Dusty May explains what happened to Michigan’s defense vs Wisconsin
Michigan basketball coach Dusty May speaks Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 at Crisler Center, ahead of Michigan’s Pacific Northwest trip.
SEATTLE − Sitting in the postgame media room, Washington coach Danny Sprinkle shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again.
It was the living embodiment of the famous Alonzo Mourning meme as he vacillated between being impressed by Michigan basketball’s dominance inside, perturbed by not finding a way to stop it and then lauding the way it’s all come together.
“They’re gigantic,” Sprinkle said of U-M’s lineup. “It’s hard to run plays against them because they can just switch everything, and then even when they do have a breakdown or you get by somebody, they’ve got (Aday) Mara, 7-4, at the rim.”
On Wednesday, Jan. 14, it was Washington that was unable to solve that conundrum as the Wolverines didn’t shoot it well but still led nearly start to finish in what ended as an 82-72 victory for No. 3 Michigan (15-1, 5-1 Big Ten).
Mara scored a season-high 20 points, making 10 of 11 shots while controlling the paint defensively with three swats. Morez Johnson Jr., the starting power forward, scored 16 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds, 11 of which came in the first half. Then there was Yaxel Lendeborg, playing through pain, as the “small forward” in U-M’s three big lineup, hitting from outside and putting back offensive rebounds down low on his way to 14 points and seven boards.
Washington has a potential future NBA player in Hannes Steinbach, one of three Big Ten players averaging a double-double, and Franck Kepnang is a veteran college player who will give lesser teams fits down low. Neither could find a way to stop U-M, which won the battle in the paint 50-28, the major difference between the two teams on the night.
“I mean, their size and length, it’s not just us, it causes a lot of people problems,” Sprinkle said. “Start a 6-9, 240-pound guy at the 3 … it’s a gigantic team.”
Sprinkle finds himself equally as impressed by the way U-M has put its roster together. In Year 2 in Seattle, he’s still finding the balance between building through high school recruiting and supplementing the roster in the portal.
He’d previously been at Utah State and before that Montana State, leading both squads to the NCAA tournament. He obviously didn’t have the resources available in Ann Arbor, but he understands the premise of building rosters that come together on a year-to-year basis.
“Everyone knew how talented they were. Yaxel was the No. 1 player in the portal, Elliot Cadeau, you know, top-20 guard, Mara – you can go down the list on these guys.
“Even [Trey] McKenney, saw him in high school, he was one of the best high school players in the country. But for them to be as unselfish as they are, almost have eight guys averaging double figures, that shows a connected team. That’s why they’re so good.”
It’s all coming together as U-M coach Dusty May had envisioned in the offseason. In 2024-25, he brought in Danny Wolf and Vladislav Goldin and convinced them to co-exist – not just on the same team, but in the same lineup.
It’s now happening again, but with another big man to juggle. There are a number of players on this roster who could average between 15-20 points for most teams in the country. Instead, the top-eight rotational players all average at least eight, but nobody even puts up 15.
The buy in goes from the top of the roster to the bottom. But the essence of this team is built through its “gigantic” pieces.
“In a perfect world, those three guys are playing in the (National Basketball) Association as first-round picks next year,” May said. “We’ve got to figure out next year with — we’ve got some good young bigs in the program. But I think the way they’re used, the way they’re developed, the staff does an amazing job and most of it is with the elbow grease and time they put in.”
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
