )

(1) Michigan State, (2) North Dakota, (3) Michigan, (4) Western Michigan: Hoo boy! Hello, death, old friend. Well, at least MSU is the best possible option of a #1 seed to get. Obviously, they're good...we've certainly seen that. But are they significantly better than Michigan? Eh. Plus, after last Saturday night's fiasco sans Big Ten refs? I'll take it. North Dakota as the #2 seed, though? Ouch. Michigan doesn't exactly have the best tournament record against the Fighting Sioux Hawks. Since 1998, the Wolverines are 1-3 against NoDak in the NCAAs. This isn't one of THOSE North Dakota teams, though. They're good, but not UH OH good. The Brooooooooncos are the final team. MSU does not get a pollywog as their opening game. They're at at-large #4 seed. Also...if we're going to have three teams from one state, maybe we should just play it...oh, never mind.

 

(2) North Dakota vs (3) Michigan

Team

Corsi Rank

PP%

PK%

Players Drafted

Skaters >.75 ppg

GAA

Save%

Record in last 5 games

KRACH Prob of winning

North Dakota

21 26% 82% 11 4 2.47 .906 2-3 60%

Michigan

12 35% 79% 10 7 2.83 .907 4-1 40%

 

Last time... [Patrick Barron]

Things Michigan Needs to Do Against North Dakota (because David likes stealing Alex's thunder from the full preview on Friday):

1. Make a Save. For most of the year, Jake Barczewski has been fine. Not elite, but good enough. It's mostly been the defense that has been the letdown. That has not been the case over the last month or so. Michigan's in-zone defense has been very good...aided by great back-checking from the forwards. However, four of Barzo's last five games have been questionable. While there are ways to make up for a struggling netminder, it's much harder to do in a single elimination tournament. If Michigan wants to take down a quality opponent, they're just going to need a great game from Barczewski.

2. Keep Shooting. Ludwig Persson's SV% is just a tick lower than Barczewski's. Not drawing a Trey Augustine or Ryan Bischel in the first game is ideal. Only 6'0" tall, the NoDak netminder is forced to come out and challenge shots. Persson has given up at least three goals in six of his last ten games. He can be beaten. Michigan generally does well in puck possession and they do have shooters. Pepper Persson and pour pucks into the net.

3. Bracket Blake. Jackson Blake, son of former New York Islander Jason Blake, is the best player for the Fighting Hawks. While they do have other goal scorers, Blake leads the team in assists...by 13. He's averaging 1.51 points/game. Jackson has also scored at least a point in his last 10 games and in 20 of his last 21. That's how you become the nation's second leading scorer. It goes without saying that he needs to be watched and tracked every time he's on the ice. 

Final Thoughts: Hmmm...I'm not really sure. I don't hate this matchup for Michigan. It actually feels really even. Michigan might have the slight advantage on special teams, but how many calls will there be in the Tournament? It kinda feels like this will be a tight game that will come down to the end...maybe even OT. Of course it will be OT. I think this could be Michigan's biggest obstacle in the Regional. Oh no...what if Keaton Pehrson scores the winner?

Alex's Take: you can read my answer on Friday

Peter's Take: There is not a lot of difference statistically between these two team teams as they enter this game. Michigan scores almost a 1/2 goal a game more, but NoDak gives up 1/2 goal a game less. The Fighting Hawks have a goal differential of +47 and Michigan has a +44. The goaltenders, Persson for North Dakota, and Barczewski for Michigan, have almost identical save percentages at .906 and .907 respectively. The difference is going to come down to 3 things:

1. Who will win the special teams battle? With the #1 powerplay in the NCAA, Michigan will need to cash in when the opportunities arise, having gone 1/3 last weekend against MSU. NoDak's penalty kill is 22nd in the nation, but what helps them is they are only whistled for 7.7 penalty minutes on average per game. The Hawks need to stay out of the box and minimize the opportunities that Michigan gets. 

2. Who will play better team defense in their own zone? In last Saturday's game against MSU, the Wolverines started off playing good team defense, which was reflected by only surrendering 6 shots in the 1st period, but old habits kicked in and they started trading chances and ended up giving up a number of Grade-A opportunities. North Dakota did a total overhaul of their defense this year and at times it has looked good, but there have been a number of games where they were running around giving up a ton of scoring chances, and it bit them in the hindquarters in the semi-final last week against Omaha.

3. Which team will win the transition game? This is an area where Michigan can excel. When Michigan forwards track back hard from the offensive zone, which they've been doing a lot this past month (noticeably the bottom 6 forwards), it allows the defense to stand up in the neutral zone and break up plays which gives them the puck back and allows them to reload and re-attack. If Michigan wins these three areas, it will be on to the Regional Final on Sunday.

[AFTER THE JUMP: All of the games that don't involve Michigan]

1 hour and 11 minutes

With David Nasternak and Alex Drain

This Podcast Has a Sponsor: Michigan Law Grad Jonathan Paul is the guy with the C you want skating next to the ref and pleading your case. He's also a good guy to sit next to at the hockey games.

Segment 1: Whatever That Was

  • Opener
  • Early Dominance
  • Whatever That Call Was
  • Goaltending and Other Oddities

Segment 2: NCAA Tournament Preview

  • North Dakota Fighting Not Sioux
  • MSU again?? Maybe Western.
  • The Other Regionals
  • Final Thoughts and Takeaways

[Player after THE JUMP]

everybody loves Dusty 

"They need butts in seats in that room. And in the stadium."

SNIPE

Close, but not cigar.

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