It was a busy weekend in downtown Detroit, with the city being filled with runners participating in the Detroit Free Press Marathon, spanning across the city and parts of Canada.
Marathon running is all about pacing yourself and keeping a consistent speed. The saying, after all, is “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” The Michigan men’s basketball team was not partaking in a marathon in Sunday’s win over Oakland in a charity exhibition match at Little Caesars Arena in that benefitted Forgotten Harvest.
With how much conditioning the Wolverines did this offseason, you would have thought they were training for a marathon. And watching them in action, they love to play at a quick pace. A squad full of new faces looked as if they already had a lot of chemistry — junior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. attributed that to one key element of head coach Dusty May’s practices.
“That’s just one of the beauties of what our practices have been looking like recently,” Gayle said after the game. “Just a ton of live play, so we’ve been able to learn from our mistakes and be more connected on the court.”
When media was invited to watch Michigan’s Pro Day, there was one clear theme to Michigan’s practice: competition. 5-on-5 work, 3-on-3 drills and 1-on-1 challenges took up the majority of practices. Competing that much in practice has been well received by the players.
“We love that,” freshman guard Durral “Phat Phat” Brooks said when asked about playing more 5-on-5 in practice. “A lot of the other teams in the country, like 90-95 percent of teams do three-hour practices where they’re all drills. But with Dusty and them, they come in, hour and a half max, cause that’s how you get better is playing together, so that’s way better.”
“You’re really going to get your reps up playing against five people,” freshman guard Justin Pippen said in response to Brooks’ comment.
It appears there are multiple benefits to 5-on-5 play in practice for the Wolverines. Not only does it help with conditioning in that it simulates a game, it also helps a new group of players develop chemistry quickly.
“I do like to (play 5-on-5 in practice) best,” senior guard Nimari Burnett said. “I like to get up and down, and it really tests where your chemistry is on the court, offensively and defensively. I think we have a lot more room to grow, even though we have grown over the last 5-6 weeks as a team with playing 5-on-5.”
Playing fast has been the plan since May got the job, saying at his introductory press conference he wants this team to get up and down the floor quickly, a sentiment he’s echoed all offseason long.
“Fast-paced, energetic guys that want to share the ball and play together. All five guys are connected on both sides of the ball. It’s more like jazz, where they are playing off each other, reading off each other,” May said back in March. “It needs to be free flowing, but we don’t want the defense to ever get set. We shoot probably too many threes, we finish at the rim, we play modern basketball, we do use analytics and the metrics. We find the best way to play, and it’s usually centered around what your best players do well, and what do the other guys bring as far as skill set and then you mold.”
Against Oakland, those 5-on-5 practices gave the Wolverines plenty of reps to play at the quick pace that May wants them to thrive. In Sunday’s win, junior guard Tre Donaldson was one of the main beneficiaries of that quick play, scoring a few easy buckets when the Wolverines pushed the ball up the floor.
“Yes sir, it’s fun,” Tre Donaldson said when Maize n Brew asked him if he liked playing at a quick pace. “Just to see us play fast, it opens up the court so much, and if they slow us down, they slow us down. But coach preaches to me to play fast and allow other guys to get open. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and it allows us to be fun and excited to watch, just a lot of threes.”
Burnett was around for practices run under Juwan Howard last season, and from his perspective, these practices have been much different.
“It’s a whole new change,” Burnett said. “The style we play is different than the style we played last year. It’s a different pace, we do everything quickly, we go from one drill to another very quickly. I think that mindset will help us in games. Being engaged and getting to the next thing because in basketball, you have to go to the next thing, offense to defense, defense to offense.”
