{"id":67045,"date":"2025-07-16T11:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T11:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67045\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T11:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T11:09:08","slug":"these-2-michigan-basketball-freshmen-are-already-impressing-dusty-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67045\/","title":{"rendered":"These 2 Michigan Basketball freshmen are already impressing Dusty May"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan Wolverines<\/a> head coach Dusty May has lived in the transfer portal through his first two offseasons in Ann Arbor, emphasizing established talent with a supplement of high school players.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Michigan is bringing in three high school prospects that are hoping to carve out a role for themselves on a team filled with veteran talent. Luckily for the newcomers, the coaching staff and their teammates are already taking notice, and Michigan could have a couple of future stars on its hands.<\/p>\n

May\u2019s 2025 recruiting class consisted of five-star guard\/forward Trey McKenney, four-star guard Winters Grady and three-star forward Ricky Liburd. The three recruits could not be more different from each other, but the class as a whole is making waves early on.<\/p>\n

As May spoke to the media on Sunday, he mentioned the hard work the freshmen are putting in.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Trey) has been great and his work capacity might be as good as anyone that I\u2019ve ever been around,\u201d May said during Sunday\u2019s availability. \u201cHe just loves to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinters Grady, he\u2019s the same way, loves to be in the gym … I was in Switzerland, I checked in on both of them, and Trey was running hills with a sled and Winters finished his fourth workout of the day. So just those are the guys we love having. A program that loves ball, that loves to work … that work ethic and those traits will lead to success down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKenney comes to Ann Arbor as the 21st ranked player in the country. The McDonald\u2019s All-American made a name for himself in high school, averaging 23.8 points, 10.2 rebounds and three assists during his senior season.<\/p>\n

Now, he is not only catching the attention of his own coaches, but he is catching the eye of other experts in the field. May and other coaches share practice film with each other to bounce ideas off each other and discuss each team\u2019s players. One of the guys he sent film to was impressed with McKenney, who thought he was a fifth-year player.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The film observer) said, \u2018(McKenney is) a freshman? … Man, I would have thought he\u2019s a fifth-year grad transfer that you guys found from somewhere in the MAC,\u2019\u201d May recalled. \u201cI mean, just the level of maturity, physicality, pace, poise he plays with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other coaches aren\u2019t the only ones that are taking notice.<\/p>\n

During player availability on Sunday, McKenney\u2019s teammates echoed May\u2019s statements, as UAB transfer Yaxel Ledeborg said he doesn\u2019t \u201cconsider him a freshman at all.\u201d And Nimari Burnett said he has made a really good impression since he came to campus.<\/p>\n

Luckily for May, it doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

Unlike McKenney, Grady was a late bloomer in the recruiting process. He wasn\u2019t getting much attention until he reached high school, which is when he quickly changed his mindset and wanted to be a great shooter.<\/p>\n

Coming from the state of Florida, Grady is a catch-and-shoot specialist that purely \u201cjust wants to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna do whatever it takes to win, and obviously in my freshman year, I think that I\u2019m gonna be able to knock down shots and play defense at a high level,\u201d Grady said. \u201cSo that\u2019s really my goal right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much like McKenney, Grady has put in the work to be in the position he is in now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want to be great, and (during) COVID, all I was doing was (going to) the gym with my dad two or three times a day,\u201d Grady said. \u201cI love hooping. I just naturally kind of hover around in the gym even if I\u2019m not doing anything. It\u2019s kind of my escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ledeborg described Grady as \u201ca human bailout,\u201d explaining that when he doesn\u2019t have anywhere to go with the basketball, he can trust Grady will be ready to take the necessary shot.<\/p>\n

The looming question will be if McKenney and Grady can carve out enough minutes in a stacked lineup to be effective during their first year under May. However, May said no starting job is penciled in during the summer and every starting job and minute off the bench is up for grabs.<\/p>\n

It is apparent the Wolverines are still lacking trustworthy shooters from deep, carrying over just Burnett from last season as the reliable deep threat, while also bringing in Eliot Cadeau (41 percent from three last season at North Carolina). Nonetheless, McKenney and Grady have shown they can shoot, and they will receive every opportunity to show it at Michigan.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrey McKinney, Winters Grady, those guys are good shooters and they haven\u2019t done it before (at this level),\u201d May said. \u201cBut we signed them because we believe that they will and they can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan Wolverines head coach Dusty May has lived in the transfer portal through his first two offseasons in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[25661,24688,1339,3254,47475,47473,204,47474,3252,11395,214,3255,47476,3253,1317,1337,1338,62,47472,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-67045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-already","9":"tag-are","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-brew","12":"tag-dusty","13":"tag-freshmen","14":"tag-front-page","15":"tag-impressing","16":"tag-maize","17":"tag-may","18":"tag-michigan","19":"tag-michigan-mens-basketball","20":"tag-michigan-mens-basketball-news","21":"tag-n","22":"tag-ncaa","23":"tag-ncaa-basketball","24":"tag-ncaabasketball","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-these","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114862605242084880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}