Michigan HC Dusty May weighs in on plan for Jalen Reed, and a Trey McKenney leap

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines are weeks removed from winning a national championship, but haven’t gotten to bask in it while the coaching staff finalizes the roster.

Add in that the frontcourt needed to be entirely rebuilt, and the staff has had its work cut out for them. Assuming Aday Mara and Morez Johnson Jr. both stay in the NBA Draft, Michigan has ready-made replacements in transfers Moustapha Thiam and J.P. Estrella. Another addition raised a few eyebrows, though.

LSU forward Jalen Reed was added out of nowhere as a bit of a lotto ticket after missing most of the last two seasons due to injury. He tore his ACL in 2024-25 and suffered an Achilles injury that ended this past season prematurely.

Last season, Reed averaged 9.5 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 57.1% from the field. He was a top-65 commit and four-star recruit coming out of high school, and On3 ranks him as the No. 155 overall player in this year’s transfer portal class.

Reed played in 79 games over the last four seasons at LSU, averaging 6.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.7 assists per game. He was in the middle of a breakout year in 2024-25, averaging 11.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game before tearing his ACL

With Reed playing only 14 games over the last two years, this seemed like a shrewd roll of the dice for the Wolverines. The way head coach Dusty May sees it, it will work out for them either way.

“Right now, there’s risk with the give-and-take with everyone that you sign,” May said on Wednesday. “With Jalen, we felt like if he can get back to full strength and healthy, he’s a really good basketball player. We’re also gonna be very patient with him and his timetable to make sure he’s back ready to go. We also have a lot of faith in our sports science department and Matt [Aldred] and Chris [Williams] to invest the time and the professional expertise that they have to get him back to playing at the level he’s playing at.

“We thought he was a very, very good take. He could certainly outperform his expectations if he’s healthy, and if he’s not as healthy as early as we’d hoped, and we’ll have the depth to overcome that, but he’s a talented young man and a great human being.”

Michigan is expecting a leap from Trey McKenney

Michigan will have at least 9 new players on its roster next season, but its biggest win of the last few weeks might be getting sophomore guard Trey McKenney back.

“I think he’s going to be the Big Ten Player of the Year next year,” point guard Elliot Cadeau told The Wolverine last weekend. “I think he’s going to average over 16 points, and that’s just the belief I have in him. The role he had last year was pretty limited to his capabilities, and he’s not going to have any limit to what he can do this year. So it’ll be really exciting for him.

“…I just think he’s so talented offensively. He scores on all three levels so effortlessly, and he defends. He was able to be in the game in the national championship at the end of the game as a freshman when the most important thing was defense. So he showed that he can be really good on defense, and he’s only going to improve on that, too.”

May wouldn’t get into ranking McKenney among Michigan’s other pieces, but he knows there’s a jump to take.

“I think all of us in this room have watched our team play a lot and seen his growth and development, May said. “That one’s big, and I think he’s got another jump he can make. I know he’s got another jump he can make because he’s such a hard worker. He’s adding more to his game. He’s continuing to experiment with his body about his playing weight and where he can play the most athletically. If he’s not an All-Big Ten guy next year, then I’ll be surprised, or it means he battled injuries or whatever the case may be.

“He’s a really good player and for him to play as well as he did against Arizona and in the national championship game, to make the back-breaking shot, they gave us enough separation to figure out a way to win. It’s his day-to-day, I mean, I’ve never been around a more consistent freshman than Trey McKenney was last year. The ups, the downs, the highs and lows, just maintain an even-keeled approach to everything, and each day’s about getting better, and so that usually bodes well for another big, big jump.”