Danny Wolf shoots pregame jumpers before Michigan game at USC
Michigan center Danny Wolf shows off shooting touch with pregame jumpers before playing USC on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025 at Galen Center in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES — Eric Musselman’s hands fell off his hips, as if he was resigned to throwing them in the air.
There was nothing left for the USC head coach to do, it seemed, after his Trojans had fought hard in the first half to erase a near double-digit deficit against Michigan basketball, only for the Wolverines’ frontcourt duo known as “Area 51” to take over the game out of the locker room.
U-M’s 7-footers, better known as Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin, combined for a 13-0 run by themselves early in the second half to get the Wolverines out to a 15-point lead.
On the play the flustered Musselman, Wolf caught a handoff from Tre Donaldson at the top of the arc coming off a pair of screens from Nimari Burnett and Goldin. He slashed downhill and spun across the lane before splitting two defenders to finish a left-handed finger roll on the opposite side of the basket.
“When it started clicking, it’s clicking well,” Goldin said postgame of his two-man game with Wolf at the Galen Center. “It’s hard to answer this question without being a little bit too cocky, but with a player like Danny, it’s easy to find an open look.
“If they want to help on Danny, I’m going to get wide open looks, if they don’t want to help on Danny, he can.”
Though USC did eventually take the lead, U-M did enough down the stretch for an 85-74 win to kickoff a double-dip in L.A. Five Wolverines scored in double figures, but it was Wolf who stole the show with a game-high 21 points and 13 rebounds — his seventh double-double in the maize and blue.
As impressive as that was, what made it a truly unicorn-like performance was that he rounded it out with seven assists and six blocks. The last Division I player with at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and six blocks in a game? Oakland’s Keith Benson in 2010.
Saturday game, combined with his performance Dec. 3 at Wisconsin — where he had 20 points, seven rebounds, five assists and five blocks — Wolf became the first NCAA player in the past 15 years with multiple games of 20 points, five or more assists and five or more blocks in a career; only, he did it in the span of 32 days.
“Danny Wolf is an NBA player,” Musselman said postgame. “It’s flat-out become apparent. He transfers up (from Yale), and he’s dominating.”
‘He’s just too good’
Michigan head coach Dusty May has discussed his vision for this two-man front court since he convinced the duo to join him in Ann Arbor in the weeks after he took the job last spring.
He envisioned it could look like it did Saturday, but it didn’t happen without some growing pains. Through Michigan’s first six games, Wolf averaged nearly five turnovers (4.7) per contest, with more giveaways (27) than assists (17). Goldin, meanwhile, scored more than eight points just once and had more than six rebounds just once.
“He’s still getting comfortable in the new system, new environment,” May said of Wolf in early November. “A lot of our guys are, but he’s just scratching the surface. He can shoot the 3, handles it like a guard, passes better than most guards.”
Since then, though, the duo has not only learned to coexist, but to thrive.
Wolf has 36 assists (5.1 per game) over the past seven games, compared to 23 turnovers (3.3). That has opened up Goldin, who has scored in double figures in eight straight games, averaging 18.3 points and 6.5 rebounds a game over that stretch.
But for all the positive moments this year, Saturday’s 13-0 stretch best exemplified the two-big dominance.
Michigan led by two when a feed from Goldin to Wolf along the baseline for a backdoor reverse finish made it 44-40. On U-M’s next possession, Wolf caught the ball at the top of the key, pointed for Goldin to get position, and fed the post for the Russian native, who drop-stepped and finished the lefty layup for a three-point play.
After Goldin found Wolf on a well-designed fake for a layup off an inbound play, Wolf had two more layups, including the aforementioned slasher. Finally, Wolf corralled a loose ball then fired an outlet pass upcourt to Donaldson, who found Goldin for the lob and slam to finish the 13-0 tidal wave.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” Goldin admitted. “They had some good stops at some point but then, he’s just too good to be honest. He’s too good of a player to play the same defense — we’re going to adjust to the defense they’re going to give us.”
‘Something pretty special brewing’
Wolf is now averaging a double-double — at 12.5 points and 10.4 rebounds — in a sustainable 27.9 minutes per game but it’s not those numbers that have May and his staff salivating.
The Wolverines run their offense through Wolf now; he’s an ideal fit in May’s system that has Donaldson as the de facto point guard, but is designed to have anybody get the team in and out of its offense. And while Wolf is dynamic, May believes it’s Goldin’s skillset that helps Wolf flourish.
“We knew we were getting a big skilled player, but we didn’t know he would be able to play and make all the reads and decisions off the pick and roll like he does that continue to get us easy baskets,” May revealed. “There aren’t very many 7-footers who can throw the passes Danny throws, then you don’t have many 7-footers who can catch the passes (Vlad is catching).
“When you got those two abilities rolled into one, you got something pretty special brewing.”
It took some time, to get rolling, but now Michigan (11-3, 3-0 Big Ten) feels like a genuine Big Ten title contender and it’s largely because of Wolf. The Wolverines have lost three games this year, all on neutral sites, all against power five opponents and they’ve come by a combined five points.
Michigan has shown an ability to make adjustments all season long. Unlocking Wolf and Goldin was the first.
“We kind of tinkered with it maybe after Wake Forest, we looked at some different things and then it caught fire,” May said. “Then it became how do we camouflage this action, how do we move some other guys around, how do we manipulate the space? From there, the guys are, they’re just taking off.”
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
Source link https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2025/01/05/danny-wolf-michigan-basketball-leader-dusty-may/77471717007/
