Podcast: Michigan basketball — recapping an elite season, the portal, who starts at the ‘3,’ more

Michigan finished its best basketball season in program history with a 37-3 record and Big Ten and National Championships under head coach Dusty May. Chris Balas and the Schiller brothers, Jeff and Greg, break down a special year, look ahead to next season, talk portal and more in this podcast.

Head coach Dusty May has been working diligently on finishing his roster, but it’s not as easy as it’s been the last few years. The Wolverines are battling several others for the best of the best in the portal, and while they have two in the fold, they’re still looking for other big fish, as well. When the roster is set, May will be able to look back at the season he accomplished and enjoy it a bit more … it was special.

“The most rewarding part is they never changed,” the Michigan coach said. “We weren’t very good early in the year. The first two exhibitions we beat St. John’s, but they weren’t St. John’s yet, and we didn’t play well, and at that point we considered pivoting and changing our lineup and going in a different direction and maybe admitting failure for our vision.

“Because of our staff — I remember the day like it was yesterday. We were in the conference room and we did a deep dive in everything that you could come up with to try to predict whether we thought it would work. Once we left that meeting, we were more committed than ever that this is going to work, and these are the reasons why. Now … it was like bamboo. We didn’t feel like the bamboo was just going to shoot to the sky the next week in Vegas, but it did, and then it happens quickly where we’re playing that level. That’s typically when it gets more difficult.

“I’ve been an assistant on staffs when you play like that, and that’s when it really gets tough because there’s more attention, there’s more of everything coming at your guys, and for them not to waver on how they continued to give … to me that’s probably the hardest part and most rewarding thing that these guys did.”

Michigan is still waiting on announcements today from Aday Mara and Morez Johnson (NBA likely for Mara, Johnson Jr. “on the fence,” along with a portal announcement from Cincinnati big man Moustapha Thiam. We talk about that and more in today’s podcast.