2025-26 Big Ten basketball season preview: Michigan Wolverines

With the start of college basketball season in early November, Inside the Hall is taking a team-by-team look at the Big Ten and a player-by-player look at IU basketball’s roster.

Today, our team previews conclude with Michigan.

Previously: Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, Washington, Nebraska, Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, USC, Michigan State, Ohio State, UCLA, Illinois, Purdue

After producing 27 wins and a Sweet Sixteen appearance last winter in Ann Arbor, Michigan is viewed as a Big Ten and national contender entering the 2025-26 season under Dusty May.

The 48-year-old May, an Indiana native and IU graduate, already has a Final Four on his resume at Florida Atlantic and hopes to take the Wolverines to Lucas Oil Stadium and the Final Four next spring.

The pieces are certainly in place for Michigan to challenge Purdue for the Big Ten title and earn a strong seed in the 2026 NCAA tournament.

Michigan graduated Vlad Goldin, lost Danny Wolf to the NBA draft and Tre Donaldson to the transfer portal, but retained several key pieces and loaded up in the portal last spring.

The trio of Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara will lead the revamped Michigan frontcourt.

Lendeborg arrives from UAB after testing the NBA draft waters. The 6-foot-9 graduate student averaged 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocked shots and 1.7 steals in 33.6 minutes per game last season for the Blazers.

Johnson played his freshman season at Illinois, where he averaged seven points and 6.7 rebounds in 17.6 minutes per game, primarily off the bench. At 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, he’s aggressive on the glass and his production should climb with increased minutes.

The 7-foot-3 Mara will likely come off the bench after spending the previous two seasons at UCLA. A native of Zaragoza, Spain, Mara is a highly skilled center who averaged 6.4 points and four rebounds per game last season. Few teams will have an answer in the post for Mara.

With Donaldson’s transfer to Miami (FL), Michigan landed North Carolina transfer Elliott Cadeau to take over that position. The 6-foot-1 Cadeau has elite playmaking potential but needs to become more consistent in his junior season. Cadeau averaged a solid line last season: 9.4 points, 6.2 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.1 steals, but shot just 44.5 percent from the field and 33.7 percent on 3s.

The backcourt rotation returns senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. and graduate student Nimari Burnett, one of the best glue guys in the league.

Gayle Jr. had an up-and-down season last winter in Ann Arbor after transferring from Ohio State. A talented scorer, the 6-foot-5 Gayle has already surpassed the 1,000-career points mark and thrives in transition. He had 19 double-figure scoring games last season for the Wolverines, including a season-high 26 points against Texas A&M in the 2025 NCAA tournament.

Burnett started all 37 games last season for Michigan and made a team-high 66 3-pointers while connecting at a 40 percent clip from distance. Now entering his sixth season of college basketball, the 6-foot-5 Burnett is a leader on and off the floor for Michigan.

The Wolverines also added McDonald’s All-American Trey McKenney, a 6-foot-4 freshman guard from Flint, Michigan. The 6-foot-4 McKenney was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Michigan for two straight seasons and is a tremendous scorer. Whether he cracks the starting lineup or comes off the bench, McKenney is too talented to keep out of the rotation.

Michigan also returns veteran forward Will Tschetter, a 6-foot-8 graduate student. Another Wolverine who knows his role and plays it well, Tschetter averaged 6.4 points and 2.4 rebounds last season while shooting 35.1 percent on 3s in 15.9 minutes per game.

Sophomore guard L.J. Cason is also back and should get a crack at backup guard minutes. The 6-foot-2 Cason beat out Justin Pippen for minutes last season and averaged 4.3 points in 11.8 minutes per game.

The rest of the roster is rounded out by three true freshmen and a redshirt freshman.

Winters Grady, a 6-foot-5 guard from Tualatin, Oregon, can fill it up from the perimeter and was a consensus top 100 recruit in the 2025 class.

Oscar Goodman sat out last season as a redshirt after arriving from the NBA Global Academy. The New Zealand native is 6-foot-7 and 235 pounds and should provide frontcourt depth.

Malick Kordel, a 7-foot-2 freshman from Germany, didn’t start playing competitive basketball until 2021 and will be a long-term developmental piece at the five spot.

Ricky Liburd was a late addition to the 2025 class out of Sagemont Prep in Florida. The 6-foot-4 guard is described as a “diamond in the rough” in his official bio on the Michigan Athletics site.

Overall, Michigan has the talent to go eight or nine players deep with little drop-off consistently. May has discussed extensively in the preseason the possibility of playing as many as 10 players and his roster is well-suited to do just that.

Bottom line: Entering the season, Michigan has the talent to compete with any team in the country. The Wolverines are playing an ambitious non-conference schedule and will be prepared for another competitive season in the Big Ten. Lendeborg has All-American potential and few teams will be able to match the size and versatility of the Michigan frontcourt.

Quotable: “I love our team, and I think we have a really high ceiling, and there’s nothing that makes me say we don’t have enough of this, or we don’t have enough of that to beat any team in the country on a given night. Now are there areas that we need to certainly improve on and continue improving on, absolutely. But I’m not going to sit here and say that we’re afraid of this team or afraid of that team. We’re going to try to compete with everyone we’re against, and we have very, very lofty goals, but that’s months and months away and hundreds and hundreds of hours of intentional work before it’s even worth discussing those things.” – May earlier this week at Michigan’s media day.

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