On paper, Michigan has one of the best frontcourt groups in college basketball. The Wolverines added Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara, and Morez Johnson Jr. out of the transfer portal, to go along with returning players like Will Tschetter and Oscar Goodman.
The Wolverines must replace two of the best big men in the country, Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, who could hear their names called this week at the NBA Draft, but they have the pieces to do it.
Talent on paper only goes so far, though, and the work starts this summer for Dusty May and his staff to figure out how to take that talent from potential to production on the court.
“This summer, we’re going to try to mesh them, put them on the same team, put them up against each other,” Michigan assistant coach Akeem Miskdeen said on this week’s Defend the Block. “You know, we’ve got summer and fall to try to mesh them and see where it goes. We had to do the same thing with two of our guys last year, with Danny and Vlad, and they did a good job, by the middle season, meshing and it took us far. So hopefully, with those guys, we can get an early advance on what we learned from Danny and Vlad and go from there.”
Miskdeen will play an integral part in unlocking that code. The Wolverine assistant coach, who had spent most of his career on the defensive side of the ball, has worked with Dusty May on offensive concepts since joining the Wolverine staff. He’s spent his offseason studying Michigan’s additions and looking for creative ways to leverage them.
That film study has led him to everything from this year’s Florida team that won the national title with “four to five guys” rotating in their frontcourt and even YouTube clips of the Washington Bullets facing off against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls when they started Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, and Gheorghe Muresan together.
Figuring out how to use talented bigs is easier than figuring out how to play without them, and Michigan has talented bigs, including Morez Johnson Jr., who just made the USA U19 squad this summer.
“What I like about Morez is what everybody else in the country is gonna hate: his tenacity,” Miskdeen said. “He plays like he’s from Chicago. He’s gritty, plays really hard. I think we’ll be able to help him with his skill set.
Dusty May Promo!
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