Five takeaways from Mike Boynton Jr.’s offseason update

Mike Boynton Jr. met with the media as Michigan’s head coach on Tuesday for the first time since he was promoted to head coach. Boynton spoke for around half an hour, hitting on key offseason storylines, his transition into the head coaching role, and expectations for the coming season.

Here are five takeaways from the new Michigan coach.

1. Boynton consistently comes across as a players’ coach

Mike Boynton Jr. has done a handful of interviews before this presser, and the one trend that you’ll notice is that he’s clearly a coach who puts his players first in media settings — meaning he understands the story is about them, the process is about them, and he’s more than willing to deflect his individual success to his players.

He’s never one to dive too deeply into something he did well or even his staff’s contributions; he’ll almost always circle back to the players. The sacrifices they’ve made, or the decisions they’ve made. When asked about his ability to keep the roster together, he pointed to the players.

“I don’t think I kept the roster together,” he said. “I think there are a lot of things that factored into these guys wanting to be together. I think they looked around the room at each other on June 23rd when we got together for the first time and realized that this was the team they thought they were going to be a part of in the beginning.

“And so a lot of it was their belief in each other, their confidence in this program. And right now, Michigan basketball is in a pretty healthy spot in terms of momentum, in terms of having exposure and being in a position to be expected to compete for championships. And I think those guys still want to be a part of it.”

Boynton does this throughout, constantly pointing to the reasons last year’s team worked — talent, sacrifice and teamwork over coaching. That will likely remain a core component of his program’s messaging.