ROSEMONT, IL − Two years removed from finishing in the cellar of the Big Ten, Michigan basketball
ended the 2025-26 season as the first national champion from the Big Ten in more than a quarter century. The Wolverines put together the best season in program history, winning a program-record 37 games, setting a league record with seven wins by 40 points or more and largely steamrolling their way through the NCAA Tournament.So much of the heart of U-M's roster has departed, with coach Dusty May leaving for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and the star frontcourt trio of Morez Johnson Jr., Yaxel Lendeborg and Aday Mara also heading to the pros. Replacing May is his trusted former assistant – and architect of one of the best defenses in the country – Mike
Boynton Jr., who brought in another round of transfers to fuel the Wolverines' first national title defense since 1990.
"I feel like being the hunted now just adds another chip on our shoulder," point guard Elliot Cadeau said Thursday, Oct. 8, at Big Ten basketball media day. "We know we're going to get the best version of everybody every time we step on the court.
"People are gonna circle us on the calendar and it's just gonna make us be getter and have us be forced to step up."
Michigan lost six players from a nine-man rotation, but Boynton's team is far from devoid of talent.
The Wolverines return guards Cadeau and Trey McKenney, two preseason All-Big Ten first-teamers. They added a pair of proven bigs via the transfer portal: Moustapha Thiam (Cincinnati) and JP Estrella (Tennessee), looking to follow U-M's five previous frontcourt transfers who made it to the NBA after one season in Ann Arbor.
But perhaps the most consequential addition this year was the return of a a familiar face – Roddy Gayle Jr. The man known as "March Roddy" for his clutch play the past two years in the NCAA Tournament was seemingly out of eligibility, but a preliminary injunction will allow him to return for a fifth season, it appears (though the NCAA is expected to appear the New York court decision).
It's an addition that is all the more important given the Wolverines lost five-star freshman Brandon McCoy Jr. to a torn ACL during the team's final exhibition of its summer trip to Europe.
"I feel like it's definitely really big for us," Cadeau said. "Roddy and Brandon kind of have a similar play style so I feel like Roddy, in a sense, can kind of replace [what we lost with] Brandon."
This team's ceiling, however, could be determined by the team's depth.
The Wolverines expect Oscar Goodman, who played sparingly last year and Ricky Liburd, who redshirted, to play important roles. Boynton said both are firmly in the rotation. There's also the question of the impact freshmen can make, most notably McDonald's All-American Quinn Costello and four-star wing Joseph Hartmann.
Boynton and company did seemingly address another concern that lingered through the summer − a backup ball-handler behind Cadeau. Michigan landed Kenny Noland – who, like Gayle, won an injunction for a fifth year – after he led Columbia in scoring with 17.1 points per game in 2025-26. The 6-foot-2 guard also averaged 3.7 assists per game as the lead guard for the Lions. On Thursday, Cadeau called him a "sharp shooter" before joking he doesn't think he's ever seen him miss a free throw
"He's done a really good job since he got on campus," McKenney later said. "Handling the ball, getting us into sets, whatever that may look like, and he's definitely a really good shooter."
U-M is the defending national champion, but the Wolverines were recently picked in a preseason media poll to finish third ... in the Big Ten. That seeming lack of respect, Cadeau said, isn't new, noting out how few picked U-M to win the league a season ago.
It doesn't "matter to us as a team," he said.
"I mean, I love it," McKenney added. "They thought we wouldn't be able to start three bigs with Yax, Morez and Aday, and all that stuff looked funky to other people. So it's cool to kind of be the underdog in a sense and be picked third.
The schedule, like last season's (the toughest in the nation), is daunting. Games against perennial powers UConn, Louisville, Villanova, Marquette and Creighton are all on deck in the opening month and that's before league play.
Michigan had sky-high expectations for itself last season − ending practices by saying "April habits" in unison − but they start afresh this year.
With the exception of habits they've learned last year, this season has to be independent of last year's historic run, Boynton said.
"We've got to understand we're going to hear this sort of messaging about defending a national championship all year," Boynton said. "Internally, we have to have the mindset ... [people like] JP and Mustafa aren't defending a national championship, right?
"The mindset has to be how does this team create its own legacy. ... Our job ... [is] to get people talking less about last year's team and talk more about what this year's team is actually accomplishing."
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball knows it will be a target: 'Gonna make us better'
