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BUFFALO, NEW YORK - MARCH 18: Head coach Dusty May and assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. of the Michigan Wolverines look on during practice day ahead of the first round of the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at KeyBank Center on March 18, 2026 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Ishika Samant/Getty Images) | Getty Images
It has been one week since Dusty May’s departure to the Dallas Mavericks rocked the college basketball world, and Michigan’s interim head coach is wasting no time making his case for the permanent job.
Assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. was named the program’s interim head coach just a day after May’s departure, and by all accounts, he has hit the ground running. In a new interview with The Athletic’s CJ Moore, Boynton made it clear he is not approaching this opportunity with any hesitation.
“I’m operating as if I’m going to be the coach,” Boynton said. “I’m certainly going to try to make sure they understand that (keeping the interim tag) will create a different set of challenges.”
Boynton brings legitimate credibility to the table, unlike other former assistants that were gifted with a head coaching opportunity. He served as the head coach at Oklahoma State from 2017-24, going 119-109 over seven seasons and overseeing the recruitment and development of Cade Cunningham. Boynton joined May’s staff in Ann Arbor in 2024 and served as the program’s defensive coordinator, helping build the No. 1 defense in the country over the past two seasons.
“I’ve done the job,” Boynton said. “I may not have done the job at Michigan, but I’ve been a successful coach at this level. I’ve sat there with Dusty, and the system is kind of set in place, but the best way to give everybody stability is to just not be worried about how long this is going to be and just go for it.”
Since being named the interim head coach, Boynton has met with the staff, players, agents and families in an effort to keep the roster intact. As of this writing, guards Trey McKenney and Elliot Cadeau have committed to returning to Michigan, a massive development for a program that needed its two most important players to stay.
According to Moore’s reporting, Boynton believes that by this upcoming weekend, the roster will “closely resemble what it was going to look like under May.” If that proves to be true, it would be a remarkable first week on the job and provide a solid argument for Manuel to remove the interim tag sooner rather than later.
The transfer portal also adds urgency to everything Boynton is doing right now as well. Michigan’s players have until July 24 before the portal opens, giving Boynton a small window to acquire commitments from the players and prevent outside programs from poaching them.
Perhaps the most important thing Boynton has communicated to both Manuel and the roster is his commitment to continuity. He has no interest in overhauling what May built. In fact, he wants to keep the infrastructure in place, both offensively and defensively, so the players that they brought in for this system specifically continue to be put in the best position possible to succeed.
“I watched us win 99 percent of our games in two years,” Boynton said. “I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m not dumb enough to decide that I’m gonna not try my best to continue to play that way. Like it would be pretty idiotic to just start running the flex offense when I watched this offense be as successful as it’s been.
“A lot of the offense has already kind of been set and recruited to play a certain way already. The roster was built to play (May’s) style and I think there will be tweaks depending on what we learn from the guys who are new and what they can do, but we’ve got some pretty well-established pieces with Elliot and Trey, and, for all intents and purposes, Elliot will be the offensive coordinator.”
If Boynton can deliver, he will have done something genuinely impressive — kept a defending national championship program together through one of the more turbulent weeks in recent college basketball history. And at that point, Manuel will likely have no other choice than to remove the interim tag.
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