Nothing about this insane stretch of basketball from Dusty May’s Michigan Wolverines feels even remotely normal.

The Wolverines are off to a 9-0 start and sit at No. 2 in the country. They just took down the Villanova Wildcats at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, technically, before the first-half buzzer even had a chance to sound. It might sound unbelievable, but May’s team went into halftime with a 30-point lead.

The Wolverines eventually closed out an 89-61 win over the Wildcats to keep their unbeaten streak alive and their trend of winning by more than 25 points for the fifth straight game. But even with all that dominance, coach Dusty May wasn’t 100% satisfied.

“Are we marveling at the performance tonight?” May rhetorically said in the post-game press conference. “No, we know we’ve got to get a lot better.”

May spoke of a specific DNA that he wants his team to live and breathe in the game. He mentioned three factors that, if seen during a play, make him go wow: intensity, physicality, and togetherness (unselfishness).

Dusty May: “Are we marveling at the performance tonight? No, we know we’ve got to get a lot better.” pic.twitter.com/OhsXMhkllg

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) December 10, 2025

How good can a team actually be? Michigan has the best defensive rating in the country, according to KenPom, and the eighth-best offense, averaging 94.6 points per game. And they looked every bit that good from the start.

The Wildcats made only two of their first eight shots, and that was just the beginning of the Wolverines’ dominance. They unleashed a 16-1 run in under three minutes, flipping a modest 24-15 lead into a 39-16 blowout. And the craziest part of all this is that if Devin Askew hadn’t dropped 15 points in the first half, the home side might’ve walked into the locker room with a 40-point or larger cushion.

So why wasn’t Coach May happy after such an impressive win?

Two big reasons. First, the Wolverines struggled at the free-throw line, hitting just 14 of 25 attempts. The second issue was their three-point shooting. The team connected on only 27% of its shots. They usually knock down 10.3 threes per game on 36% shooting, so it’s no surprise May wasn’t thrilled.

This also shows the coach’s mentality won’t allow the Wolverines to get complacent, no matter how strong their start has been. That mindset has fans believing a championship might finally be on its way back to Ann Arbor for the first time since 1989. But…

Can coach Dusty May be the one to deliver it?

For those unaware, when Dusty May arrived at the Wolverines with a resume that included a Final Four run and a 126-69 overall record at Florida Atlantic, the program had just finished the 2023-24 season with an 8-24 record. In his very first year, May completely changed the program’s fortunes. He led Michigan to a Sweet 16 appearance, delivered the Big Ten Tournament title, and finished the season with a 27-10 record.

This year, the Wolverines have kept that momentum rolling and are now unbeaten to start the season. May even told the media today that his team actually “deserves” to be ranked first and not second. In fact, they held the No. 1 spot in both the coaches’ poll and the NET rankings before the Villanova game.

With the Maryland Terrapins up next, they’ll be looking to improve their Big Ten record to 2-0 as conference play continues.

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May’s team is having a historic season so far, winning games by an average of 28 points while taking down ranked teams like the Auburn Tigers and Gonzaga Bulldogs in dominant fashion. Nothing suggests that if the Wolverines keep playing at this level, they won’t be one of the teams heading to the Final Four.