Oscar Goodman shooting his way toward a bigger Michigan role

Rising redshirt sophomore forward Oscar Goodman had several of the most memorable plays in Michigan’s 2025-26 season, but they usually came late in games when the results were decided.

This year, he’s hoping to build on that experience and carve out a key role for the Wolverines after a year and a half of development in Dusty May’s system.

“It was a long season, and there were times in practice where I was really— I could just feel myself getting better and really performing. But just knowing that I was a younger dude who had some older guys who were really good is obviously tough,” Goodman admitted on this week’s episode of Defend the Block. “But at the same time, I knew I could play. I was good enough. I was going at them every day kind of thing.”

His practice competition of Aday Mara, Morez Johnson Jr., and Yaxel Lendeborg will hear their names called at the NBA Draft this month as Michigan starts to piece together how its new-look roster will play.

Despite playing only 60 minutes as a redshirt freshman while playing college basketball on the other side of the world from where he grew up, Goodman is sticking with the program to see the benefits of his work.

“I think for me, being the oldest, just showing my brothers that it is possible to follow your dreams,” he said of why he stuck in Ann Arbor. “And then for New Zealand as well, like, I wasn’t supposed to get out of my hometown, like no one does. And to prove that if you really love something, you can do it. I think that I carry that with me a lot.”