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Michigan Wolverines basketball lost junior guard L.J. Cason to the transfer portal after the head-coaching change from Dusty May, who’s now with the Dallas Mavericks, to Mike Boynton Jr., who’d been on staff as an assistant under May the previous two years.
However, there’s a scenario out there, which could’ve played out but didn’t, where the Wolverines would’ve seen even more defections. Even with an ‘interim’ tag at first, Boynton was able to receive commitments from 13 of 14 scholarship players that they would stick with the program, a major feat.
“I think the thing I leaned into the most was, on Sunday night, when those guys went to bed, they believed they were a part of a team that they chose to be a part of that could accomplish a lot of great things together, that they were going to be a part of a team that allowed them to be successful on an individual basis as a part of that team,” Boynton said on the ‘Defend The Block’ podcast with host Brian Boesch, referring to the day before May accepted the job with the Mavericks. “And on Monday night when they went to bed, those things were still on the table. That, when we huddled for our first team workout on Tuesday morning, which we did the next day, the huddle looked exactly the way they thought it would look, minus one person.
“They all had a choice to make on whether they still believed that group could collectively do those things. And, obviously, most of them have decided that it was a circle they still wanted to be a part of. That was the overarching team message.
“I’m thankful to [sophomore guard] Trey [McKenney] and [senior guard] Elliot [Cadeau] for stepping forward first and deciding, hey, we can still do this, guys. Themselves taking that message through the locker room, and then [redshirt junior forward] J.P. [Estrella] and [junior center] Moustapha [Thiam] and all the way down the line.”
Cason, who’s recovering from an ACL injury suffered Feb. 27 at Illinois, has been a key on-the-floor and culture piece for Michigan over the last two seasons, particularly in his sophomore year as the Wolverines won the national championship.
Boynton wished Cason nothing but the best in the future, even though he would’ve loved to see the Lakeland, Fla., native stick around.
“I’ll be honest, even for L.J., as disappointed as I am that I won’t be able to coach him, I wanted him to be able to make that choice for himself,” the Michigan coach noted.
“That kid’s given this program a lot. He’s a champion. He’ll forever be a champion. He’ll forever be a champion at the University of Michigan. We wish him great success moving forward.
“We hope he gets as healthy as possible and continues to be the type of player that we all know he can be. We’ll miss him, for sure, but he had an opportunity to make the choice that he thought was best for him, and we wish him well moving forward.
Michigan may add another player to the roster
Michigan has two scholarship spots remaining, one of them recently coming open with Cason entering the transfer portal.
There aren’t a plethora of options this time of year, but Michigan is still ready to pursue someone if the fit is right. Among the possibilities are players that are potentially granted another year of eligibility through an injunction or athletes that are able to transfer due to a head coach leaving (such as Brown with Mike Martin coming to Michigan).
“Ten years ago, there probably wasn’t an option,” Boynton said. “It’s mid-July. There are a lot of different factors that go into adding somebody to your roster, and people being available also. But we’re in a different climate, so there are actually several people potentially available with either a court ruling going one way or the other or just somebody transferring from another school because something happened there.
“We’re very much in tune to who’s available. We would like to, in a perfect world, add another veteran piece if we could. Maybe another ball-handler, a decision-maker, a playmaker, somebody who could help just add some element of playmaking to our team.
But we do like the team as it is presently constructed. So, we’ll do both — we’ll continue to work with this group and develop the guys that we have, but we’ll always keep our ears to the ground as to how maybe how some of this stuff is playing out there in the market.
