Michigan basketball isn't Indiana football, but there are similarities. Dusty May said as much after the Wolverines' win vs. MSU on Friday.
EAST LANSING — Michigan basketball isn't Indiana football, but there are similarities:
A quick turnaround in Year 1 under a new coach, setting up an even better team in Year 2.
Using the transfer portal to revise a roster while bringing established talent from the coach's previous stop.
A propensity for blowing out inferior opponents.
The Hoosiers, of course, set the bar sky high in 2025 by going undefeated and winning a College Football Playoff championship in the second season under Curt Cignetti. But if you're noticing these similarities, it's not a coincidence.
Michigan coach Dusty May said as much after Michigan basketball's impressive 83-71 win over Michigan State in East Lansing on Friday, Jan. 30.
Michigan's victory over MSU is the school's first in East Lansing since January 13, 2018. That's before the COVID-19 pandemic, before Curt Cignetti became a household name and before Dusty May even got his head coaching break at Florida Atlantic.
In other words? A lot has changed. But this 2025-26 version of Michigan? That team entered Friday with an unblemished record vs. the Spartans in East Lansing, May said.
"Once again, we stole from the Indiana-Penn State football game," May said. "And their coach made a great point; coach Cignetti just said, 'This team has never played here before,' so we just kind of went into it, obviously last year we were 0-2 against these guys, but this team that we have in our locker room, they were 0-0, and so we're not talking about what the past teams have done.
"Obviously this is important for our fans, but for us, this was more about winning a Big Ten game on the road and staying in the hunt because we've got a very challenging schedule coming up."
To compare anyone to Indiana football almost feels like comparing a quarterback taken in the sixth round of the NFL draft to Tom Brady; you just shouldn't do it.
But when the coach himself says he stole from Cignetti? Sometimes we have to listen.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball isn't Indiana football, but there are similarities
Category: General Sports
