{"id":586,"date":"2025-03-29T11:43:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T11:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/29\/if-may-learns-to-put-teams-away-hell-be-on-his-way-to-a-national-championship\/"},"modified":"2025-03-29T11:43:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T11:43:02","slug":"if-may-learns-to-put-teams-away-hell-be-on-his-way-to-a-national-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/03\/29\/if-may-learns-to-put-teams-away-hell-be-on-his-way-to-a-national-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"If May learns to put teams away, he\u2019ll be on his way to a national championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>ATLANTA \u2014 When the No. 5 seed Michigan men\u2019s basketball team was up nine points on No. 1 overall seed Auburn, everything was in front of it: revenge on Michigan State, a Final Four berth and a chance at winning it all. It felt possible.<\/p>\n<p>For a while it felt possible. Then it felt familiar.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024-25 Wolverines\u2019 fatal flaw \u2014 one that won\u2019t completely overshadow their success \u2014 was their inability to put teams away. Because of it, Michigan suffered the finality of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/second-half-lead-slips-through-no-5-seed-michigans-fingers-season-ends-in-78-65-loss-to-no-1-seed-auburn-in-sweet-sixteen\/\">loss<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n<p>What Friday night should show May is that inability to put teams away is what separates him from a national championship.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI did think we had a chance to play in the last weekend,\u201d Wolverines coach Dusty May said.<\/p>\n<p>After a wildly successful first year, that\u2019s where expectations should be set for the epoch of Dusty May in Ann Arbor. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/michigan-outlasts-wisconsin-59-53-to-win-big-ten-tournament-championship\/\">won<\/a> the Big Ten Tournament, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/touted-a-genius-and-future-hall-of-famer-dusty-may-receives-high-praise-from-buzz-williams\/\">lauded<\/a> a \u201cfuture Hall of Famer\u201d by his second-round adversary and earned himself a lush contract <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/michigan-extends-head-coach-dusty-may\/\">extension<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But coaches will always be judged on their ability to build and improve. The unfortunate part of May doing more in year one than most expected, is that he now has a high bar to clear in year two.<\/p>\n<p>As difficult as replacing graduate center Vlad Goldin and likely junior forward Danny Wolf will be, that\u2019ll be the expectation given how quickly May constructed this year\u2019s roster. The judgement will come on whether May succeeds 10, 11, 12 months from now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to win championships,\u201d May said. \u201cSo now we turn focus to year two and try to build a championship roster and correct some things that we need to get better at, and then just see where we end up a year from now.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Not being able to close out second-half leads cost the Wolverines less than it should, just the loss at Minnesota and the season-ending one to the Tigers come readily to mind. But losses to Oklahoma and Arkansas earlier in the year stained Michigan\u2019s nonconference slate.<\/p>\n<p>But for as much as resilience, determination or other coach speak can be accredited as the reason behind Michigan\u2019s knack for winning close games, May can\u2019t count on that year in and year out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Wolverines shouldn\u2019t have needed a hero as often as they did. They were up double-digits in the second half <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/riding-a-mid-game-push-michigan-topples-maryland-81-80-advancing-to-big-ten-tournament-championship\/\">against<\/a> Maryland in the conference tournament, then again <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/diametrically-opposed-no-12-seed-uc-san-diego-provides-no-5-seed-michigan-a-unique-look\/\">against<\/a> UC San Diego in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Both required junior guard Tre Donaldson to hit a clutch shot in a down-to-the-wire game.<\/p>\n<p>Playing in <em>that<\/em> many close games likely won\u2019t yield equal success next year. And Auburn proved that it definitely won\u2019t equate to more.<\/p>\n<p>Against a team of the Tigers\u2019 caliber \u2014 a true national title contender \u2014 you can\u2019t let up. As much as going up by nine points proves Michigan could play with anyone in the country, the way the Wolverines let Auburn come back reflected their own status, a tier below the Tigers.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Everything that happened in May\u2019s first year suggests he is on track to put Michigan in that upper echelon. Sitting atop the Big Ten throughout much of the regular season, winning the conference tournament and being up by nine points over the top team in the country proved, if it wasn\u2019t abundantly clear that May was a home-run hire.<\/p>\n<p>He constructed a highly talented roster primarily through the transfer portal. And knowing he needed something to set the Wolverines apart, he designed a unique offense around two 7-footers. Then he won a lot of games across the regular season, Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Though that ultimately makes a Sweet Sixteen loss sting all the more, it signifies how close May is. It shows there should be no doubt, May can bring a national championship to Ann Arbor. That is, if he can learn to put teams away.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ATLANTA \u2014 When the No. 5 seed Michigan men\u2019s basketball team was up nine points on No. 1 overall seed Auburn, everything was in front of it: revenge on Michigan State, a Final Four berth and a chance at winning it all. It felt possible. For a while it felt possible. Then it felt familiar. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[584,582,579,583,580,581],"class_list":{"0":"post-586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-championship","9":"tag-hell","10":"tag-learns","11":"tag-national","12":"tag-put","13":"tag-teams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":588,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}