A Tight Grip On Winning: Championships, Coaching Excellence, And Sports Dominance

Michigan just won the national championship and I can’t stop thinking about the most telling moment of the whole run: Dusty May gets the trophy, the nets are coming down, and he’s already talking about Detroit hosting the Final Four next year and getting back. That’s the mindset that changes a program fast, and it’s why Michigan basketball looks built for this new era of college hoops.

I dig into the stuff fans argue about nonstop: NIL, the transfer portal, and the tired “they bought the roster” narrative. Yes, money is in the game, but so is evaluation, development, and fit. I break down what Michigan’s roster really looks like, why these weren’t just plug-and-play superstars, and how Dusty May turns transfers and question marks into an unselfish team that makes the right read over and over. If you care about modern college basketball recruiting, coaching strategy, and what wins in March AND April now, this is the real conversation.

Then we get into the championship game itself: How Michigan beat UConn at UConn’s own game, why the scoring total doesn’t tell the story, and what the free throw complaints miss when you look at foul rates and style of play. I also touch the elephant in the room: When a coach is this good in today’s landscape, the NBA always comes calling, so what does “the future” even mean anymore?

And because Michigan can’t just have a normal week, I close with a Michigan Hockey Frozen Four preview against Denver in Las Vegas and the very real chance to stack championships in the same week. If you’re fired up, do me a favor: Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What’s your hottest take on Dusty May, NIL, and where Michigan goes from here?

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 1:22

What is up, people? It is your boy Jared back in the studio cooking with gas.

SPEAKER_06 1:30

And if anybody is cooking with gas more than the University of Michigan in that March Madness tournament, you let me know because they went belt to ass on every single team they played, rightly so. They are the national champions, and that's just the way that things are going to be moving forward as long as Dusty May is at the helm. Because that dude is a demon. You want no part of what Dusty May is going to bring to the University of Michigan from now into the future. This dude, after winning the national championship, two minutes after winning the national championship, is talking about how there's work to do and that he's on to Detroit. So for those of you that don't know, the Final Four is in Detroit. That's right. The city here, closest to me, Detroit, is going to be repping the Final Four, hosting it next year, and Dusty May, after winning the national championship, is getting interviewed on the floor while the team is celebrating. And this guy talks about how he's thinking about 365 days from now, Detroit's hosting the final four, and he wants to be there. Dude is already working two minutes after winning the natty. Listen to this guy.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Put us in your mind in this moment. What's going on?

SPEAKER_04 3:06

We're 365 days from the final four in Detroit.

NIL Reality Check And Roster Costs

How This Team Was Actually Built

SPEAKER_06 3:12

So this dude just wins the natty, and all he can think about is a year from now wanting to be back in the town that he is coaching in in the Final Four, hopefully, in his eyes, winning another national championship. Meanwhile, his team is on the court celebrating the national championship that they just won two minutes prior to this interview. Look, you guys can say what you want about the University of Michigan. You can hate them, you can like them. It doesn't matter. There is one true fact about the University of Michigan and their athletic department right now. And that is it is at an absolute peak. The leadership that they have, which I have said before, Ward Manual has been, he's made plenty mistakes, he's made plenty dumb hires. I mean Sharon Moore is from one of them. But Dusty May is it literally makes up for every single mistake that Ward Manual has ever made. Dusty May is the he is more than a diamond in the rough that was found. When we took him from FAU, it is the greatest, it could end up being the greatest hire ever in the history of college hoops. This guy is brilliant. He thinks outside the box. He is obviously a worker beyond workers. The dude doesn't stop. Not only was that interview taken two minutes after he won the national championship, but every single interview since then, obviously, people have been talking about, you know, how did you do this? How did you win this? Two years ago, they had the worst record, and now you bring them to a national championship. And all Dusty May can say is that he's on to next year. He's on to the next thing. Transfer portal opened at midnight. It's time for my ass to get on the phone. I got players I gotta call. I got people I need to recruit. Now the recruiting game is completely different now. You know, you don't go flying around the country trying to recruit these kids, it just doesn't happen anymore. You don't spend your time trying to get to know them and their family because their family don't want to get to know you. All they want is am I gonna play? And how much money are you gonna pay me? And until the other squads get on board with what is happening in the college, it doesn't matter what sport, not just hoops, football, especially too. Football's bigger than hoops, way bigger than hoops. Okay, and Michigan has that Natty from a few years ago. Forward till now, now Michigan has a Natty in hoops. Oh, and don't forget, Michigan hockey, they're in the frozen four this year. Michigan hockey has the chance to win the national championship this year. They are the number one overall seed in the hockey tournament, and they play Denver in the frozen four. The same week that Michigan Hoops wins the national championship, Michigan hockey can win a national championship too. That would be two major sport national championships in one week. I beg you to find me a more impressive week in all of college athletics in the history of sports. I I it has never been done when two national championships have been won by the same school in the same week. It has never been done ever. And Michigan has the chance to do that. And they have a very good chance to do it because Michigan is the best team in the hockey tournament. They are the best team. They are the number one seed for a reason. Just like Michigan hoops have kicked mainly everybody's ass throughout the season, Michigan hockey has done the exact same thing. So if you don't like Michigan, I got I got some sour news for you. This possibly could be the worst week ever for haters of the University of Michigan. Because Michigan will be at the top of the mountain in every single way. And meanwhile, again, you still got Dusty May doing work. So back to hoops, because that's what this is mainly about. That is the most impressive tournament run you will see from any team in the history of college hoops. You can talk all the shit you want about how Dusty May built this team. Everyone's saying that Michigan bought this squad that they're bought and paid for. You have no fucking clue what you're talking about if you say that. First of all, every goddamn school out there is paying their players now. Not just Michigan. Here, let me break it down for you. I'm going to give you the most expensive rosters by NIL valuation for this year. Alright? At number one, you had Kentucky, 20 million. Number two, BYU, 13 million. Number three, Duke, 12 million. Number four, Arkansas, 11.5 million. And then at number five, you have four teams that paid$10.5 million for their rosters. Those teams are Louisville, Texas Tech, St. John's, and Michigan. So if you're one of those people, whether you're online or just in life, and you're a hater and you're saying, well, Michigan bought this roster. Every team's buying rosters, okay? But you want to know something that's even more impressive about what Michigan did? Let me break down the players that they actually have on that roster. Because I'm not saying that Michigan isn't loaded. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm not saying they didn't spend a fortune on the roster. But let me tell you the players who they are. You might think that these guys went and picked up these all-American players to make this team. We got a transfer from UAB in Yaxel. You got a transfer from North Carolina, who North Carolina fans did not want Elliott Cadeau back because he couldn't shoot. You believe that one? Then we got a non-starter in Mara from UCLA who crazy McCronin ran out of town. Then we picked up Johnson Jr. from Illinois. He wasn't even a starter there. He was coming off the bench. We got two players on that team that played for Michigan's 8 and 24 team before Dusty May came. We have a guard who was shooting 30% from three the last two seasons in the Big Ten. And we have a freshman in Trey McKinney who is an absolute baller on his own. You would think by the way people talk online, and you would think by the jealousy that you hear from all these other schools, no matter who they are, you would have thought that Michigan went out and purchased the monstars from Space Jam to go out there and win this national title. No, what they did, what Dusty did, was he evaluated players like a fucking wizard, put them together, found out who would be the best ones to put on the floor, and had a master class in being a coach, and put the players in positions where they could succeed. Also taught these guys how to be the most unselfish team in all of college hoops. Not one of these players wanted to be the star on that team. They all dished that rock to each other like they were serving up meatballs at an Italian restaurant, family style. So look, you can hate where college athletics is at. You can whine and cry and bitch about it all you want, but you're not gonna get any control on the situation right now. You either adapt and succeed, or you stay in the past and you drown, sink in the quicksand. And there are a lot of teams that are doing that right now. There are a lot of coaches that are deciding to do that right now, and they will get ran out of town really quick. But Dusty May isn't one of them. Dusty May is not one of them. He has adapted, he is young, he is fresh, he is taking advantage of every situation possible. And let me tell you, as long as Michigan has Dusty May, they are both going to be a problem in the future for everyone and every team that they face. Deal with it. And if you needed any more proof in the fact that Dusty May is most likely going to step on your neck and make you gasp for air, listen to this.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

This morning, as you reflect back on what happened last night and throughout this tournament, what's coming to your mind?

College Sports Have Changed

SPEAKER_04 11:39

Well, fortunately, I have a great staff that holds me accountable. We've had Zooms and calls with recruits this morning as the transfer portal opened at 1201 last night. So uh hopefully we can get another great roster together in the next few weeks and we can enjoy it and reflect a little bit later on.

When Will Dusty Leave Michigan?

Dusty Is The New King of College Hoops

Beating UConn At Their Own Game

SPEAKER_06 11:55

Look, the way that the college sports, college sports period, the landscape that it is right now, it's gonna run a lot of coaches straight into the dirt. Some of these older coaches that and even maybe some some younger coaches who thought, man, I want to go, I want to go become a coach in college, this might run some of them uh just straight in the opposite direction. They might not want to deal with what you have to deal with at the college landscape in order to have a successful program. Dusty May has dove headfirst into it. And the only hope I can give people who don't like whether it's the University of Michigan or Dusty May, the only hope I can give you is that within a couple seasons he's most likely going to be going to the NBA. Uh now you just have no idea how long a coach or even a player is going to stay at your program, no matter what the sport is. But Dusty May will be going to the NBA at some point in time, and most likely sooner rather than later. But he has every resource that he needs at the University of Michigan right now, and I'm sure he's getting pretty comfortable there now. I mean, after two years winning a national championship, the part, as as any Michigan fan will probably tell you, when you win a national championship and you win it so quickly, where else do you necessarily need to set your goal to? Yeah, you want to win another national championship, you want to win one, two, three, you want to win as many as you can. But sooner or later, it becomes, I need to take it to the next level, which of course is the NBA. And the NBA will come calling. They'll come calling right now for Dusty May. The thing is, Dusty May's not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere for this season. The season coming up, Dusty May is gonna be back at Michigan, he's gonna be recruiting, he's gonna be doing the NIL, he's gonna be putting an absolute all-star A plus lineup back there on the hardwood next year that all of you haters are going to have to deal with again. And another thing I'm gonna say is this if you're gonna tell yourself that you wouldn't want Dusty May as your coach right now, you're a fucking liar. You can pull the wool over your own eyes all you want, but right now, Dusty May is the best coach in college hoops. Period. Conversation ends there. There are some amazing coaches out there. Now I am not talking about longevity of coaches. There are coaches out there who have 30, 20, 10 years of coaching college hoops. They have a different tier of success than what Dusty May has done. But right now, in the current landscape, there is no better coach in college hoops than Dusty May. I want no one else. You couldn't give me Rick Petino, you couldn't give me Tom Izzo, you couldn't give me Yukon's coach Dan Hurley, who is an absolute wizard just like Dusty May. He is on a different spectrum, though, obviously a little bit older, and he's been around for a while, but he is a proven winner. He brings those Yukon teams straight to the Final Four, and they win. However, he just lost to Dusty May. And a lot of coaches are going to lose to Dusty May. Because the guy is just on a different level right now. And the perfect example of the level and the genius of Dusty May is what you watched in that national championship game. There was oh fuck you, you idiot. You hear that? Somebody just beeped outside my studio. Yeah, fucking assholes. Well, I'm not editing it out. I'm doing it live. Alright, back to what was so impressive. What was so impressive was Michigan beat Yukon at their own game. If you would have told me that Michigan scored less than 70 points, and you were to ask me, hey, Michigan's gonna score less than 70 points in this national championship game against Yukon. What do you think the outcome is? I would absolutely say that they would lose that game. There would have been no way that I would have thought that without at least hitting 75 to 80 points against Yukon that Michigan would have won. But that is the problem that Michigan generates for every team that they play. They can beat you any way they want. You want to go in the paint on them, good luck. They're gonna swat every ball you bring in there.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

They're just so tall.

UConn Foul Facts

SPEAKER_06 16:11

You want to shoot the three on them, good luck. Chances are you're not gonna be consistent enough in order to hit as many threes as you need to hit, which would probably be around minimum you would need to hit 15 three-pointers in a game in order to beat Michigan. And we played the shooting teams. You know, we played Alabama. All they do is shoot three pointers. Smoke them. We played Tennessee. They love shooting a three. Oh, sorry, beat you by 30. Michigan is they they they were a force to be reckoned with this year. Their length, their size, I said it every single podcast that I talked about them. You cannot think that you are just going to have your own game plan go in there and beat them. Now Yukon, I give them credit because they stuck to their game plan. They made Michigan adjust to them. Usually it's the other way around. And Michigan has the other team adjusting to Michigan. Michigan didn't do that this time. They beat Yukon at their own game. And then people will say, Well, of course you won the game. You had you shot this many free throws compared to Yukon. First of all, Yukon, we shot like 28 free throws, okay? And Yukon shot like 18. Let me tell you what Yukon does. So Yukon is in the bottom quarter in Division 1 in offensive free throw rate and defensive free throw rate. Let me let me just explain that to you. That basically, in layman's terms, that means their opponents get to the line a lot and they simply do not. Yukon shot 31% from the floor in that game. 27% from three. And again, keep in mind that over a handful of those fouls came at the end of the game in garbage time when they were just fouling us for fun. It's not the officials, okay? That is indicative of who they are as a Yukon, not who is officiating the game. You can cry fouls all you want. Listen to me when I tell you, in the second half, Yukon came out within the first four minutes, they had four fouls on the board. There was four fouls in the second half that Yukon had within the first four minutes. Strangely enough, after those four fouls, no other fouls were called. It's like the refs got together and they said, look, if we continue to call fouls at the rate that we're calling, Michigan is going to be taking free throws, being the bonus and the double bonus with a minimum 12 minutes to go on the clock. They wouldn't have been wrong, because that's all UConn does is they foul. And of course, in the press conference for UConn's coach, Dan Hurley, addressed the officiating.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

It seemed like it was very inconsistent from first half to second half and touch fouls. Hey, listen, that's an all-star group there. I mean, Kip, uh, you know, Kip and Jeff. I mean, uh, you know, obviously, and and you know, James, who we're we're familiar with uh as well. Um yeah, I just it's such a physical game. I mean, Michigan is so physical. I I just thought, and again, it's not the reason why we why we lost the game, obviously. You know, but we also too. Uh you know, a problem for our team has been in this undisciplined fouling, you know, at times. But um, you know, it's hard to ref that game. We both played so hard. I mean, that's a not an easy you know game to officiate. And uh, you know, if I could have those three guys ref uh you know you know every game the rest of my career, I I would sleep well at night.

Michigan Basketball Got It Done

Frozen Four Hype And Vegas Plans

Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_06 19:49

So there you have it. I mean, the coach himself not only called out his team and said that pretty much all season long, it's just undisciplined fouling, which again is the reason they're in the bottom quarter in offensive free throw rate and defensive free throw rate. And then in the end, they face a team like Michigan, who just eats them alive, and the fouling is the only way that they were going to have any chance at stopping a team as big and as physical as Michigan. And the only way that that were to happen is if the refs were to just miss the calls. Look, UConn is a hell of a team, but I give a lot of credit to their coach not going and whining and crying to the media at all about the officiating. That's all coming from the fans. And and I said from the from the jump that if Michigan didn't win the national championship, it was going to be a failure of a season. Well, they won it. They did not fail, they did not come up short, they uh it's not Michigan versus the world, I'll tell you that. I don't know why anyone would be saying, oh, Michigan versus everybody, or look, you were one of the favorites all season long. You uh were number one at one point in the season. You were a one seed in the tournament. Uh this isn't Michigan versus the world here, okay? You did what you were supposed to do, and thank God that they did. Because if they didn't, my ass were to have to come on here and eat a whole bunch of crow. And I would have. But I don't have to. Thankfully, the team stepped up to the plate, did what they needed to do, won the national championship, and I'll be honest with you, moving forward, it's without a doubt, I have more confidence in the Michigan hoops squad over any other sport that is at the University of Michigan right now. As long as Dusty May is the coach there and the one who's who's the captain of the ship, I don't really have many worries about the basketball squad. But that can also change really quick. As I said, Dusty May isn't gonna be there forever. So whoever is behind him, I I need them to be picking up the slack and learning and training just like Dusty May. Dusty May, but when Dusty May leaves, which will happen, it's inevitable, you're just not gonna replace him. It doesn't matter who you put back there. No one is going to be Dusty May. The dude is the epitome of excellence when it comes to coaching. In this current landscape, day and age, NIL, transfer portal, there's no one better. Don't even try to argue with me. You are going to lose. So Michigan hoops did it. They're national champs. And now I'm on to hockey. On Thursday, April 9th, Michigan Hockey faces off against Denver in the frozen four in Las Vegas. And if Michigan beats Denver, there is a solid chance my ass is getting on another jet flying to Vegas to hopefully see a Michigan hockey national championship in the best city in America, Las Vegas. But they gotta get past Denver. Denver is a tough, tough squad. And you got Wisconsin and North Dakota on the in the other game. Both tough teams. I'd rather face Wisconsin than North Dakota. Basically, the the four teams that are in the frozen four are the winningest college hockey teams in all of the sport. So Michigan, Denver, North Dakota, Wisconsin have the most national championships out of all college hockey. And to have those four, basically those four OG blue blood hockey teams facing off in the frozen four, you can't really ask more for college hockey. And I'm super excited to see if Michigan can pull off what would be the most impressive week of college athletics in the history of sports. There's no denying it. There's absolutely no denial in the fact this would be the most impressive week if you can come away with a national championship in college hoops and a national championship in college hockey in the same week. Well, if you're a fan of whatever school does it, it doesn't get any better than that. So we'll see what happens in that aspect. I will obviously be uh I'll obviously be going a bit wild if Michigan gets past Denver and makes it to the national championship game. Uh we'll we'll see how that pans out. And if I end up on a jet back to Vegas, which is freaking wild, but sometimes you just have to take life as it comes and you have to enjoy it. And this is one of those things where if I have a chance to see the school that I am a fan of make history, I want to be a part of it. It's been one hell of a ride for college hoops in Michigan in this season. And yeah, I'm I'm ecstatic that I have a national championship in football a couple years ago. I got this national championship for the team that I root for in hoops, and now to possibly have, which I am the biggest fan of hockey, if I could get a national championship in hockey and get the the hat trick, if you want to call it football, basketball, hockey national championship. Uh as a fan, I I really don't know what more, what more you could ask for. So again, thanks for listening to this episode of Cookin' With Gas. Be on the lookout for the next one. Uh, I'm not gonna get into um my Vegas vacation. Obviously, in this episode, I felt Michigan deserved this episode. They did everything that they needed to do in order to become national champions. They deserve their own episode. National champs, University of Michigan. Let's do it in hockey. Let's do it in puck. Go blue. Love you all. Peace out.