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Everything Michigan head coach Dusty May said during his weekly press conference

IMG_7141by: Josh Henschke8 hours agoJoshHenschke
Michigan head coach Dusty May is hitting the recruiting trail hard. Junfu Han | USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Michigan head coach Dusty May is hitting the recruiting trail hard. Junfu Han | USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On what he liked and disliked about Friday’s game after watching film

What I really liked is I thought we played poorly on both sides of the ball, and we were able to score 98 points. I do think the one positive, we spent a lot of time this summer on driving through contact, driving with physicality, so I thought there was some good carryover getting to the line and those confrontational drives. I thought we were very average on the glass.

We didn’t compete at the level we needed to, but credit Cincinnati, I thought they were extremely physical. They were determined. They really wanted to beat us and, you know, we definitely are in a better place now than we were before that game in relation to winning real basketball games.

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On tracking paint touch and Elliot Cadeau’s ability to distribute

Yeah, we’re not as much paint touch, just I think it’s just kind of a personal philosophy that the paint at one point is three feet from the basket and then another point it’s 15 feet, so we want to create advantages and obviously if you can get paint touches, you’ve got past your defender, you’ve created an advantageous situation. So literally every time we hit the paint, and that’s what we did late in the second half, we were able to get stops, rebounds, push, and it just started driving kicks and then we were able to figure out some different solutions for their ball screen coverage and hopefully going into the year through scouting and whatnot we’ll have a better idea of how we’re going to be defended. But also, I was just watching film, with Elliot a minute ago and just trying to figure out what he wants, where is he most comfortable when they’re in this coverage and when they’re in this coverage.

And that was a unique thing about Cincinnati as well, they played four bigs, and each big played him in a different coverage. They played him in a different coverage based on who our center was, so they’re a very defensive-oriented program, and for him to see those looks and us to be processing, okay, next game, Elliot might see this read, this read, this read, this read, it’s all positive going forward.

On how St. John’s will challenge the team

Well, they look closer to us than they did themselves, you know, just in their first exhibition game. And Towson was picked to win their league, they’re physical. I don’t know their roster as well, but they look older, they looked determined, and so they gave St. John’s a really tough first exhibition game at St. John’s. But they’re obviously extremely talented, they’re still trying to figure themselves out now with so many new players, and they have a lot of weapons. It’s gonna be an intense battle in the garden, but I’m anxious to see what they do against us.

They’ll switch some pick-and-rolls, they’ll put two on the ball, their press will be a good test for us. So yeah, they’ll present some different challenges, but it’ll be more of the same as far as them being able to push us off our spots, and they’re physically mature guys and strong and older.

On whether he sees a path for Winters Grady to work himself into the rotation

When you look at our shooting woes from last year, I would have to say that he has a real opportunity to crack the rotation. Especially the point guard like Elliot, Winters will give Elliot more space, and Elliot will help Winters get good looks. So yeah, I mean obviously the numbers game and specific matchups matter, but yes, we could see a path for Winters to figure out a way to help this team sooner than later.

On whether he knew that Grady was the kind of shooter he is

Yeah, I mean that’s why we signed him. I mean, his ability to put the ball in the basket is why we signed him. He’s come a long way defensively.

Basketball is very important to Winters. That’s one thing, he’s going to spend the time, and he’s very intentional every day defensively. He’s more athletic than he plays. I mean, we’ve done some drills where he’s impressed me with his ability to get a ball up the rim level and things like that. So there’s still some untapped potential with Winters, but yeah, once we get into the season, because he’s a freshman, he’s going to be targeted on the other end. So do we have big guys in there to protect him a little bit? Can we generate open shots for him? But without a doubt, I mean, he’s somebody that has a chance to make our team significantly better.

On the boxes he’s hoping to check off with the opener looming

Well, we’d like a couple full weeks of practice with our team. You know we haven’t had Adai or Morez, and yesterday’s the first day where you’re able to do anything live with those guys. So we haven’t had those players for a couple weeks. When we had our Pro Day, I think we had seven or eight healthy players for Pro Day. So we don’t really have anything in. We don’t have entries to get Yaxel on his spots. We don’t have entries to do this, to do that. So I’d like us to go get a little more organized on both sides of the ball. We really didn’t have our post fires in and our rotations just because it’s difficult to put something in when you have five guys ill or you have four starters out with injuries.

You don’t want to add something and then have to reteach it, whatever the case. So I’d like to have a lot more in, but I think playing these games just shows how much more intense practice has to be and how much more physical the second unit guys have to be to prepare the main guys for the games.

On the chances of the injured players playing this week and Yaxel Lendeborg’s status

Yeah, he had cramps and so it was kind of like, let’s let’s leave him in with cramps to try to win the game or let’s take him out and play the long game and so we just we took him out. He competed at a high level, but that’s that’s the crazy thing about Yax, as cumulative as a staff, we didn’t feel like he played very well, and he had 31 and 12.

That shows his ability and how capable he is, but man, he’s a unique talent. The other two, I think we’re getting close. I don’t speak for the medical staff, but it feels like it’s it’s getting much, much closer.

On the rotations in the exhibition being similar to what will be played in the season

I said it several times on the bench that when we were playing poorly it was like your competitive nature kicks in to try to win that game. For example, Ricky Liburd, we don’t know if he’ll redshirt or not but I wanted him to feel a game for his development. Offseason development, his in-season development, his overall developmental plan. I just think it’s important to feel that, so you know how quickly windows close in a game, how quickly you have to re-space and get your feet ahead of the pass, and all the little details of the game. How aggressively a big, strong 23-year-old crashes the glass, so I wanted him to feel that, and it was the same thing with Winters. I wanted to see if Winters had the same look as far as confidence in the game as he does in practice. I wanted to see how Malick would respond. Like, what would be his fallback because we’ve never coached these guys and they’ve never been in this type of environment so I more than anything else was like we have to see these guys so we know how to coach them better.

What to work on versus simply trying to win a game that doesn’t count in the record. Granted, don’t get me wrong, we wanted to win, but we didn’t want to win that at the expense of just going at it where we’re only trying to win, and I think Cincinnati was the same way. I’m sure they played a couple guys that they won’t play during the season.

There’s more to than just winning an exhibition game. I mean, to be honest, I think our Final Four year we got smacked on the road and then barely beat a Nova Southeastern team, and barely beat them. That might have been our best win of the year, that team probably didn’t lose a game the rest of the season. We don’t put a lot of stock into it, other than we need to find out where we are at that moment.

On whether he learned anything about his smaller lineups

Yeah, we learned that those guys didn’t play with the physicality and determination to keep bigger, stronger players off the glass, and a couple of our veteran — we had a very productive film session yesterday, and we’re still trying to tweak with a couple things. I told a few of them that we can’t make that decision because we don’t trust that you’re gonna do what you’re supposed to do every possession on the blockouts and the rebounding. So whenever we get to where we have a 99% hit rate on our responsibilities, when the shot goes up and whatnot, then we really can’t move on to the next thing.

The one thing I learned if Elliot Cadeau — when he defensive rebounds, there’s about a 90% chance we’re gonna get an A-plus shot at the other end. He doesn’t have to come back for an outlet, we already have an advantage. So I think the challenge for him is to become an elite defensive rebounder, especially when he’s going against point guards and they don’t crash to go in rebound long, long shots, and then go with it because he’s about as dynamic in the open floor as anyone in college basketball.

On LJ Cason’s development

The plan was to play him two minutes a half just so he could feel the game and so we played him a couple in the first half. He hadn’t practiced. He practiced, he was playing at an all-time high, he sprains his ankle. He doesn’t want to go out because he wants to keep playing so he goes out then he comes back and resprains it, has a bone bruise. I think he had a bone bruise in his foot and so he misses another two weeks, so he had just started practicing maybe a day or two before the game and so I didn’t want to risk further injury but the medical staff said that — he’s feeling fine, he’s ready to go, but just the fact that he hadn’t really done much in two to three weeks, we definitely played him more in the second half than we had planned on, but that was a result of the us turning the ball over in the first half and LJ saying he was fine. So he had a good practice yesterday. Obviously, you know when you miss four weeks of live play, you’re not going to be the same player immediately, but we’re excited about the season he’s gonna have. We need him, we need more playmaking on the court, and we need him to stay healthy.

On whether Elliot Cadeau having only one field goal attempt in the exhibition surprised him

He get to the line 15 times, so you really have to count that as seven attempts. I thought he took what the game gave him. I think if teams — when he drives if they fan out and stay at home on our shooters, I think he’s gonna find different ways to score. If they collapse on penetration, he’s gonna make the right decision and kick it out, so I thought he did a good job. He’s still developing chemistry with each one of our guys. I thought he and Yax, and he and Will, both figured out some nice solutions for their coverages in real time. There’s definitely gonna be games when we need him to score, and he’s gonna have some big scoring games, but I think he’s a consummate point guard where he’s gonna take what what the defense gives what the game presents.

On Trey McKenney’s performance in the exhibition

Trey, like Winters, he puts a lot into his game. I haven’t met with him before practice today but I haven’t met with him to really talk in depth about it. This happens a lot, freshman, you want to do well. It means a lot to you, that’s why you play these games too. I think if we played a far inferior team, he probably would’ve had 18 points and it would have looked easy and this and that and, instead, you play a team, I don’t know how old Cincinnati’s guards are, but I know I’ve been watching him play college basketball for several years. They’re definitely not young pups but so that was good for him. He’ll respond the right way. I would assume that that would be the worst stat line he’ll ever have in a Michigan uniform.

I credit Mike Forrest for our success at FAU a lot, as we lose to Lynn in our first game, division two, and he’s a freshman, and it was kind of like Trey, where he’s about all the right stuff and everything that was right about our program. We were gonna invest in him and came into the locker room after the game. I’m trying to be positive, and I said, man, you know Zay, Zay’s a high major player, potential NBA guy before he got injured. I said, Zay, that’s the worst game I’ve ever seen you play, Mike, that’s got to be the worst game you’ve ever played. You can’t play any worse, and I looked at him, he said, no, I can. I said work with me here, Mike. The message being like I’m not worried about Trey McKenney, he’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna make shots, he’s gonna play good basketball. Yeah, he’ll bounce back, he’ll be fine. I’m kind of glad it happened because it just shows how difficult it is, but he’s a good player, he’s gonna be a monster for us this year.

On the philosophy of having turnover issues with high tempo

I think it’s the complete opposite of those two things, most of our turnovers, we were trying to get entries with our non-point guards in. So they’re being pressured up top, overpressured, and, at that point, we should open up some space and just try to drive that overpressure. The others, as far as, I don’t think we had — I think we had one quick swing the entire game. Almost every time we caught the ball off the first pass out of the ball screen, we tried to play one-on-one against a set defense. It’s loaded to that side of the floor, so I think it’s the complete opposite where we didn’t swing the ball and we didn’t play off closeouts.

We turned it over the day before practice, and I credit it to nerves and jitters and excitement of playing, but then we did it two days in a row. Also, one of the reasons we played LJ in the second half is that we didn’t have Adai, our best passer, and we didn’t screen very well. We didn’t cut very well. As far as tempo, I didn’t think our tempo was very good. So if we have to slow it down and play in a 300 tempo-wise wise and we’re gonna have a lot of unhappy players in our locker room because you don’t play very many guys that way. You walk it up, you call a set, and I don’t think long-term that’s the best way for us to play, but you never know. We’ll figure it out.

On the primary objective of the second exhibition

Are we able to fix the things that we were really poor at? That’s priority number one, and then once you fix them, then you’ve got to be able to build on that foundation as opposed to just forgetting what you fixed and moving on to something else. Number one is fixing the things that we were poor at. The turnovers, more aggressive on the glass, our connectivity defensively, those would probably be the things that we really want to see improvement on.

Taking away easy baskets, we gave up a lot of easy baskets. Credit — their bigs are good though. Will Tschetter loses 30 pounds, we move him back to the five in an emergency situation and their bigs got too many angle baskets, they scored before the catch too frequently, and credit to those guys because they are good. We needed Adai and Morez to bang with those guys, but at the end of the day, they banked in a couple threes, and they found a rhythm.

We played poorly, and so it presented a challenge to come back, but I think during the comeback, we would get it to two, and then we would make a silly error, and that was probably the most disappointing thing. As you reflect on last year, we rarely made those mistakes in winning time last year. I think Wake Forest, Will slipped a couple times, Roddy slipped once, Danny slipped once. We slipped on a wet floor in the Greensboro Coliseum. Other than that, we didn’t make those errors at winning time last year, so you know that’s something to be conscious of going forward.

On Lendeborg arriving with practice habits he wanted to see

No, they’re not. They were not anywhere near where they need to be for him and for us. He’s gradually improved. As we told him yesterday, over mountains are more mountains and over that mountain is another mountain. What’s the winner of a pie-eating contest typically get? More pie, so it’s gonna be the same if he gets 40 and 20 next game, we’re gonna be on him about what he needs to work on and improve on, and continue striving to get better. Like I said, he had 31 and 12, and me, personally, I was disappointed. He can play better than that, he can impact winning more than he did, and that just shows how high of a ceiling he has.

On how Lendeborg responded to it

In real-time he responded in his way. We spoke again last night and he was very he was very appreciative of the staff, hold them accountable to him being his best.

On whether he tries to simulate Adai Mara and Morez Johnson’s presence with them out

It’s more of like, okay, we have these five guys on the court, what’s the best way for these five to function and create an advantage? Moving Will back to the five, it was the pick and pops and early in the first half we were turning it over on ball reversals. Will’s been a good connector in practice but I think part of the turnovers too was Adai, especially Adai and Malick, they’re more of in the paint guys and so now Will’s getting pressure to 25 feet and we didn’t do a good job of working to get catches and you saw us a couple times the ball would come and we pull our hands back.

There were some uncharacteristic errors from some older guys, but, also, he hasn’t played that way since last year and he did it by default. So we have to do a better job adjusting, but that’s gonna happen this year. We’re gonna play a game where our fives are gonna be in foul trouble, we have to do thi,s we have to do this, and you’ve got to find ways to play good basketball and figure out a way to win and we didn’t do that last year.

On whether he’s seen so many banked-in threes against one team

We’re cursed. We laugh on the bench all the time. We’re like, that’s gonna happen to us. I don’t know how many last year, I’d love for somebody to go back and look at the bank threes against us. I don’t remember us banking one, so I’m thinking that the tides have to turn and we get those this year.

That’s part of it if you defend well. Sometimes you’re happy, but I knew when Abaev banked in his first when he’s a scorer by nature, I was afraid he was gonna bang in three, four, five in a row after that because that’s that’s the type of player — I’ve seen him, he worked out in our gym all the time at FAU so I’d seen him play for years. He banked in the one, and then he made a really difficult one right after that, and he made an open on,e so it led to a couple more where if you don’t get that first one in, maybe you’re not quite as confident to get in your bag and go get another one.


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