The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1542067
34 THE WOLVERINE ❱ JANUARY 2026 shoot it in practice, and as long as he's shooting step-in threes, I think every- one is confident. Both times, [junior guard] Elliot [Cadeau] put pressure on the rim, on the paint and drew the five, so it wasn't as if he had to make a split- second decision. "If teams have to be a little more skit- tish about helping at the rim, then El- liot's going to get more layups, and Yax is going to get more layups, as you saw in the second half. It's a chain reaction. We want all five guys on the court to be capable of knocking down threes. Even the guys that are not shooting them now in the games are shooting them in practice every day. The end goal is to be able to beat even the best teams, and to win in any situation. To do that, we need to have a whole Swiss Army knife of weapons. We're still develop- ing that." Johnson continues fine-tuning his power game, but it's a little like pol- ishing mirrors on a tank with NASCAR quickness. When Johnson catches the ball down low, he appears almost im- possible to stop. And it's rare that he doesn't make the catch when fed, ac- cording to his coach. "He loves contact, first and fore- most," May noted. "He wins every catch. Our guys have a lot of confi- dence to throw him the ball. If it's a 50-50 ball, a 60-40 ball, a 70-30 ball and he's at a disadvantage, he typically wins those catches and turns them into baskets. " T h e re 's t r u s t t h a t's d eve l o p e d throughout the season amongst one or two guys, or even teams, and 'Rez has certainly earned the trust of his team- mates — that he's going to play the right way, play with efficiency. "At one point, he was 9 of 11. He's not hunting shots. He's trying to play good basketball, and that's probably what I, as a member of this team, am most pleased with. It's how unselfish our guys are. I don't think it's common. Part of it, too, is the mutual respect and the shared sacrifice amongst our group. I'm pleased with that aspect." For the record, Johnson doesn't ex- pect to get stopped much down low, ei- ther. You'd never hear him say it unless pressed, but the mindset is there. "I haven't said it out loud, but yeah," he acknowledged. "I work on my game every day. I'm very confident in it." It's the same with the threes, although that's a much more recent development. "I've been working on it the whole offseason," Johnson said. "The coaching staff believes in me, and my teammates believe in me shooting that shot, and I just let it fly. I'm confident. I work on it every day. "I'm not trying to force it or anything, but if it's there, I'm going to shoot it. As long as I've got the support from the staff, that's the biggest thing for me, and they've got confidence in me." That confidence from the staff, and the steady, guiding hand of May are big reasons Johnson settled in for a really strong run in Ann Arbor. He could have gone anywhere in America to play bas- ketball this season. He chose Crisler, and May. "The coaching staff. Dusty and his guys," Johnson said, when asked why Michigan. "Those guys, I felt like they were genuine. I didn't feel like they had Johnson, a 6-foot-9, 250-pound sophomore forward, transferred to Michigan after a year at Illinois. Through 10 games, he was averaging 12.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game — second on the team in both metrics through mid-December. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL