Dusty May has a superpower and it's not what people think it is.
Rivals will say that his superpower is buying players from the transfer portal. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
May, who just finished winning a national championship in his second season as Michigan basketball head coach, has an extraordinary talent for finding players in the transfer portal who have yet to reach their potential.
There are examples in each of the past two seasons. May unlocked the potential of Danny Wolf, putting the ball in his hands more and helping him develop into a first-round pick.
Wolf was better under May than he was or would have been anywhere else. The same was true for Aday Mara, Morez Johnson, and Elliot Cadeau. Even Yaxel Lendeborg became a better player.
Yaxel would have been a late first-round pick in last year's draft. Now, he might be a lottery pick. He played center at UAB and was a three at Michigan, guarding poinnt guards at times.
Mara started one game for UCLA in the 2024-25 season. He was wasting away on the bench. I figured fatigue was an issue, but it wasn't at Michigan. Mara went from 13 minutes a night to 23. He was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, while his effective field-goal percentage improved from 59.0 to 67.3.
In the two seasons prior, Mara had 49 assists. This past season, he was credited with 97 for Michigan basketball to go along with a league-leading 103 blocks. Morez Johnson was another, who came off the bench for Illinois in 2024-25 (just eight starts), but is now viewed as a first-round pick. He even shot 34 percent from 3-point range on 35 attempts, which doesn't seem like a fluke, considering he shot 78.2 percent at the free-throw line.
Then, you have Elliot Cadeau, who went from a liability at North Carolina to the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. Fans want to say Dusty May "bought a championship."
Dusty May's transfer portal superpower
Nothing could be further from the truth. He's elite at bringing the best out of players, especially in players who haven't reached their ceiling. Yaxel was a top-of-the-market player, but Michigan didn't have the highest offer for him.
The rest of the transfers weren't top-10 guys. 247 Sports had Morez 26th, Mara 46th, and Cadeau 60th. Yet, they all played like top-10 transfers.
May deserves credit for that, and that's why landing Moustapha Thiam, a 7-foot-2 center out of the transfer portal from Cincinnati, who is visiting Michigan on Monday, would be perfect.
Thiam is a high-level player. He hasn't reached his ceiling, yet, on either end of the floor. He averaged 12.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks last season. He also blocked 2.6 shots per game for UCF in 2024-25.
Thiam shot 52 percent overall last season and has made 38 3-pointers in two seasons (29 percent). The raw ability jumps out at you. If there was an ideal Aday Mara replacement in the portal, Thiam is him, and based on what Dusty May has done with Cadeau, Wolf, Yaxel, Mara, and Morez, why wouldn't you choose Michigan?
If Thiam does, May will get a chance to show off his superpower once again.
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