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How did Michigan evolve into national title favorite? It aced the transfer portal

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INDIANAPOLIS – Dusty May is a self-described “blue-collar guy” who cut grass, cut tobacco, baled hay and worked in turkey barns growing up in Greene County, Indiana, where he learned that “if you see a neighbor moving in, you go help them.”

So when Michigan point guard Elliot Cadeau arrived on campus last year as a transfer from North Carolina, May was there to help carry a table up a flight of stairs to the junior’s new apartment.

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“When a player is moving in, it’s a lot quicker if we walk across the parking lot and help them move in rather than just mom and dad,” said May. “It’s kind of how we run our program.”

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Morez Johnson Jr. #21 of the Michigan Wolverines dunks the ball against the Arizona Wildcats during the first half in the Final Four of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 04, 2026 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

And Michigan’s program runs on transfers such as Cadeau, who after two often tumultuous seasons with the Tar Heels has found a home and flourished on the Wolverines’ newcomer-heavy roster.

“I think that just comes from the coaching. They have so much confidence in me,” Cadeau said after Michigan’s Final Four win against Arizona. “It just helps me stay calm. If I turn the ball over and I look over at coach, they’re calm. So that just helps me stay calm as well.”

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There is no bigger test for a major-conference program and coach than personnel management, the annual acquisition and blending of talent in an era of NIL and rampant player movement.

May and Michigan have aced this test with flying colors, piecing together a rotation largely composed of portal additions to evolve into a seemingly unstoppable force heading into Monday night’s national championship game against Connecticut.

“It came together even better than we could ever imagine,” said assistant coach and general manager Kyle Church.

The Wolverines have done so by stressing three assets when evaluating transfers, said May.

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While production and potential play a role in deciding who Michigan pursues out of the transfer portal, the search ultimately centers on “guys how love ball, who are great teammates, who are competitors,” he said.

“Competitors because we have a strong belief that competitors are going to figure out a way to win. Whatever that is, they’re just going to figure out a way to win whatever they’re playing.

“And then loving ball would probably be a close, close second. Sometimes we say we don’t really care. You can love to compete or you can love ball. We think we can get to the end result as long as you have one of those.”

Leaning on personality and cultural fit has helped the Wolverines divvy up minutes among one of the deepest and most talented rosters in the country.

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“Now, what makes Dusty May special as a coach is obviously his eye for talent, his ability to construct a roster, the fact that he insulates himself with an excellent coaching staff, and his ability to build team and culture. Like he’s got a special eye for how to put together a great team,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said.

“Things are volatile. It’s year to year. You’ve got to have the skill set to do it on a year-to-year basis because things are volatile.”

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See the best photos of Michigan basketball’s run to 2026 Final Four

Michigan Wolverines guard Roddy Gayle Jr. (11) shakes hands with forward Yaxel Lendeborg (23) against the Howard Bison during the second half of a first round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Keybank Center.

Of the eight players in the Wolverines’ tournament rotation, six started their college careers elsewhere and transferred into the program. The exceptions are redshirt senior forward Will Tschetter and freshman guard Trey McKenney.

Two joined the program at least two seasons ago: guard Roddy Gayle Jr. transferred from Ohio State before May’s debut in 2024, and former Texas Tech and Alabama guard Nimari Burnett enrolled in 2023, when the Wolverines were led by former coach Juwan Howard.

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“During the summer, I just told the guys that everything is going to happen quickly,” Gayle said. “Especially under coach May, you may not understand what he’s asking of you early on. But once you just buy into his program, buy into what he’s telling you, everything will work out just fine. I’m a true believer in that.”

The four transfers who arrived this past summer have transformed Michigan from Big Ten contender to the favorite to capture the program’s second national championship.

“I would say we have the right people around this program, and we have the right players,” McKenney said. “We have players that are really selfless, and you can tell that even when we’re under one roof in the summer, so I think it just really carried over from the summer and the fall when we were putting in all that work together and all that sweat that we had.”

None have bigger than Alabama-Birmingham forward Yaxel Lendeborg. The All-America selection has been a remarkably consistent inside-out threat in an offense that can still flourish in his absence, as in the Final Four blowout of Arizona.

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Former UCLA center Aday Mara has taken on a starting role after coming off the bench for the Bruins and has evolved into a dominant interior presence. He scored a career-best 26 points in the win against the Wildcats.

Sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. has made a similar leap after transferring from Illinois, showcasing the strength and athleticism that have made him a likely first-round pick in this year’s NBA draft. And Cadeau has stabilized his game in Ann Arbor, with a newfound sense of confidence in his shooting that has given Michigan yet another perimeter threat.

Between the 7-3 Mara, 6-10 Johnson and 6-9 Lendeborg, the Wolverines added major size to the frontcourt this offseason. In that way, they resemble May’s Final Four team at Florida Atlantic, where the Owls “were so big, our defensive numbers were top five in the country,” he said.

But the Wolverines aren’t “married to being big,” May added. “If everybody goes big, we might weave and go small. Who knows? We’re not winning because we’re big. We’re winning because we have really good players and smart players.”

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Overall, transfers have combined for 75.6% of Michigan’s scoring. Transfers are the Wolverines’ four leading rebounders. The top three in assists are transfers, and so are the top four in blocks per game.

“You can build a cohesive unit maybe a little bit faster than anyone can really realize,” Church said. “If people like the work and enjoy the process, then you can find that cohesion fairly quickly.”

But the recruitment of players in the transfer portal is much different than traditional recruiting on the high school level, when programs can often spend months to years building relationships.

In comparison, recruiting the portal is like speed dating. Given the abbreviated courtship, Michigan will do background work on a prospective transfer by “leaning on people around them that you trust,” Church said, including the player’s former coaching staff, coaches they might have played against or their former high school and AAU coach. If the Wolverines are lucky, they may have a preexisting relationship by virtue of recruiting the player coming out of high school.

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“We try to be brutally honest,” said Church. “And we try to over-deliver and under-promise. If they want to come under those circumstances and we feel like we have a good character reference and they like playing hard, they like passing the ball, they like basketball, then we’ll find a way to make it work.”

Yet none of these transfers were necessarily a sure thing, and many arrived as underdeveloped or inconsistent producers at their previous stops. There’s no greater example of this than Cadeau, who failed to deliver on his five-star billing at UNC and was seen as the poster child for the Tar Heels’ unrealized expectations.

Lendeborg came from UAB. Johnson was a backup at Illinois, though his explosiveness was obvious even in this reserve role. Mara’s career never got off the ground at UCLA. In one way or another, each new addition this offseason represented a roll of the dice for May and Michigan.

“Look, I know this is going to set off a Twitter firestorm, but I think we all are better in certain situations than others,” May said. “There’s an environment that’s right for me. There’s an environment that’s right for you. Sometimes you don’t choose the right environment from the beginning or sometimes as people we change and we need something different, for a number of reasons.

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“The way we choose to look at it, we’re going to bring in really, really good guys that are high achievers, that want to do it the way we want to do it.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Dusty May built Michigan basketball roster by acing transfer portal

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