Dusty May Plans To Use Two Point Guards Simultaneously, Praised Rubin Jones

Michigan’s basketball program is going to look wholly different next season, and Dusty May has a host of new, inventive ideas in store for the Wolverines.

U-M's new men's basketball head coach Dusty May speaks during introductory press conference at Junge / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

During Michigan head coach Dusty May’s press conference on Tuesday, one aspect of his personal basketball profile became very clear— he thinks about the game of basketball through creative and inventive avenues.

For example, Brandon Brown covered one of the preeminent questions for the Wolverines basketball team with its now-assembled roster: Does Michigan plan to play Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, both legitimate 7-footers, at the same time? Apparently, the answer to that is yes. 

Along those same lines, May revealed that his guard-dominant transfer portal search was no mistake and certainly no accident. As opposed to traditional offenses that feature one main ball handler, May likes for his programs to have multiple point guards on the court at once to help give his teams more playmaking options when pressed. So, those two caveats begin to paint an intriguing picture of what U-M basketball could look like next season. Perhaps Michigan trots out a lineup with a pair of point guards, a wing player like Roddy Gayle Jr. on the outside and two more 7-footers for opponents to fend with on the blocks. Simply put, May has endless options on how to organize his squad next year, and he seems keen to explore each of those paths.

Take former North Texas guard Rubin Jones as another case study in what May values from his collection of hoopers. 

“The reason I wanted to bring him in is so that I didn’t have to play against him anymore,” May said. “He is a throwback player where he doesn’t care about anything other than winning.  And he's got a great EQ, his self awareness, his ability to adapt to whatever team he's on and I guess just be a chameleon. If you need defense, it's time to guard. If you need shooting, he's an effective three-point shooter. We've got to help him get better finishing around the rim. That was one area we thought we can help him with. But his unselfishness— and these are all things I'm talking about offensively because we all love to watch good offense, but defensively he played with a torn hamstring the last half of this past season, a torn hamstring! And we thought he was the best perimeter offender in our league, and our league is a top 10 league, the American Conference. We had good players. We thought he was the most impactful guarding defender in the league, and when you have that ability to shoot and play pick  and roll, he's playing the point guard, he’s played the three. And so he's another guy we're able to slide up or down and use in a lot of different ways. And we like to have two point guards on the court at all times anyway, just for decision making. It's more difficult for the defense to take away the head of the snake.”

Out of that entire breakdown, which was a thorough, glowing assessment of Jones’ game, May showed that he views basketball through a lens that other coaches may not. Additionally, May mentioned that he’s gone through a similar roster-filling mission when he took over the post at FAU, so this is a familiar situation for him to be in. 

READ MORE: LOOK: Two Michigan Basketball Starters Announced?

And given May’s success in turning the FAU program into a winning outfit, Michigan’s basketball program seems to be headed in a markedly positive direction. 

What do you think of Michigan head coach Dusty May’s roster building efforts so far? Which aspect of the team’s play will you be most closely monitoring when the season tips off? Let us know and follow @EricJRutter, @mlounsberry_SI and @BSB_Wolverine on Twitter for more Michigan Athletics updates at Wolverine Digest.