Michigan won the NCAAs because Dusty May understood better than anyone else how to build a monster portal team

Michigan did not just win a national championship Monday night -- it validated a new roster-building model. May's portal-heavy approach, built on size, fit and relentless evaluation, produced one of the most dominant teams in modern history and may have set the blueprint for what comes next.

Matt Norlander

Apr 7, 2026

7:55 am ET

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10 min read

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INDIANAPOLIS -- It took Dusty May just two years as a high-major coach to crack the code on how to win it all by building through the portal.

Nobody's done it better than him. May is only 49, and if he opts to remain in college for the next decade-plus, there's a fair chance that his first national title run will not double as his last.

The Michigan Wolverines ended the Big Ten's 26-year national title drought in men's basketball with a 69-63 win over Connecticut on Monday night. It was a bumpy 40 minutes and not a pretty watch; the teams combined to shoot 34.1%, tied for the second worst shooting game in a title matchup ever.

They don't care about the cosmetics in Ann Arbor. A blue banner will go up next fall. This team's 37-3 record will stand tall and age beautifully. After a generationally great scoring push in the tournament (Michigan averaged 90.2 points, the first team to do that as a national champion since the 1989-90 UNLV Runnin' Rebels), this squad should be remembered as one of the best teams of its era. The Wolverines' +39.70 efficiency margin at KenPom ranks No. 2 in that database's history (1998-99 Duke remains the all-time best). This was maybe the Big Ten team of the past 40 years when factoring in the sporadic dominance, the generational efficiency and the aggregate 713-point margin of victory across 40 games, which is the best ever for a Big Ten team.

It happened because May worked the portal to near-perfection -- and did so despite no shortage of detractors, rumormongers and jealous skeptics.

"It's nonsense," Michigan assistant Mike Boynton told CBS Sports. "I wish people would just write the truth. People are fairly envious of Dusty, and it's because we're doing this. The truth of the matter is most of the people who are frustrated or angry or talking shit online are Michigan State fans, Ohio State fans, because Dusty came in and instead of trying his hardest to keep every player on an 8-24 team, he allowed the guys who wanted to leave to leave, and so then, what do you do? Who do you recruit to play at Michigan in April, six high school kids? No. So we went out and tried to be competitive (in the portal) and we were."

The pace at which high-stakes college sports evolves ensures no trends are guaranteed to stick around, but May's keen eye combined with a junkie-like approach to running his program and a plentiful NIL capital wound up leading to a one-of-a-kind portal class. Michigan made history Monday night when it started five players who didn't begin their careers at the school; that had never happened in a national title game.

Additionally, the team's four leading scorers (Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara, Elliot Cadeau) all played at a different school the year before.

That had never happened in the past 80 years of the NCAAs.

Michigan's Portal Five

PlayerPosSizePrevious school247Sports transfer ratingAday MaraC7-3, 240UCLA95Yaxel LendeborgPF6-9, 230UAB99Morez Johnson Jr.PF6-9, 255Illinois96Elliot CadeauPG6-1, 180North Carolina94Nimari Burnett (2023)SG6-4Alabama87The more success Michigan had -- this team was 25-1 by Feb. 17 and pacing toward an all-time season -- it seemed to prompt more accusations of dirty pool. Were the gripes real or just sour grapes? With a national title secured, Boynton wanted to clear the air and defend May.

"People just trying to find a reason to bring down what's a pretty remarkable dude, because there's really nothing else to get him on," Boynton said. "He's pretty open, he talks to everybody, he works his ass off. He's been successful. And so the only thing is this, when the hate don't work, they start telling lies."

One popular but unfounded claim was an allegation of serious tampering with one of the most prominent players in the sport.

"People making up just complete bullshit lies about the guys we were trying to supposedly tamper with, like (Purdue guard) Braden Smith," Boynton said. "The narrative was we were trying to recruit Braden Smith at the Big Ten Tournament last year. I'll say this: If we could recruit Braden Smith and he went into the portal, we would, but we couldn't recruit Braden Smith because you cannot get juniors into school at Michigan. And people just ran with it. They still run with it. It's irresponsible. It's sad, but because it's a high enough profile name that it would draw attention, people are just lazy and go with it."

The Wolverines did not need Braden Smith. In fact, May's instinct to go even bigger than last