Dusty May, Michigan basketball finalize strength coach hire
The Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball build under head coach Dusty May took another step forward on Monday afternoon with the official announcement of Matt Aldred’s hire as the program’s head strength and conditioning coach.
A native of Eastbourne, England, May and Aldred worked together at Florida in 2017-18 when May was an assistant under Mike White. He spent the last six seasons at Furman.
“Matt (Aldred) only bolsters the goal of creating a staff of great teachers and genuine people who can help our players away from the game,” May said in the official release sent out Monday afternoon. “I met Matt six years ago and have always been impressed with him. His forward thinking, work at Furman, and academic teachings make him a unique coach who will enhance our strength and conditioning program.”
In addition to his work with men’s basketball, he will also work with the men’s golf team at Michigan.
“It’s an honor to be joining Dusty May’s staff at one of the premier universities in the world,” Aldred said. “The opportunity to work with Dusty, and his staff and represent the University of Michigan is a blessing. I will give my all to help develop our student-athletes into some of the best in the country. As a staff, we are committed to excellence, and working as one to ensure the Wolverines are a national championship contender. My family and I cannot wait to get to Ann Arbor and start.”
The strength coach will be responsible for molding the players’ bodies on the court, but could also help shape the mentality.
During his meeting with the Michigan media last week, May described what that mentality will look like under him.
“The mindset is extremely important,” May said. “We’re trying to find guys who are incredibly competitive, love the game of basketball and what comes with it. We’ve typically been attracted to those guys and those guys have been attracted to us. Luckily, now, when you look at our roster, there’s always a connection. We felt like we could get real information on players. They can get real information on us. They were direct messaging our former players, checking up on us and making sure.
“It’s a different era where it’s very difficult to be dishonest and not be held accountable for it. The mindset was extremely important. As far as the pass-first and stylistic stuff, there has to be talent, skill, also, we feel like if they’re really, really competitive then they’ll figure some things out. That’s what competitors do, they find ways to win. It wasn’t that we had to have this or we had to have this guy who didn’t shoot this percentage, if he didn’t fit the criteria perfectly, we just kind of analyzed why and maybe he could support the team in different areas. There’s always a give and take with every player.”
May’s staff includes assistant coaches in Mike Boynton Jr., Akeem Miskdeen and Justin Joyner, as well as Kyle Church as General Manager and Drew Williamson as Director of Player Development.
