Michigan quickly built strong culture, has 'good people who love basketball'

Michigan Wolverines basketball‘s first season under head coach Dusty May — and a lot of games in it — was a bit of a rollercoaster in 2024-25. The Wolverines dropped some winnable games in non-conference play, started out hot during the Big Ten season, ended the regular season with three-straight losses but bounced back to win the conference tournament and advance to the Sweet 16.

While the Wolverines had a team comprised of mostly new players and coaches, May and Co. assembled a talented and experienced group that came together for a common mission. Michigan achieved only one of its three primary goals, winning the Big Ten Tournament, but won 27 games and finished No. 10 in the AP poll one year after going 8-24.

“I think the team was successful because of the culture,” assistant coach Miskdeen said on the ‘Defend The Block’ podcast with host Brian Boesch. “And I know nowadays ‘culture’ is cliche to say, but we built a very good culture and a very good environment for our guys. We held it together. At the end, we had some bumps in the road, but our culture outlasted those bumps.

“The guys really liked each other. More so than like, I would say they respected each other. When you have a team that respects each other, you’ll have some success.”

Miskdeen added that Michigan had a lot of size — featuring two seven-footers in the starting lineup — and players with experience winning at their previous stops. The Wolverines have those same characteristics again heading into the 2025-26 campaign, and optimism is even higher.

“Experience in winning,” Miskdeen said of why this roster has upside. “You bring in [UCLA center transfer] Aday Mara and [Illinois forward transfer] Morez Johnson [Jr.] and [North Carolina point guard transfer] Elliot Cadeau — those guys have all won and experienced NCAA Tournaments. It’s the same recipe as last year, bringing in guys that have won before and have played at a level in the Big Ten that they’re gonna be familiar with. 

“And then we were able to retain some key pieces that won throughout their careers and won last year, so it’ll be a little bit easier this season when the new guys walk into the locker room. The older guys that were here can tell them what to expect from our coaching staff and what they can expect from our culture.”

Miskdeen was asked to compare and contrast his first season with May at Florida Atlantic in 2018-19 to building a foundation at Michigan last year — which elicited a laugh from the assistant coach.

“A lot of differences,” Miskdeen said. “We didn’t have the portal. We were trying to get fifth-year guys. Obviously, NIL was non-existent back then. That feels like 20 years ago.”

Florida Atlantic had made just one NCAA Tournament before May arrived. The Owls hadn’t had a winning season since 2010-11. It was a dead program.

May, Miskdeen and Co. had their work cut out for them, and the unlimited transfer rule didn’t exist, so most non-graduate transfers had to sit out a year when moving from one school to the other. Michigan had the luxury of being able to bring in instant-impact transfers that left their mark in one season.

However, the similarities are the traits the staff is looking for. Those haven’t changed from then to now.

“The biggest thing that we’ve always tried to do in Coach May’s system is to get good people who love basketball,” Miskdeen said. “I remember when we used to have visits at FAU, we would go in the gym to show them the gym, and we would have the ball rack out to see who goes and gets a basketball wand who shoots, because that’s an example of, man, they really love basketball. If you walk into a gym and you’re a basketball player and you don’t pick up a ball, that’s kinda telling.

“So, we did stuff like that, and that’s the same stuff we want to do here. We want to get good people that really love basketball, because our coaching staff really loves basketball.

“That’s something that we all love to do. That’s a similar thing that we try to do here, build that same culture and have guys that really love ball.”