Michigan Wolverines head coach Dusty May Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Michigan locks in home-and-home series with college blue blood program

Originally posted on Michigan Wolverines on SI
By Jerred Johnson | Last updated May 29, 2025 8:17 PM ET

The Michigan basketball program is on the rise. Using the transfer portal to their advantage, they rose from the ashes of an 8-win season to reach the Sweet Sixteen last year. They also won the Big Ten Tournament during their incredible comeback season. This offseason they returned to the transfer portal to find game-ready players, and again, they were successful. Head coach Dusty May secured the top overall portal class in the country, to include inking the number one overall player in the portal in Yaxel Lendeborg.

With that rising success, May and his staff have worked to get the Wolverines quality opponents to build their resume for March. They found one today in the Villanova Wildcats. The Wildcats are certainly a blue blood basketball program and beat the Wolverines in the National Championship game in 2018. Now the two programs have agreed to a home-and-home series starting in Ann Arbor this year.

NEWS: Villanova and Michigan are finalizing an agreement to begin a home-and-home series this season in Ann Arbor, according to multiple sources.

Return game at Villanova during the 2026-27 season.https://t.co/3hseI7bpIF
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 29, 2025

May and his team are one of the favorites to compete for the national championship in 2026. They have loaded up in the portal, have veteran leaders coming back, and have an elite 5-star freshman coming to Ann Arbor as well. Building that resume early and testing his team to build a championship mettle for March is clearly the blueprint May is following. He added a quality opponent to that process today.

This article first appeared on Michigan Wolverines on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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