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The Dusty May era got started on Monday night for the Michigan basketball program, and it got going with a bang. The Wolverines are coming off of one of their worst seasons ever, and they made a coaching change in the offseason in an attempt to fix things. It was just Cleveland State, but Michigan did look impressive in game one as they cruised to a 101-53 victory.
If you're a Michigan basketball fan, you couldn't have asked for a better debut from Dusty May. The differences from last year appear to be night and day, but there is one thing that May wants to see change: the crowd size.
“Usually I don’t hear anything,” May said after the game, according to an article from On3. “Sometimes if it’s deafening, your ears start buzzing, and your head starts buzzing because it’s so loud. I do think that our fans appreciated the way our guys played the game tonight, and that’s something that we talk about even late in the game, that unselfishness and spirit and passion that you play with, you don’t ever turn that off. And that’s why we told them before the game today, this place probably will be half full tonight. By the next month, because of the way we play and the way we interact with each other and the way we represent Michigan, we want it to be full. We’ll give them a month.”
There's your challenge, Michigan fans. In one month, May and the Wolverines are expecting to have a full house at the Crisler Center.
Michigan looked dominant on Monday night
It didn't take very long for the Michigan basketball team to pull away on Monday night as the game was essentially finished before halftime. The ball movement was crisp, everyone was active on defense, the three ball was working. It was an all-around dominant performance, and the Wolverines nearly broke the program record for shooting percentage in a game. They came up just short as they shot 68.4%. Michigan looked good, and Dusty May would love to see more of this in the future.
“Yeah, we’d like to do this every night,” May said with a smile after the game. “I don’t think we’re going to, but, yeah, this would be ideal. We’d like to get the highest [mark]. I think this is the second-highest field goal percentage in the history of the program. We’d like to get the highest, but we’re not going to be able to count on that. We have to be able to find different ways to win each night when the ball’s not going in.”
Now, May's debut is in the books, and he admitted that he had some butterflies leading up to the contest.
“Once a game is tipped or even before the game, it’s the same,” May said. “It’s routine, focus, trying to run through your mental checklist, trying to be mentally prepared for what’s next. So I don’t notice a lot. Like I said, late in the game, I heard the fans really erupt a couple times on hustle plays, which is awesome for our fans to be knowledgeable and recognize the right things, the selfishness, the passion, the toughness plays that our guys made. I guess probably the butterflies happen more at 3 or 4 a.m. more than they do on game day for me. So, yeah, I woke up more frequently last night than usual, thinking about the game. So that’s probably my way of having butterflies.”
Michigan will return to action on Sunday for a stiffer test as they will be taking on Wake Forest on the road. It will be exciting to see the Wolverines go up against a more challenging opponent.
