For a few seconds on draft night, Dusty May’s reaction to Aday Mara’s name looked like something else entirely.
When the Michigan big man went No. 12 overall to the OKC Thunder in the 2026 NBA Draft, the camera cut to May in the crowd and caught him slapping his hands together. Some online took that moment as frustration, assuming the Dallas Mavericks head coach was unhappy about having to see Mara often in the NBA.
That wasn’t it.
May explained on Defend the Block, during a recent stop back in Ann Arbor for a hip procedure, that the moment had more to do with relief than anything else. Michigan had three players go in the first round - all lottery picks - for the first time since 1990, with Morez Johnson Jr. going first to the Dallas Mavericks and Yaxel Lenderborg following him to the Golden State Warriors before Mara rounded out the trio.
“No, not at all. It was more, I kind of expected one of them to drop," May admitted. "I've just watched enough NBA draft telecast and then even last year to see Danny [Wolf] potentially go as high as 14 and then dropped into the 20s.
"In my mind felt like one of these guys are going to drop. It's going to be two of them will be gone and they'll be elated.
Then there's one of them that's going to be disappointed. For all three to go off the board and then just for myself, it felt like, okay, this is closure to that chapter and now it's time to move on to the next.
These three guys are where they need to be.
"They're in great positions and also a little bit of, I guess, just thinking back to what other people said about some of those guys and some of our competitors and when you're recruiting what's being said about you when they're recruiting against you. And so a little bit of it was probably a little bit of pettiness on my part, but it just felt great to have that known slide to do what others thought, you know, was crazy and for it to work.
And so, yeah, it was just it was just a final. It was like a culmination of all that.”
May said he’d seen enough draft nights to expect at least one of Michigan’s prospects to slip, and he pointed back to Danny Wolf as part of that thinking. He believed Wolf could have been a lottery pick in 2025 before he fell into the 20s.
Instead, all three Wolverines came off the board in the opening round, and for May, that made the moment feel complete. He called it a closing of the chapter, with the three players landing exactly where they belonged.
May spent just two seasons in Ann Arbor, but in that short time he changed the direction of the program. He took over a team that had won eight games the year before and pushed it to the Sweet 16, then got Michigan back on the college basketball map.
His departure stunned fans, though it was a move he had wanted to make, and he has never hidden his interest in the NBA. Mike Boynton Jr. now leads the Wolverines, stepping into a job with plenty of pressure and a roster with real talent.
May may not be on the sideline this season, but the impact of his coaching will still be felt with Michigan’s 2026-27 group.
In Other News...
Dusty May Finally Opened Up About His Sudden Michigan Exit
Dusty May was back in Ann Arbor recently for a hip procedure, and the timing also gave him a chance to talk publicly about how quickly his Michigan tenure ended. In an interview with Brian Boesch, the former Wolverines coach looked back on a stretch that moved faster than anyone expected, even after he had just guided Michigan to a national title.
May said the shift came after the championship run, when the NBA came calling and the Dallas Mavericks made their pitch. He pointed to the leadership in Dallas, the young core on the roster and the chance to coach at that level as major factors, a combination strong enough to pull him into a move that arrived earlier than he had originally planned. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Chasing Another High-Upside Defensive Line Project
Michigan has kept leaning into high-upside defensive line bets, and Jeremiah Mark is the latest name to surface on the 2027 board. A former basketball player who is still relatively new to football recruiting, Mark has already started drawing multiple Power Five offers, which is why his rise has begun to attract the attention of major programs across the country. Michigans recent commitment from four-star edge rusher Ifeanyi Emedobi, another player with limited football experience, fits the same mold and shows the staff is clearly willing to bet on traits as much as polish.
The next step in that pursuit will come with a game-day visit, as Michigan plans to bring Mark in for a closer look in an atmosphere that should give him a feel for the programs pitch and development track. For a staff that has already shown a willingness to chase raw, toolsy defensive linemen early, the visit is another chance to make an impression before the recruiting battle gets even busier. Mark is also making the rounds at several major conference schools, so Michigan will need that visit to land well if it wants to stay in the mix. [Read more 🡒]
Bryce Underwood Just Landed In A Heated Big Ten QB Debate
The preseason Big Ten quarterback conversation is already getting testy, and Michigans Bryce Underwood is right in the middle of it. Todd McShay and Josh Pate turned in sharply different quarterback rankings, with McShay bristling at where Pate slotted UCLAs Nico Iamaleava and Underwood among the conferences top passers. The disagreement comes down to philosophy as much as personnel, with one side leaning on what has already been shown on the field and the other trying to project what these quarterbacks can become.
For Michigan fans, Underwoods spot in the debate is a sign of how quickly his name has entered a bigger conversation. The freshman season is the backdrop here, and so is the broader uncertainty around how to weigh upside against proven production in a league that is always eager to argue about quarterbacks. Iamaleavas recent career moves and uneven performance only add another layer to the discussion, but the real tension is whether rankings like these should reward present-day rsum or long-term expectation. [Read more 🡒]