{"id":864,"date":"2025-04-14T06:20:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T06:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/michigan-basketball-thrives-by-varied-portal-means\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T06:20:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T06:20:21","slug":"michigan-basketball-thrives-by-varied-portal-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/14\/michigan-basketball-thrives-by-varied-portal-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan basketball thrives by varied portal means"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Last offseason, the Michigan men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams\u2019 rosters were in a similar state. Whether it was due to a coaching change or a throng of players heading to the transfer portal, both rosters entered this season with just two returning players who averaged at least nine minutes per game during the 2023-24 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To fill in their rosters, men\u2019s coach Dusty May and women\u2019s coach Kim Barnes Arico took different approaches. By season\u2019s end, May\u2019s top-four scorers came to the Wolverines via the portal, while three of Barnes Arico\u2019s four top scorers were high school recruits.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This offseason, May and Barnes Arico are taking different approaches to the transfer portal once again. But despite those differences, both programs are adapting to a new era of college basketball in a way that sets them up for future success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Start with the men\u2019s team. May didn\u2019t exactly have a choice but to hit the portal hard last year, but the results were much better than expected. Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin turned into one of the best frontcourts in the country, Tre Donaldson proved to be capable of leading the offense and with a few other supplemental pieces, May led his portal-formed roster all the way to the Sweet Sixteen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>And as successful as last year\u2019s portal class was, it only got the ball rolling more for May\u2019s to be even more aggressive in his recruiting efforts this offseason. Currently boasting the top transfer portal <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/Season\/2025-Basketball\/TransferTeamRankings\/\">class<\/a> in the country, the early returns for next season seem even more promising for Michigan \u2014 the Wolverines have started popping up as high as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/story\/_\/id\/44575415\/mens-college-basketball-way-too-early-top-25-rankings-2025-26-season\">fifth<\/a> in some way-too-early top 25 rankings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were much better received this year than we were last,\u201d May <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lHE-YKdqdJc\">told<\/a> The Michigan Insider. \u201c\u2026 I think when we were recruiting the big guys, because our FAU teams didn\u2019t play that way, they questioned whether it would work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With proof of concept in the form of Wolf and Goldin, May has a better product to sell this offseason. That earned him commitments from former Illinois forward Morez Johnson Jr., UCLA center Aday Mara and the top-ranked portal player, UAB forward Yaxel Lendeborg. Replacing Wolf and Goldin is a difficult task nonetheless, but Michigan\u2019s frontcourt should at least have the requisite talent to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There is one caveat there: Lendeborg may still forgo the Wolverines for the NBA Draft. That\u2019s a risk that comes with recruiting the best players in the portal, but it\u2019s a gamble May has said he\u2019s willing to take. And even if his approach means that his teams have more one-year players than some rosters of Michigan past, with the way May has shown he can recruit, it\u2019s a risk that bodes well for future success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Barnes Arico, on the other hand, is less focused on the one-and-done impact player when it comes to roster construction. With players having to stay longer before jumping to the next level, women\u2019s college basketball tends to be a more developmental sport than the men\u2019s version, and Barnes Arico is a particularly development-focused coach.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>In fact, following six of her players transferring away last offseason, Barnes Arico established that, despite the rapid emergence of the portal, she wouldn\u2019t be changing her philosophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe consider ourselves program builders,\u201d Barnes Arico <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/michigan-looking-to-overcome-transfer-portal-losses-by-staying-true-to-barnes-aricos-philosophy\/\">said<\/a> Oct. 22, 2024.\u00a0 \u201cWhat we do may be different than a lot of other programs. We\u2019re not a program that\u2019s based on the transfer portal. \u2026 That\u2019s not the kind of culture of our university. It\u2019s not the culture of our program. We really pride ourselves on building something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So following that mass exodus, Barnes Arico didn\u2019t hit the portal hard looking for plug-and-play impact players. She counted on her best recruiting class ever, elevated past contributors in Jordan Hobbs and Greta Kampschroeder to key roles and led the Wolverines to their seventh-straight NCAA Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the biggest get for Michigan this offseason isn\u2019t anyone new coming in \u2014 it\u2019s who\u2019s sticking around. The star freshman guard trio of Syla Swords, Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway would each have been coveted transfers had they decided to go elsewhere, but all three are staying in Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Barnes Arico\u2019s mindset seems to have changed a little bit. The Wolverines lacked size this season, often relying on a five-guard lineup. So while she still might not prefer the transfer portal as a way to build a roster, she dipped her toes in and plucked the Patriot League Player of the Year, Bucknell forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/bucknell-forward-ashley-sofilkanich-transfers-to-michigan\/\">Ashley Sofilkanich<\/a>, to support her returners. She also added 6-foot-2 Bruins forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/michigan-lands-ucla-transfer-forward-kendall-dudley\/\">Kendall Dudley<\/a> for good measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>And between those gets and an impending sophomore-year leap for her star guards, Barnes Arico\u2019s reserved approach to the portal \u2014 particularly in terms of recruiting her own roster \u2014 also has Michigan women\u2019s basketball set up for success.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The two coaches don\u2019t share the same approach, but both approaches are working. May doesn\u2019t shy away from building through the portal, and he\u2019s built a strong foundation. Barnes Arico prefers to add to a homegrown core, and that\u2019s looking promising, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, in a new, transfer portal-focused era, the Wolverines\u2019 two programs might have different looking rosters \u2014 unlike the similarly slim rosters that they entered this past offseason with. But in spite of those different approaches to a changing landscape of college basketball, both coaches have given their programs a bright future.\u00a0<\/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>Last offseason, the Michigan men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams\u2019 rosters were in a similar state. Whether it was due to a coaching change or a throng of players heading to the transfer portal, both rosters entered this season with just two returning players who averaged at least nine minutes per game during the 2023-24 season.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[936,652,222,456,937,938],"class_list":{"0":"post-864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-means","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-portal","12":"tag-thrives","13":"tag-varied"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","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=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":866,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}