How Dusty May’s model fits Michigan’s transfer class

There is no denying the talent in Michigan’s four-man transfer portal class.­

In the NBA Draft, Yaxel Lendeborg

might have been selected in the first round. In addition to Elliot Cadeau, a former five-star and All-American who started for two years at North Carolina, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara were already significant Big Ten players. The majority of sources claim that the Wolverines have one of the sport’s top two or three transfer portal hauls. Those same outlets promptly scrutinize the compatibility of Michigan’s portal class, citing the acquisition of three bigs who are perceived as unable to coexist and the addition of a point guard with an unreliable three-point shooting ability.

While those evaluations may not be incorrect in every single instance, they fail to consider a crucial component of fit: each of the four new transfers fits in well with the game elements that Dusty May has stressed since coming to Michigan — ideas that we have been talking about since our Dusty 101 series last offseason.

Paint touches

Without widely available player tracking data, there’s no perfect stat to measure paint touches in college basketball. One functional stand-in is an aggregation of Synergy’s “drive” stats, which include any drive (right or left) off of a ball screen, isolation, or spot-up.

When you aggregate all of the drives in Synergy’s database, Michigan ranked 16th of 18 Big Ten teams in drives per game at 10.6 per game, ahead of only Indiana and UCLA.