Apr 06, 2026
3 min read
Rival coaches and fans may be upset with the way Wolverines coach Dusty May has built his team, but that's a lot of sour grapes.
If Michigan wins the NCAA title with heavy radio, it has nothing to apologize for
INDIANAPOLIS -- If Michigan wins the national title here Monday night, the cynical campaign between rival fan bases and even some Big Ten coaches that have been building all season will reach full tilt.
College athletics has long been a place for sour grapes to flourish like Malbec grapes on Argentine soil, but the backlash to how Dusty May built this team, storming the transfer portal for four starters, all of them big money, has taken on a life of its own as the Wolverines enter the NCAA tournament and their second game of the night against UConn.
"If you listen to the college football gospel, we had 17 [rebounds], that's all we had, and we should have had a bunch of fives in Year 2," May said.
It's safe to say that May somehow hears the idea that Michigan isn't doing it "right," or that it somehow "bought" a championship team, or that UConn's championship shows some kind of greater purity because most of its key players have been around since their college careers.
But not only does this nonsense fly in the face of reality — these guys are all pro athletes now, playing in every program in the power conferences — it fails to properly credit May for picking the right transfers and placing them in a system that makes the most of their skills.
If it were that easy, everyone would do it.From Kentucky's $22 million disappointment this season to hundreds of portal errors across the country, it's clear not everyone can do that.
Just as important is what he did for the four transfers in Michigan's starting lineup.All critics of our current university environment, including the president of the United States, point to the money athletes make.They don't talk enough about what it means for players who didn't thrive in the previous environment to become the best version of themselves.
"We all came here for a change of scenery, and we just took advantage of that," said Michigan guard Elliot Cadeau, a former five-star recruit who spent his first two years at North Carolina.
It's one thing for the Perleros to act as if May has done anything different to any of his peers to build this team, including those who chose to pay big money to rookies or European professionals on transfers.Another thing is to rewrite history.
Well, Michigan has been the best team in the country from Day 1 of the season leading up to Monday night and could go down as one of the best if they can beat UConn.But the idea that all Mayo has to do is flash a lot of money and - boom, you have this college star - does not match what happened when the channel was opened last year.
Here's a look at exactly what happened:
Jaxel Landeborg was widely considered the best player available on the roster and decided to play another year in college because he wasn't sure if he would be selected in the first round of the NBA draft.But at UAB, where he played two years after junior college, he played a lot of minutes at center because he was the biggest player on the roster.At Michigan, he operated as an NBA-sized wing that greatly expanded his game, more than doubling his 3-point volume (from 1.9 to 4.5 attempts per game) while becoming more efficient on 2s.
Caddo was indeed a candidate for the spirit that Hubert Davis intended to build around North Carolina.But when he decided to leave last year after the Tar Heels stormed into the NCAA tournament and quickly left, few people cried in Chapel Hill.Fans and even former players have openly criticized him for being too inconsistent, making too many tackles and being a poor long-range shooter.
Aday Mara, a 7-foot-3 Spaniard who could be drafted into the NBA lottery after dominating Arizona State on Saturday night, started one game for UCLA last year and averaged 13.1 minutes per game.For two seasons, Mick Cronin basically buried him on the bench.
Sophomore forward Maurice Johnson Jr. played 17 minutes per game last year at Illinois and was told to set screens and rebounds and didn't have the power to do much else.He went from 7.0 to 13.1 points per game at Michigan.
"The program [May] puts in brings out the best in you as a player," fifth baseman Nemari Burnett said."It brings out all your talents and abilities. It maximizes your repertoire and combines that with the individual superpowers we all have, allowing us to compete against each other."
Perhaps if NCAA transfer rules still required players to be out for a year, all four would have stayed at their old schools and ended up just as happy as they were at Michigan and would have improved their play just as significantly.We can't know for sure.
Similarly, there was no guarantee that May would work anywhere near this team once he assembled it.Asking players to play a new role in a different system is always a chemistry experiment with mixed results.
Michigan just got to hit the sweet spot with this group.Given the existing laws, why should anyone be skeptical?
"I know this is going to start a Twitter storm, but I think we're all better in some situations than others," May said."There is a suitable environment for me. There is a suitable environment for you. Sometimes you don't choose the right environment from the beginning, or sometimes we as people change and need something different, for various reasons.
"The way we choose to look, we're going to bring in really, really good people who want to do it the way we want to do it. And when the Oklahoma City Thunder won the championship last year, I didn't judge them because Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was drafted by the Clippers or because they signed Isaiah Hartenstein, I think the players are free. They are a real role model for young people."
May is right.Putting any kind of stigma on Michigan because it didn't do it the way Dan Hurley did at UConn or the way Bob Knight did 40 years ago is ridiculous when NCAA rules allow you to build a team.
UCLA's Mick Cronin is one of many coaches who bemoan the way things work now at every opportunity.In an interview last month on the radio show "Petros and Money" in Los Angeles, he said: "Every player has an agent. Every player has a number. You have to break away from what college basketball used to be. "Hey, you didn't know how to coach.You weren't very tough.You have no idea what you are doing.And I spent two years developing you, and you're going to leave."
It's understandable that Cronin would be frustrated that a talent like Mara is blossoming now after struggling to get on the court for his first two years.Maybe it's even right that Mara needed that kick in the back that she got at UCLA to grow to where she is now.
But it's not like UCLA was a behemoth the two years Mara was there.The Bruins were the No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament last season and missed out entirely the year before.If Cronin can't find a way to get more out of Mara to help both the team and the player, isn't that the end of the coach?
“I know I can do whatever I'm doing right now," Mara said. "It's more of trying to change the system (I'm in) the program.Might try to find more opportunities.”
It's possible, of course, that colleges will eventually return to a system with stricter rules, either through congressional legislation or some kind of total system overhaul leading to collective bargaining.In a big way, it would be healthier for the sport to allow players one free transfer each year rather than one free transfer every year.But as it stands, the NCAA has no chance of enforcing such a rule without a court overturn.
So coaches and college fans have a choice: Accept that Michigan is a product of great evaluation, player development and great coaching, or complain that things aren't what they used to be.By the way, this isn't that great either.Would you rather go back to the days when shoe company reps and AAU coaches made secret deals to recruit the best recruits?
"Regardless of the legislation, we're going to tackle it," May said.
If the Wolverines win on Monday, they will receive a national championship banner that will hang forever in Michigan's Crisler Center.Complaints disappear.
