New-look Michigan opens title defense vs. Oakland

For defending national champion Michigan Wolverines, what happened during the offseason seemed to dampen the euphoria of winning its second national title in program history back in April.

After defeating UConn for the championship, Michigan saw three key members of that team -- Morez Johnson, Yaxel Lendeborg and Aday Mara -- selected ninth, 11th and 12th, respectively, in the 2026 NBA Draft. Johnson and Mara had eligibility remaining to return to school but opted for the NBA.

The biggest departure of all was Dusty May, who left for the NBA to become the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.

So when No. 16 Michigan opens its title defense with a contest against Oakland Golden Grizzlies on Nov. 2 in Ann Arbor, there will be a lot that's new given the defections from the championship team.

Taking over at head coach is Mike Boynton Jr., who was May's right-hand man as an assistant the last two years and formerly the head coach at Oklahoma State.

"It's very natural for people to think about last year's team as they watch this year's team, mostly because it was so good," Boynton said. "There's nothing really to make it a negative about. The reality, though, is there are lot of people on this team that weren't a part of it. I think this team needs to try to continue to just -- I don't want to say ignore it because it's not avoidable -- but focus their attention on trying to become the best version of ourselves."

The good news for Michigan is that it welcomes back three guards who were instrumental to last year's championship team, Elliot Cadeau, Trey McKenney and Roddy Gayle Jr., who was just granted a fifth year of eligibility by a court ruling.

"I feel our culture is the same," Cadeau said. "I feel like our offense and defense is pretty much the same exact way. I feel like we'll look just the same as last year with different players."

Headlining the newcomers for Michigan is center Moustapha Thiam, a transfer from Cincinnati, and forward J.P. Estrella, a transfer from Tennessee.

Michigan did receive a blow in the offseason when five-star freshman Brandon McCoy suffered an ACL injury on a European trip and was ruled out for the season.

The first test for Michigan will be in-state foe Oakland, which was picked to finish fourth in the Horizon League's preseason poll.

The Golden Grizzlies will play a brutal nonconference schedule that also will include games at Alabama, Boise State, Purdue and Houston.

"We made some progression steps, and that's good to see, especially at this time of year," Oakland head coach Greg Kampe said. "You want to do that. The gauntlet that we have in front of us now, it's going to be hard to make progression steps."

It will be a relatively new roster for Oakland, which only returns two players from last season's roster, Nassim Mashhour and Warren Marshall IV.

Belal El Shakery (New Hampshire), Chris Fields Jr. (Campbell) and RJ Taylor (Northern Iowa) are among the notable additions via the transfer portal.

"We've spent most of our time defensively, trying to learn the zone and get better defensively," Kampe said. "We've not put the amount of time and effort into the offense. I'm fine with that."

--Field Level Media