Inside Dusty May’s checklist as Michigan basketball nears season opener

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines open their season in 14 days against Oakland at Crisler Center, but there is a lot to sort out for Dusty May and his program ahead of Nov. 3’s debut.

Michigan lost to Cincinnati by a score of 100-98 on Friday night at home, achieving May’s goal of putting some things on film to get a better feel for where they are at as a program. The Bearcats were up 52-34 at the half, but the Wolverines rallied and made them sweat it out.

“What I really liked is I thought we played poorly on both sides of the ball, and we were able to score 98 points,” May said during his Monday press conference. “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.”

This Saturday, the challenge gets even tougher with an exhibition at Madison Square Garden against Rick Pitino and St. John’s, who enter the season ranked 5th in the nation, compared to U-M at No. 7. It is about as high profile an exhibition as there will be before the season starts.

St. John’s beat Towson 73-63 in their first exhibition outing. May described what he saw from them and what he expects them to show Michigan on Saturday.

“Well, they look closer to us than they did themselves in their first exhibition game,” May said. “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.”

The St. John’s game is another important preseason step for the Wolverines, who still have not had their full allotment of players in the lead-up to the season. May says that getting his Michigan team a little more organized on both ends of the floor is his biggest priority over the next two weeks.

“We’d like a couple full weeks of practice with our team,” May said. “We haven’t had Aday [Mara] or Morez [Johnson Jr.], 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 7 or 8 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.”

Saturday’s game at MSG tips off at 7 p.m. ET and will be streamed live on B1G+.