Dusty May: Opening statement

I’ll begin by giving Illinois credit. I thought they were extremely quick to the basketball. They were aggressive. We knew they were going to send five to the glass. They do it every game. And because of that, they were able to get it and then toss it back out. Paint touch threes, and they got the rhythm, their confidence. There’s a chain reaction where they felt good with their shooting, where they’ve been struggling to shoot the ball. They felt great about their shots, in my opinion, because the ball was coming from the paint, and they knew if I miss it again, we’re going to get it again and get it again.

We’ve got to bounce back. We’ve got a quick turn with Maryland, an extremely good basketball team coming in Wednesday. And so we’re going to have to figure some things out here in the next couple days to keep this from happening again.

Dusty May on Michigan allowing 19 offensive rebounds:

I think it’s a little bit of everything. We were on our heels. Our communication wasn’t great. And so we were broken down because we were late on our switches. And they did a nice job of confusing the switches. But because we weren’t able to keep bodies on bodies early, and then we had to go to the zone. So they have a running start, we’re trying to meet them closer to the basket. 

And at the end of the day, when you look at their lineup, Will Riley, Ivisic, Boswell plays much bigger than his height. Tre White is a big kid. Jakucionis is big. They’re big, strong, physical guys. And in a jump ball contest, 15 feet to 18 feet, they won. It seemed like all of them. So even the ones we did block out, they were able to get them back.

We just don’t have the margin for the ones that we missed or we weren’t aggressive to fly in and tip it or help our teammates out. We just weren’t able to overcome those. But once again, I’m giving Illinois a lot of the credit too. Those guys played really, really connected basketball tonight. 

Dusty May on telling his team to ‘look in the mirror’ after the game:

If you’re asking me if I’m going to look in the mirror, absolutely. That’s the first thing that I do, we do as a staff. And try to figure out what we could have done differently to learn from it. And then what can we do immediately to fix it.

Because it’s not as if you’re going to make roster acquisitions or anything like that this time of year. This is our team. How do we fix these issues?

And sometimes the matchups, they present some challenges from what their strengths are to what our built-in weaknesses are. And so you have to be more determined. You have to be more connected. You have to play better offense to still be able to find a way to win. And we didn’t do that tonight.

Dusty May on if Michigan is physically or mentally tired:

I think everyone in the country is emotionally and mentally fatigued right now. Our season is long. With the exception of the one or two percent of guys that are obsessed with it, they’ll love it, that this is it. Other than that, yes.

And we’re not using this as an excuse. We had time off earlier in the year. Whether we used it wisely enough, I’m not sure. But our tough stretch with the number of games is now. And we’re not the deepest team when you get past our top five or top six. And Rubin hasn’t played in a couple games and all that.

But that’s what everyone’s going through. That’s what Illinois went through this year. And now it looks like they’re healthy at the right time. But as we talked about as a group, we still have an opportunity to compete for three more championships. We’re in contention to compete for three more championships. If nothing else will motivate you or inspire you or get over that emotional or physical fatigue, then you’re not built for it anyway.

Dusty May on what disappointed him most in the Illinpis game:

The thing that I was most disappointed in is when they did get a rebound, we dropped our heads. We didn’t dig in and fight harder. And guys, sometimes the ball just goes… airballs are hard to rebound from a defensive standpoint. You’re trying to get a hit. You’re trying to find the ball and it lands. So there were a couple bad bounces.

There were a couple that were just — it’s a 6-9 guy versus a 6-1 guy. But there were others where we just didn’t get in the fight enough. And so it’s a cumulation of all that stuff. They have a good team. That’s something that’s not lost on our staff or players. And so to overcome some of those things, we have to be on our front foot a lot more and a lot more — bouncy and energetic and anticipate what’s about to happen at a higher level.

Dusty May on Vlad Goldin’s family coming to the United States for Senior Day:

That was as touching as any win that I’ve ever had, that I’ve been a part of as a coach. These guys — we all do. We chase opportunities We make sacrifices. Anyone, you guys are all here because you’ve made sacrifices. The coaches have made sacrifices.

And so Vlad for five years hasn’t seen his family. I don’t know of a bigger sacrifice you could have as a great human being like he is. So to see them, how proud they are of him, it was a touching moment. 

There was a lot of work from a lot of people. Our administration, our staff put a lot of man hours to figure out a way to help Vlad get his family here. So we’re very grateful for all that. 

That was a special moment. And just to see a mother’s pride in her son was a really cool moment.

Dusty May on how Michigan can get its offense back in-sync outside of Vlad Goldin:

That’s something that we are trying to comb through now. He’s got it going. But coming down and just trying to force feed it into the post. Everyone else gets stagnant and static. You lose your rhythm of the game. That’s something as we look at the film we’ve got to figure out the balance of it.

Probably the answer is when we do get stopped, we’ve got to make more of a conscious effort to get him a look and hopefully play off that overreaction. I thought we did in the second half. We got it into him. And then maybe the second or third media timeout, we had an overreaction. Danny got a layup out of it. 

But at the end of the day we’re not finishing well around the rim. We’re not converting on our free throws. We’re still not shooting the ball well from 3: 4-of-18 again. And so with that being the case you’ve got to figure out some things.

And for us to shoot the ball as well as we did for the majority of the year and then in the last month really not make shots is a little bit mystifying. But our guys are in the gym. They’re working. So we’ll have to find that balance.

Dusty May on reflecting on this year’s senior class:

I don’t really want to reflect on the foundation they’ve laid because this thing’s still being poured today. So I’d love to answer that hopefully in four, five, six weeks, whatever it is when the season’s over. I’ll get back with you on that one.

Dusty May on if Michigan needs to get more from its guards:

Yeah. I’ll just start with the rebounding. If you’re going to be an elite transition offensive team, it begins with getting stops and guards rebounding. They’re not rebounding at the level that we need them to be a championship-level team. I think everyone on our roster has more in the tank, including them. 

I think I can coach better and perform better. I think everyone on our roster can play and perform better. I don’t really want to single those guys out individually. I think everyone on our roster knows that we can play better than we’re playing right now.

Just like Illinois did today, you never know when that moment is going to be there for you to find your niche and get healthy and find that rhythm again.