“Who’s going to coach Michigan?”
“Coach Mike,” Morez Johnson Jr. exclaimed in a video posted to social media shortly after Dusty May’s hiring by the Dallas Mavericks was announced.
While the collective Michigan fan base has done vigorous amounts of handwringing over the past week following the shocking departure of Dusty May, the players seems significantly more calm. Since the news broke, Michigan has already announced that assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. will be given the interim head coach title.
What that means and how long the interim tag will stay on is entirely up in the air. However, we wanted to see what some former players had to say.
In an interview with Tim McCormick, Roddy Gayle Jr. had some poised words to say about Boynton:
I think it’s a great option. Coach Mike has been there every step of the way. I think he was as much a head coach along side of Dusty as anybody. Them two working in tandem was what made us as great and as powerful as we were. Coach Boynton has the experience. He has all the characteristics to keep this machine going.
McCormick then pressed Gayle on Boynton’s recruitment and retention efforts.
If not all, a majority of the guys have been recruited by Coach Mike. I think that they already built that relationship as far as understanding who he is, things that he expects out of those guys. It’s just looking at him as a head coach now instead of an assistant. He’s a great recruiter.
Fellow outgoing senior Nimari Burnett went on Defend the Block with Brian Boesch and gave some excellent quotes as well.
I will completely vouch for him. What makes Coach Mike B. such a good coach and a good person and right for the job is because he cares about you off the court. He cares about what you eat. He cares about how you slept. He cares about your routine. He genuinely wants the best for you. It was a lot of texts and a lot of moments that we shared together through this past year of him just saying whatever you need, I got you. I’m there for you and I want to make this the best year possible. He was like, I’m not saying I can do it single-handedly, but I want to be a part of making this the best year of your life. And in so many ways it really was. So that’s one component. And in the on-court court component, he knows his stuff. He knows the game of basketball. He’s been an elite head coach before.
Burnett was clearly vouching for Boynton despite being under no obligation to do so. He elaborated further to express his optimism both for Boynton and the program at large:
He’s always been overqualified for the coaching position that he had. So this is a perfect fit and I feel like it’s a area that Michigan basketball will appreciate and enjoy. The sky is the limit for Mike B. and Michigan basketball.
While it’s certainly promising to hear such glowing reviews from former players, Boynton still has his work cut out for him. Anything can change at a moment’s notice in the NIL era of college basketball, and his first task will undoubtedly be keeping the roster together. Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney have already announced their intentions to return, but there will certainly be sharks in the water for the remaining players.
But based off these quotes from former Wolverines, it appears the program is in good hands, at least for the time being, with Boynton.
