Dusty May’s Monday press conference previewing Penn State and Ohio State

Yeah, that one just felt different. And obviously we were disappointed in the way we performed last year. And so, you know, we're never really too high or too low when there's something to be learned from each example. And we felt like we learned a lot from both of those games.

The first being that we can't make it more than 40 minutes of good basketball. And there has to be poise and composure and stamina and guys ready to go the distance and fight all the way till the end. And the other thing was our personnel last year. We didn't have enough dog to win the league.

We had some, and I love our guys last year, but we just didn't have enough dog. And so we were able to solve those— that issue in recruiting. We were close. We just, just didn't have enough.

And sometimes it's just being a year older. And sometimes I think our staff did a great job of being intentional about fixing the things that needed to be fixed instead of just hoping that things change or go away. So, but yeah, we learned from all of our tough experiences last year. Um, but to be honest, this year we, we expected to win.

Um, we like our team a lot. We, we think there's great substance. I, I know people outside of our, uh, tribe will call our guys these derogatory names— mercenaries and whatnot. Uh, we have a group of guys that love playing with each other.

They appreciate Michigan. And when you see how connected they are, I don't know how you would I guess classify them as guys playing just for money when they all sacrificed a great deal of money to do what they're doing together. And so we have a long way to go, but very, very happy with being in position to compete at the midway point, essentially.

I think some of— I think there were several plays that are very dangerous, and I am incredibly proud of our guys for the responses they had to some of those situations. Incredibly proud for their self-control, their restraint, and their impulse control. I'll leave it at that. Tony. But they're not isolated incidents. Yeah.

He's— I've never been around anyone like And I'm incredibly appreciative of how much he cares about his teammates as well. I'll say it again, he doesn't act like a mercenary every day. He acts like he's completely engrossed and embedded in our program, our culture, and winning for others. He's unique, he's special.

And for a guy to go— I mean, we ran probably 2 plays for him. One play for him and he gets 26 and 12. There aren't a lot of guys like that that you can just— that can go get 25 or 30 in the flow of the game, and he can. His offensive rebounding these last couple games have been— that's been the difference.

And he continues to add different things. His shot looks great. They haven't been dropping lately. They're going to, but it's the other things.

His ability to track the ball, get loose basketball, his offensive rebound, they're impressive. So we wouldn't be where we are if it wasn't for his unselfishness and his humility as a guy that was ranked as the number one guy in the portal.