'Urgency is at an all-time high' to fix turnover issues ahead of Michigan regular season

Michigan Wolverines basketball head coach Dusty May isn’t “confident” that his team’s turnover issues in the two-game exhibition season are just going to “get worked out.”

“We don’t have any pixie dust,” May said Monday, one week before his team opens the regular season against Oakland (Nov. 3 at Crisler Center).

The Wolverines gave the ball away 20 times in a 100-98 loss to Cincinnati and on 22 trips down the floor in a 96-94 overtime win over St. John’s. In first halves, Michigan averaged 14.5 turnovers per contest.

“We’ve all got to be much more intentional about passing and catching, about giving the ball space,” May said. “I thought our spacing was one of our biggest areas that caused the turnovers. I feel like we were crowding the ball, we weren’t playing with good rhythm and I felt like almost everyone caught the ball and tried to be the primary playmaker.

“I don’t want to say anyone, but we didn’t have a lot of guys trying to connect the offense, and that’s something that I think all of us in the basketball universe are striving for, how to find connectors to make it all work.”

May said those “connectors” end up scoring more, are efficient offensively and earn increased playing time, but that he believes the Wolverines have those potential players on the roster.

“We have really good guys,” May said. “We have a lot of good players in our locker room. We have a lot of options.”

Don’t freak out about higher turnover count

Michigan, which started two seven-footers last season, ranked 324th nationally by turning the ball over on 19.6 percent of possessions in 2024-25, and May noted that the coaching staff is the common denominator, even if they’re not the reason why the giveaways — which haven’t been a problem in practice, only the exhibition games — are happening.

“We’ve got to change some things. It’s year two, so it’s two different teams,” the Michigan coach explained. “It’s not just the players. It is a small sample size this year, but the urgency is at an all-time high to get it fixed and figure out why it’s happening now out of the blue. We have theories, but now let’s fix these things, and we think that’ll really help.”

The Wolverines play fast, intent on pushing the pace even more than last season, when they ranked 54th nationally in adjusted tempo on Kenpom. It’s not that turnovers are more prevalent in transition, but that the Wolverines will simply have more possessions than other teams and, thus, a higher turnover count.

“Are we ever going to be a low, 8-turnover, 10-turnover a game team?” May said. “Unless we just lower our tempo, because when you’re playing twice the possessions, [no]. Back when I got into coaching you wanted to turn it over 12 times or less and you’re playing 50 possessions. I think we had 85 against St. John’s, 87. I’m not a math major, but now you’re talking about 40-percent more possessions, so you’re thinking 40 percent more free throws would be logical.”

Plus, as Michigan showed against the Red Storm Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, the Wolverines are generating great looks at the basket. They shot 56.3 percent on twos and made 24 shots at the rim, including 8 dunks.

“The crazy thing about our turnovers, it’s similar to last year,” May said. “A lot of our passes lead to dunks or layups, and a lot of our turnovers lead to our set defense. And because of that, for us to turn it over 22 times and give up four points in transition — I don’t know how. We have some real statistical anomalies going on over the last couple years in several areas, and that’s one of the many.

“Fortunately, when we do drop the ball, it goes out of bounds instead of to the other team and things like that.”

Michigan buckles down in crunch time

The Wolverines had only 6 in the second half against Cincinnati and 2 in the final 9:52 of regulation and none in overtime versus St. John’s. They can play much more clean when it’s absolutely necessary, which is a positive.

“I think the last 15 minutes of the game, we had two,” the Michigan coach said. “We’re certainly capable. When the game becomes all about winning, nothing else matters, like the last five minutes of games last year, where you could see a group that there was nothing that mattered other than finding a way to win that game, then we’re capable of doing it. We have to be able to have that, I guess, pride and motivation to take care of the ball as an individual and as a unit.”

It’s one thing to make the right decision and turn it over on some occasions but another to make the wrong play, leading to the opponent having the ball. Michigan is looking to avoid getting sped up and making out-of-character passes.

“Out of the however-many there were in the first half, there were a few that we thought were good decisions and they’re just part of the game and learning and growing, and then there are some others where we’re just trying to … if I put my head down and drive it on you guys all sitting here now, I’m probably not going to get to the other side with the ball, so that part of the decision-making … put on our brakes,” May said.

“When we see trouble, we’ve just got to put on our brakes and avoid it, because we’re so talented in some other areas. I mean, when you look at the shots we’re generating, the offensive rebounds — I think we got 44 percent of our misses. We shot it at a pretty good clip. You’re negating three things that you do really well, because we score at the rim well, we make catch-and-shoot threes pretty well and then we offensive rebound it when we do miss. It’s another reason why the turnovers were paramount.”

Michigan going to ‘tighten up’ in practice

The Wolverines are hard at work looking to correct the mistakes. Being exposed in this and other areas and having things to work on before the regular season is a reason for playing exhibitions against tough teams as it is.

“It’s one of those things where we’re going to try a lot of different stuff. We’re going to tighten up our drills, we’re going to tighten up our reward system in practice and this and that,” the Michigan coach explained. “So, we’re going to do probably five to 10 different things, and we’re going to show them on film and teach them, stress different things.

“Hopefully, it works, and then you take a step back and you say, ‘I wonder which one of those 10 things worked.’ And so that’s how it kind of is, as well, with us. We’re going to throw everything we have at fixing that issue, and one or two other issues, and then hopefully we look back in a week or two and we don’t know what it was that fixed it but it got fixed.”