College Basketball has become quite a wild place, but despite all the talk and sometimes rising questions around Dusty May’s 2025-26 Michigan Basketball team, they have answered the bell every time this season. Was the roster construction normal? No, not at all, but it paid off for the Wolverines. As they won the Big Ten regular season championship outright, with two games yet to play. Getting that done that early is quite an accomplishment in itself. So how did the Wolverines get here?
The easiest response is the culture May has put together. He put a belief in the players he has brought in, and they all seemed to have bought in. What a job it was, as just two years ago, Michigan was falling apart with its worst season in history at 8-24. Now they sit atop the Big Ten, and might be the conference’s first National Champions in college basketball in 26 years.
How Michigan’s Unorthodox Roster Construction Led to a Big Ten Title
All you have to do is look back to the blueprint Coach May instilled in his first season in 2024-25. He brought in two transfer seven-footers who completely changed the direction of the program. Along with skilled guards. Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf were the key to Michigan winning the Big Ten Tournament last year.
That led to yet another massive offseason, with May outsmarting many big-name programs for talent from the Transfer Portal. It all began when Michigan was able to entice Yaxel Lendeborg to transfer in from UAB, along with bypassing the NBA Draft. Lendeborg certainly was one of the more mysterious rises in recognition in the sport, given he came from out of nowhere, into being the biggest name at Michigan since Trey Burke. National Player of the Year type player, that is.
He was soon joined by two other bigs, as Morez Johnson left Big Ten foe Illinois, for Ann Arbor. Before he was later followed by arguably the biggest addition to the team, both literally and figuratively, Aday Mara. The seven-foot-three center came from UCLA, where he took some lumps in his two seasons in LA. He became one of the hardest players to stop in both the Big Ten and the country.
It doesn’t hurt that Michigan was also able to bring in a stable hand to run the team on the floor. Elliot Cadeau was a turnover issue during his time at North Carolina, not to mention not being a reliable shooter. He shut a lot of the haters up with his play in clutch moments this season.
No One Likes Dusty May
It’s become abundantly clear that the rest of the Big Ten isn’t a fan of Dusty May. Whether he’s fanning the flames about a rival team’s player, or trying to entice a player from one of his fellow foes’ teams to make the jump to Ann Arbor. Is he a bad guy? Who’s to say, but like him or not, he just led the Wolverines to their first Big Ten regular-season title since 2021, and just their fourth in 40 years.
It's all ours. 🏆
The Michigan Wolverines are the 𝙊𝙐𝙏𝙍𝙄𝙂𝙃𝙏 champions of the Big Ten. pic.twitter.com/oj7j4Z95wi
— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) February 28, 2026
Obviously, the way he built his team does raise some eyebrows, which is why you can say the roster make-up was pretty unorthodox, with only one guy in the major rotation that was in Ann Arbor before 2024. Not counting LJ Cason, who is a sophomore, and freshman guard Trey McKenney, who has turned into quite a threat from the outside in his true freshman season. The lone player on the team who has spent his whole career in the Maize and Blue is Will Tschetter.
Whatever culture May was able to install in the program, it worked. The only question remaining is whether it can continue beyond the Big Ten. The NCAA tournament is a whole different venue, especially after Michigan struggled in its non-conference tilt with Duke last week.
Bring Your Best, Because They Ain’t Scared Of Anyone
With that in mind, even in that defeat, this Michigan team hasn’t been afraid of anybody. They continued to wear teams down, especially in the second half. They’ve won game after game by more than 14 points. They could have folded over the last month, especially with road games at such hostile environments like Michigan State, Purdue, and most recently, Illinois. Michigan survived the Spartans, winning 83-71 for its first win at the Breslin in eight years. Then they completely outclassed the Boilermakers and the Big Ten’s greatest assister, Braden Smith.
Which led to Friday night’s clash with Illinois. A win would secure an outright Big Ten title. That’s all the motivation they needed, as the Wolverines rolled to an 84-70 victory in Champaign. Now they can officially celebrate an outright crown.
Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images
