Michigan basketball coach Dusty May reflects on the Final Four run
· Yahoo Sports
Michigan basketball has been playing for, at the very least, a Final Four appearance all season long. And after taking on a hungry Tennessee team in the Elite Eight, mission accomplished.
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The 1-seeded Wolverines won the Midwest region of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, after beating the Vols, 95-62, at the United Center in Chicago. With the win, the maize and blue will play in their ninth Final Four (seventh, if you don't count the two Fab Five appearances, which have been vacated) and will face Arizona on Saturday night with a chance to play in the national championship game.
However, the first attendant business is the aftermath of the game against the Volunteers. Here is everything Dusty May had to say in his postgame press conference.
Opening statement
We're extremely proud of our guys, the way they competed against a storied program like Tennessee that's as well-coached as anyone in the country, against a team that has battled all year and really improved as the season's gone on, but our guys have been up to the challenge to deliver in the biggest moments all year, and nothing changed tonight. But just to be proud, we're all just very proud to be a part of this group.
When you guys flashed the way you did in Vegas, and obviously everybody starts talking about this team as a potential Final Four team, what's the challenge as a coach to try to figure out how you take that and extend it all the way out to March and April?
I think the most difficult part is that everyone starts getting so much more attention, advice, literally everything they get more of. It's difficult not to make it about you because the people you're talking to are making it about you. Everyone is having those same things going on.
There's just a lot of distracting information. If you're not mature and you're not connected as a group and you're not willing to be held accountable by the staff and each other, then it's not going to work. Once it creeps in, it's almost impossible to weed it out. Our guys never let it in. Trust me, they all had different fires that were ignited by other people. They just stayed the course and stayed about each other. That's ultimately why we're here. You guys see it. We weren't a super team, but these guys became super teammates.
Coach, can you just put into words what it means to make the Final Four just with this group and how complimentary you've been of their resilience all year long?
This was obviously one of the goals because of the talent we had in our locker room. There's a slippery slope of being happy and content that we're there, but also knowing you still have work to do for us to accomplish what could be our ultimate goal, which is to be playing on Monday. We have a sign in our locker room that says 'April Habits.' From day one, we've challenged these guys to develop championship-level habits that would allow us to win a Big Ten championship and would also allow us to turn the calendar from March until April. Now we've put ourselves in a position to do that.
Tonight, tomorrow, we'll be all about getting better. These guys have all improved so much as individuals because of the work they put into it and their intention with everything they do every single day. They've really helped each other.
Dusty, when they were cutting down the nets, I noticed you were kind of by the basket, supported by yourself, watching them. I know you've reached this stage before, but what's kind of going through your mind as you see those guys climbing the ladder?
Well, I know how much of a sacrifice that our families have made for us to chase our dreams and do what we love. They're playing a child's game. I'm coaching a child's game, and so when you look in one spot are all these people that have poured into them, their old coaches, whoever the case, that have supported them and poured into them and made countless, their parents have made countless sacrifices for them to have this opportunity. It's just rewarding to see these moments when everyone's together, and so, yeah, that's it.
It's not that I've been here before. It's just like, man, this is really cool seeing all these people that have helped us get to where we are that don't get a chance to celebrate in the locker rooms like we do, to have the bus trips and the plane rides and all the experiences we share together. They don't have an opportunity to do that, so when they do have a chance to share this experience, it's just really cool to see.
I'd highly recommend next year's team doing it also.
How would you describe Yaxel's personality and how he and you have kind of harnessed it to what we're seeing out there?
Well, we've challenged Yax to think about how he's perceived, and you hate to be like that because he's so authentic and he has such a big heart, and you want that to shine. But also, too, I think one of the really cool things about this group is that we've all kind of accepted where we are at that moment or where we were at the moment we got together, and we didn't expect Yax to have the best practice habits because once he got here, he didn't have them. But we also tried to pull every single day and just get him a little bit closer, and we didn't judge him, we didn't judge Will, we didn't judge Nimari for where they were in their journey.
Everyone simply tried to support each other instead of criticizing or whatever the case, because, look, on every team, you could go down the line, we all have strengths, and we all have weaknesses. And we're going to live in our strengths, but we're also going to try to help each other with our weaknesses. And as humans, we have flaws, we have personality flaws that we can get better at, and when you know someone loves you and cares about you, and they criticize you, or they try to fix you, then you know it's coming from a great place. And I know our guys, anytime they've had anything go on in their life, anyone giving them advice, friendship, whatever the case, is out of the right place, which is to help them be the best they can be.
Michigan's made the Final Four at least once in six out of the last seven decades, nine overall. Can you speak to this elite program that you're leading and what this milestone means in Michigan history?
Yeah, obviously the brand of Michigan as a university is world-renowned, and as a basketball program, I was speaking with, gosh, I can't remember, one of the media guys about the game, I think it was Kevin Westwood, what you remember as a kid, and he started asking me the first teams I remembered, and the '89 Michigan team was one of the first teams that I remembered, I mean, with Terry, who's with us now, and Rumeal and all those guys. And then the Fab Five did as much culturally for our sport since I've been alive as anyone other than MJ.
And so very, very grateful that all those people have poured in to allow us to represent Michigan, to have all the resources necessary to get here. And I think we're all carrying the flag for all those old guys, and when they come back in the summer, that's the worst part of having a program that has had multiple coaches, that there's not one umbrella, but we've tried to welcome all the different eras, with open arms, because they've laid the foundation for all of us to receive what we have.
Statistically speaking, this is one of the biggest turnarounds and fastest turnarounds from Michigan two seasons ago to now, and I know you didn't necessarily come in like the coach at your alma mater and say, 'I win, Google me,' but did you have any sort of messaging that you had to establish with this team to sort of reinvigorate it after a very down year?
We felt like once we got these guys to stay and we added the pieces that we did in the portal, that we had a chance to be good, and a lot has to go right. But no, it was more along the lines, let's get the guys in here that we can lose with, and if we're not good, then we're going to be building towards something great, and they're going to be foundational pieces, and that's what we did.
And just like we have this year, we have a group that I could've, personally, I could've lost with these guys. You know, I didn't think we would because we're so talented, but if we did, I wouldn't feel much less about them. You know, I would feel guilty we didn't give them the experiences that they deserve, but for the most part, this is a group that you can lose with because of all the other attributes they bring to the table, but obviously, when you have the talent we have, you're not going to lose much as long as they stay connected.
What do you think flipped around that 11-minute mark that allowed a 21-0 run to start?
The game got loosened up, and I'm going to give our staff a lot of credit. They managed the foul trouble in the minutes as well as we have all year, and that was a big part of it. With Rez and Aday having two fouls each, we could've gotten out of our rotation, could've gotten out of rhythm, and those guys came back in. We stayed in our rotations, and more than anything else, I think the beautiful brand of basketball we were playing became contagious. You could see these guys feeding off of each other, and when you have the big-time stop, and four guys block out, one guy gets the rebound, then you lead the break, and all five guys have a big, big part in beautiful basketball. It just feels so much greater for all of us, and that became contagious. It became energizing, and then it just became a snowball that just kept going.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan basketball coach Dusty May on Final Four