At least among players who aren’t expected to enter the NBA Draft, Wake Forest transfer Juke Harris is the top remaining transfer on the portal market over three weeks after it officially opened and nearly a week after it closed to new entries. As Yaxel Lendeborg did an offseason ago, Harris, as a big playmaking wing, drew Dusty May’s attention, but this time, his efforts seem to have gone for naught.Â
After a meeting in California on Wednesday, Harris appears destined to head to Knoxville, joining Rick Barnes’s Volunteers. With Elliot Cadeau likely to return and Trey McKenney poised for a larger role, Michigan will have plenty of playmaking, but without Harris, there is one thing the Wolverines are still missing. And with the portal mostly dried up, he may be forced to find it from within.Â
Michigan needs a reliable wing shooter to make its roster fit
Once a practitioner of small-ball, May has been on the bleeding edge of college basketball’s trend of overwhelming opponents with size in the front court. His three-big lineup with Aday Mara, Morez Johnson Jr., and Yaxel Lendeborg streamrolled its way to the national championship, and whether or not Mara and Johnson return, his transfer pickups of Moustapha Thiam, Jalen Reed, and JP Estrella are intended to have a similar effect.Â
How well it performs, though, and how often May can play three bigs together in the 2026-27 season, will likely be determined by how well Michigan can shoot it. Lendeborg’s development into a knockdown three-point shooter was the skeleton key that unlocked the three-big lineup and made Michigan’s spacing viable last season.Â
Harris, though a 33 percent three-point shooter, would have provided a similar lift alongside any combination of bigs while adding real positional size at 6-foot-7. Without him, Michigan has a real question mark at small forward.Â
Will five-star freshman Brandon McCoy be the answer? Maybe. He projects as a high-level defender with guard skills and three-level scoring ability, but at 6-foot-5, Michigan would essentially be playing three guards, and his biggest swing skill is the three-point shot. If it doesn’t come along, Michigan will be sacrificing some of its size advantage and could still have the spacing issues many expected to be an issue last season.Â
Along with McCoy, Oscar Goodman, and freshmen Lincoln Cosby and Ricky Liburd could factor into the rotation on the wing, but none are a sure thing. There isn’t much talent left on the portal market, so Michigan may need a homegrown solution. Either way, May needs to find reliable shooting on the wing to mount a proper title defense.Â
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