Michigan coach Dusty May: 'I love our team, and I think we have a really high ceiling'

Michigan Wolverines basketball put together a loaded roster ahead of the 2025-26 season, the program’s second year under head coach Dusty May, headlined by retaining key players and adding talent such as the top-ranked standout in the portal, graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg from UAB.

Michigan has size and skill, unselfishness and physicality. The Wolverines are expected to have a big season.

And while May and Co. are only a week-plus into preseason practices, more than two weeks from playing an exhibition game against Cincinnati, the head coach is embracing the high expectations.

“I love our team, and I think we have a really high ceiling,” May said. “And there’s nothing that makes me say, man, we don’t have enough of this or we don’t have enough of that to beat any team in the country on a given night. Now, are there areas that we need to certainly improve on and continue improving on? Absolutely.

“But I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re afraid of this team or afraid of that team. We’re going to try to compete with everyone we’re against, and we have very, very lofty goals, but that’s months and months away and hundreds and hundreds of hours of intentional work before it’s even worth discussing those things.”

May understands that plenty of teams that were highly rated in the preseason didn’t pan out once the games began. He led an FAU team just two years ago that checked in No. 10 in the Associated Press preseason poll but was bounced by Northwestern in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“I don’t see why we can’t compete with every single team in the country on any given night,” May said. “I want to try to win every game. Obviously, we’re not going to, but we feel very good about how capable our roster is. Now, does that equate to winning? No. There were teams picked No. 1 in the country last year and barely made the tournament or didn’t make the tournament or whatever the case, so that means nothing now.

“And how I feel, what my projections are … it means absolutely nothing.”

May has learned from the 2023-24 season at Florida Atlantic, when the Owls were coming off a Final Four, but noted that that was a completely different set of circumstances than the ones Michigan has found itself in entering this winter.

“I don’t think we did a great job of surviving that year without some things that ultimately hurt our team,” May said. “So, we’ll lean on some of those experiences, but it’s such a different situation, where that team was talked about at exhaustion, because of the year prior, bringing everyone back. There were so many great storylines.

“This team is so different. The expectations, we’re not going to shy away from them. We think we have a very talented roster. We have a group that works well together, they’re connected at this point of the year. So, it’s just a matter of, can we continue to block out all of the outside noise throughout the season and focus on what’s important, and not get too high or too low.”