116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Seven-foot times two: Revived Michigan men’s basketball team hosts Hawkeyes
Wolverines have gone from 8-24 last season to 7-1 with some very good wins under new head coach Dusty May, who has a pair of 7-footers playing very well for him.
Dec. 6, 2024 11:10 am, Updated: Dec. 6, 2024 12:18 pm
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
Michigan presents a tall order Saturday for the Iowa men’s basketball team.
The Wolverines host the Hawkeyes Saturday at 1 p.m., with both teams fresh off wins in their Big Ten-openers Tuesday. Iowa got a last-second 80-79 victory at home against Northwestern, while Michigan left Wisconsin with a 67-64 decision, the No. 11 Badgers’ first loss of the season.
Like Iowa, the Wolverines are 7-1 overall. They have won five straight games, four against teams from major basketball conferences and the last two against ranked clubs Xavier and Wisconsin.
Michigan is a virtually all-new team from a season ago when it was a dismal 8-24 overall and 3-17 in the Big Ten. Juwan Howard was replaced as coach by Dusty May, who had taken Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2023.
“He did really well before took his team to the Final Four,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Friday.
“When you take over a new job now, a lot of times you have a lot of new faces. And as we've seen, sometimes it works and sometimes it's a disaster. And he has really got those guys playing together. That's impressive.”
Just two players in May’s 9-man rotation were Wolverines last season. May brought 7-foot-1 Vladislav Goldin with him from FAU, and 7-footer Danny Wolf transferred from Yale.
They are called “Area 50-1” because Goldin has uniform No. 50 and Wolf is No. 1. Wolf averages a team-high 13 points, Goldin 11. Wolf is second in the Big Ten in rebounding with 9.5 per game. He blocked five shots at Wisconsin. Goldin, from Russia, leads the Wolverines in blocks with two per game.
“They’re big, but they’re also versatile,” McCaffery said.
Wolf is “a unique player in terms of almost being a point forward, plays point guard a lot of the time, gives him a lot of flexibility, especially in their running game. But then they can also hurt you down low.
“You don’t see a lot of pick-and-rolls with two 7-footers, but they execute it really well.”
A more-familiar face to the Hawkeyes is junior guard Roddy Gayle, who averaged 13.5 points last year at Ohio State and has played against Iowa five times.
The Hawkeyes will try to start their Big Ten season with two wins for the first time since they won their first seven league contests in 2015-16. McCaffery said sophomore forward Seydou Traore is unlikely to return to action from his ankle injury a week ago Tuesday.
Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com
Daily Newsletters