Dusty May reveals major key to looming Michigan-Michigan State rivalry clash

02/17/2025 05:40 PM

Michigan basketball head coach Dusty May has orchestrated an incredible turnaround in his first year with the Wolverines. Michigan finished with just eight wins last year, and they moved on from Juwan Howard following last year. Now, May has the Wolverines sitting at 20-5 and in first place in the Big Ten with just six games left in the regular season. Up next: a massive rivalry clash against Michigan State; the second place team in the conference.

Big Ten basketball is a lot of fun when both Michigan and Michigan State are good, and they are currently the top two teams in the Big Ten. The Wolverines and Spartans will meet up on Friday for a huge clash in Ann Arbor, and Dusty May knows that transition defense will be a major key to the contest.

“We don’t do it as well as them,” May said on Monday, according to an article from Rivals. “We tried to emphasize running the floor like they do and some other elite teams that do it, but so hopefully it’s not where we’re going from you know at the D to an A, you know. We probably do it at a B, they do it at an A, so we’ve got to get a little bit better with the way we play, and hopefully we prepare. But getting great shots on offense and not having that lag time of relaxing because something went well or dropping your head because something went poorly because the next thing is gonna happen very quickly against Michigan State.”

This is May’s first time going up against Michigan State since coming to Ann Arbor. In this matchup, we have the winningest head coach in Big Ten history who has been coaching in this rivalry for 30 years going up against a coach that is brand new to it.

“I mean every game I watched, it was ‘you could’ it was obvious the the amount of intensity and passion for the game and it was typically two really good basketball teams going toe-to-toe competing and usually both of them were in championship contention so it was a lot of fun,” May said in regard to what he has seen in the rivalry. “It seemed like it’s always a big nationally televised game either during the week or a Saturday or Sunday and if it was on, I was usually gonna try to check it out.”

Dusty May has been hearing about a lot of former players coming back for this game, and the attention that it is receiving tells the story about how much this one means in the mitten state.

“I speak frequently to a lot of the former players, and to be honest, I was thinking it was odd because I started getting texts about a week ago about players, and people were coming in for the MSU game,” May said. “And I was saying, you know we play OSU first like we’re on the road in Columbus, so yeah, people are obviously very excited. We know what it means, but we also we have to play we have to focus on us playing really good basketball against a quality team.”

The Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry is as big as it gets in sports, but it isn’t quite the same in basketball. Michigan took down the Buckeyes in Columbus on Sunday, and the page was immediately turned to the Michigan State game.

“Well, I almost felt guilty that I immediately turned the page last night,” May said. “I think that I didn’t even realize that the staff was laughing because I think I was walking back from doing press and I was talking about one of the actions how we’re gonna defend this action that Michigan State runs. And so in the locker room, though you know Ian Burns, Harrison Hochberg, those guys are — Michigan is very important to them. Jace Howard, the guys that grew up, were already talking about this game on Friday and how it felt good to win a rivalry game on the road in Columbus, but they were already turning the page as well with all focus turned in towards the Spartans on Friday.”

Friday’s game between Michigan and Michigan State is as big as it gets, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. The Wolverines and Spartans will get things going at 8:00 PM ET from the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, and the game will be airing on Fox.

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