Last week, the No. 3 Michigan men’s basketball team seemed to be in a league of its own.
Taking down San Diego State, now-No. 20 Auburn and now-No. 11 Gonzaga by a combined 110 points, the Wolverines made waves across the college basketball landscape and took home the Players Era Championship. Michigan shot up to No. 1 in both KenPom and the inaugural NET rankings, and rose from No. 7 to No. 3 in Monday’s AP Poll.
The Wolverines have all the hype in the world, and for good reason. They’re undefeated and blew by their competition last week with extraordinary ease. Now comes the real challenge for Michigan and coach Dusty May: keeping that momentum going.
“We have to put our earmuffs on and just get better every single day and continue appreciating each other and our unique talents and gifts,” May said Monday. “… Because that’s one thing success does. It makes you fat, happy, complacent, whatever you wanna call it, or it lights a fire that you want more. And as long as our ‘more’ isn’t recognition, pats on the back, it’s more giving more to your teammates and more in other areas, then we’ll be fine.”
The Wolverines need to use their early success as motivation in order to avoid a hangover slump or a too-early peak. Complacency can be the natural reaction to a hot streak, but it’ll leave a team unprepared for an inevitable reality check.
For May, that means continuing to find areas for improvement — he noted transition defense as one — and keeping things fresh on the offensive end.
“We’ve got to add some things to our package that will allow us to beat some of the best defensive teams in the country with the way they’re going to defend us,” May said. “… We’re still trying to add some things to our arsenal that can make us tougher to deal with.”
Last season, May saw first-hand how a go-to offensive set in one month can be predictable by the next. When Michigan first put former forward Danny Wolf and center Vlad Goldin in the pick-and-roll together, it was a revelation. The duo tore apart opposing defenses with the play time after time through December and January.
But as the season continued, there was more film added to the rest of the Big Ten’s library, and opponents adjusted. The Wolverines still found occasional success with the unique pick-and-roll into the postseason, but it wasn’t the fresh, new cheat code it was earlier in the year.
So far, Michigan is running by teams in transition, junior center Aday Mara and sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. are dominating in the interior and graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg is scoring at will. But those trends can all be temporary. Especially if the Wolverines want to achieve their long-term goals, they’ll need to be ready to adapt.
“On December 1, we’re good enough to compete with anyone and everyone in the country right now on any given night,” May said Monday. “On April 6 (the National Championship game) … are we gonna be good enough to compete with anyone in the country that night? If we get stagnant, static, we’re not going to be in position to do what we wanna do.”
Michigan would love for last week to be the new norm, but that’s not realistic. Road bumps will come throughout the season, and in between now and April 6, teams will make adjustments and come up with counters to the Wolverines’ sets and playstyle.
To be prepared for those road bumps and keep up its momentum, Michigan knows it can’t get complacent.
