Can Michigan hoops fix turnover woes? Dusty May says they will 'throw everything' at the issue

Michigan basketball officially opens its season next Monday night against Oakland, but the Wolverines have already taken the floor a couple of times for exhibition games against Cincinnati and St. John's.

The 7th-ranked Wolverines gained a lot from the two games in what were two down to the wire battles, coming away with a close loss to Cincinnati before rebounding against the 5th-ranked Red Storm and pulling out the victory at Madison Square Garden.

Dusty May's new-look team certainly have a lot of positives to build off from those two contest heading into the regular season, but turnovers, which plagued last year's team, have been an issue in those exhibition games.

Against St. John's this past Saturday, the Wolverines turned the ball over 15 times in the first half before settling down in that regard in the game's next 20 minutes. In the opener against the Bearcats at Crisler, turnovers came at too high of a rate as well.

Oct 25, 2025; New York, NY, USA; Michigan Wolverines forward Yaxel Lendeborg (23) and St. John's Red Storm forward Bryce Hopkins (23) fight for a rebound in the second half at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images | Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

In his weekly press conference on Monday, May addressed the turnover concerns and explained what he and the staff will do in practice to try to get the issue corrected moving forward.

"It’s one of those things," said May. "We’re going to try a lot of different stuff. We’re going to tighten up our drills. We’re going to tighten up our reward system in practice, and we’re doing this and that. And so we’re going to do probably five to ten different things, and we’re going to show them on film, and we’re going to teach them stress different things, and then hopefully it works. And then you take a step back and you say, I wonder which one of those ten things worked. We’re going to throw everything we have at fixing that issue and one or two other issues, and then hopefully we look back in a week or two and we don’t know what it was that fixed it, but it got fixed."

Certainly, with the Wolverines playing a fast-paced style of offense, that tempo comes with high-risk, high-reward types of situations at times. While May can certainly live with some of them, he knows its's an area they have to ger cleaned up, especially since he has seen his team do so many other things well.

"Let’s talk about the very first one," May said when recalling the first half of the St. John's game. "We ran a slip play. We knew St. John’s would be aggressive with their coverage. Adai starts to slip out of it. We teach, and he grabs them by the waist. It’s just a grab. It’s not a hold. And so Adai’s got to have enough power and strength to get off of that, enough urgency to get off of it. We probably need to take a little bit of touch off of that pass. But when you look at the decision that was made, that’s one that we can live with. So out of whatever it was in the first half, there were a few that we thought were good decisions, and they’re just part of the game and learning and growing. And then there’s some others where we’re just trying to, if I put my head down and drive into you guys all sitting here now, I’m probably not going to get to the other side with the ball. So I think that part of the decision-making. And then put on our brakes. When we see trouble, we’ve just got to put on our brakes and avoid it because we’re so talented in some other areas. I mean, you look at the shots we’re generating, the offensive rebounds. I think we got 44% of our misses. We shot at a good clip. And so you’re negating two things you do pretty well. Three things, really, because we score at the rim well, we make catch-and-shoot threes pretty well, and then we offensive rebound it when we do miss. So it’s another reason why the turnovers are paramount."

Last season, May's team ranked 337th in the nation in turnovers per game, giving it away an average of 14 times per contest.

With the ceiling of this team being so high, May will look to continue to make valuing the basketball a point of emphasis as the season progresses.

Michigan basketball — Oct 25, 2025; New York, NY, USA; Michigan Wolverines forward Will Tschetter (42) at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images | Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

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