The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1538670
SEPTEMBER 2025 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 45 ❱ MICHIGAN BASKETBALL "He actually pulled out his laptop and said, 'This kid.'" And I said, "Oh, that's Trey McKinney. He's a freshman from Michigan. And he said, 'He's a fresh- man? I would have thought he was a fifth-year grad transfer that you guys found.'" The maturity, physicality, pace and poise he plays with have been great, May added, and his work ethic "might be as good as anyone that I've ever been around." "He just loves to work. Winters Grady is the same way," May continued. "He loves to be in the gym. It's almost as if we're anticipating having to kick those guys out of the gym and out of the weight room." "I was in Switzerland this summer. I checked in on both of them, and Trey was running hills with a sled when I checked in on him on the Fourth of July. Winters, they said, finished his fourth workout of the day, where the coaches said he was in the weight room and he was running on the football field, and he'd already shot that morning. Then, he was on the gun that night. Those are the guys we love having in the program. They love ball. They love to work." That's one of the reasons they'll be successful in anything they do, he added. The "raw gap sacrifice and depth is going to be a real weapon for this team," he noted, but it's the shooting that could determine the ceiling, along with one other factor. "When you just go back and look at the Final Four teams, the Houstons, the Floridas, their first-shot offense, obvi- ously, it's good," May said. "But what makes them unique is that they go get it when they miss. I think we have the ability that if we don't shoot it well this year, then we've got to figure out an- other way to win. "I'd love to put together the perfect roster every year and this all clicks on all cylinders. But that's not realistic. That is a question mark. We're all aware, but we're not sitting here saying, 'I don't think we're going to play this year. We don't have it. We didn't sign enough shooters.' Trey McKinney, Winters Grady … those guys are good shooters. They haven't done it before in college, but we signed them because we believe that they can and they will." Time will tell, but if early indica- tions are to be believed, they should help May's second Michigan team im- mensely in 2025-26. PUNDITS PREDICT U-M WILL FINISH SECOND IN THE BIG TEN IN 2025 College basketball Big Ten and NCAA analyst Andy Katz is respected as an expert in the industry and a most listen when he offers his opinion. That's good news for Michigan given he picked the Wolverines to finish second behind Pur- due in his preseason rankings. Oregon, UCLA, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michi- gan State rounded out his top seven. "Field of 68" analyst Rob Dauster agreed, giving the Wolverines an A+ for their offseason moves. "I don't know what else they could've done," he praised. "Maybe you could've gotten a higher-rated point guard, but with how quickly that moved, it says to me that they targeted [North Caro- lina transfer] Elliot Cadeau when they were looking at him in the portal, with the number of point guards that were available. "You've got a potential first-team All-American in [forward] Yaxel Lend- eborg, who said no to being a top-20- ish pick in the NBA Draft. True story — Yaxel might've been picked before [former Wolverine] Danny Wolf, had he kept his name in the NBA Draft this year. You get him coming in, you get [freshman guard] Trey McKenney com- ing in, and you have some retention and roster turnover with some of these guys coming back. I don't know how you can realistically have asked for this to have been better." ❑ ❱ 2025-26 Michigan Men's Basketball Schedule Date Opponent Time^ (TV) Nov. 11 vs. Wake Forest* TBA Nov. 14 at TCU TBA Nov. 24 vs. San Diego State# 10:30 p.m. (TruTV) Nov. 25 vs. Auburn# 8:30 p.m. (TNT) Nov. 26 TBD# TBA Dec. 9 VILLANOVA TBA Feb. 21 vs. Duke% TBA Mar. 11-15 Big Ten Tournament! TBA ^ All times Eastern * Wolverine-Deacon Challenge, in Detroit # Players Era Championship, in Las Vegas % Duel in the District, in Washington, D.C. ! Big Ten Tournament, in Chicago 2025-26 BIG TEN OPPONENTS (Dates and times TBA) Home Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rutgers, UCLA, USC and Wisconsin Home-and-Home Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State Away Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Northwestern, Oregon, Purdue and Washington Freshman guard Trey McKenney, a McDonald's All-American, has been an early standout in U-M summer workouts. "He just loves to work," said head coach Dusty May. "[Freshman wing] Winters Grady is the same way." PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY