INDIANAPOLIS—Justin Joyner was standing in the TSA line at Corvallis Municipal Airport with a bag in hand, a boarding pass to Indianapolis in his Apple Wallet and a red-eye flight to catch less than 24 hours ago. Now, though, he’s standing back against the wall in the carpet hallway with a white Michigan hat covering his head.
It’s Thursday media day at the Final Four and Joyner is two sleeps away from the biggest game of his career. The Michigan assistant coach lived exclusively the mid-major life for the entirety of his career as a coach and player prior to joining the Dusty May’s Michigan staff before the 2024-25 season, but he’s finally made it to the stage that everyone involved in this sport dreams of making it to.
If he gets lost in it, though, he would be committing the college basketball equivalent of a dereliction of duty. Failing to embrace the demands that come with his new head coaching position at Oregon State would be a disservice to the needs of the program as he looks to make it a year in, year out contender in the new-look Pac 12.
From Mar. 11 to April 6, Joyner had two jobs. This Thursday in Indianapolis was one of the more intensive days in which Joyner was conducting a juggling act, but it was just one in a number of them that required him to fulfill all aspects of two intensive, high pressure positions.
It’s a miracle that Joyner had seven minutes to spare for a hallway interview outside the Michigan locker room. At that stage of his life, he was likely wishing for a life-changing revelation that provided more than 24 hours in a day. That never came, though, and Joyner had to find a way to get everything done within the timespan he was given.
“What is sleep?” Joyner joked, “I don't even know what sleep is.”
The night before Michigan’s Thursday practice in Indianapolis, Joyner says he got three hours of sleep–all of which were on the red eye flight that got him into town early that morning. When Joyner got off the plane, he began a mad dash to downtown Indianapolis to join the team in time to bus to the stadium.
Joyner’s Michigan duties included helping with scouting report duties, assuming his normal role at practice, keeping things loose with a decidedly lighthearted team and working through staff meetings. The Oregon State duties were inevitably more stressful and included building a staff–which he says is almost entirely completed, with the exception of graduate assistants–recruiting, meeting with current players and laying the program’s foundation in a way that aligns with his vision.
He had to do it all without breaking a sweat or making it about himself, too.
“I know how hard it can be for him trying to find a staff and getting ready for his new place while also being here, but I think he’s done a great job of being here,” Michigan wing Roddy Gayle Jr. told Basket Under Review. “I feel like he’s done a great job being able to juggle so much.”
Gayle is a special player to Joyner because they joined the program in the same time span and have been through a number of things together. The Michigan wing is a microcosm of why Joyner opted to stay with this Michigan team–which is the best team he’s ever coached, and may be the best team he’s ever coached by the time he’s retired–and why he wishes he could give it more than he’s giving it while splitting duties.
Joyner is one of a number of assistants at prominent programs to stick with their respective teams through their deep NCAA Tournament runs. In this Final Four, UConn assistant Luke Murray split duties between that role and his new role as Boston College’s head coach. Former Duke assistant Evan Bradds did the same thing after taking the Belmont job this cycle. Other examples are former Florida assistant coaches John Andrzejek and Kevin Hovde–both of which went through this throughout Florida’s national title run a year ago.
The now-Oregon State head coach indicated that he had conversations with old members of Todd Golden’s Florida staff to assist him in the unique transition and said that he also spoke with Murray via text. Following those conversations, Joyner came to the conclusion that he needed to be where his feet were at all times–whether he was in the midst of Michigan duties or Oregon State duties.
Easier said than done, though.
“It’s been really hard,” Joyner told Basket Under Review that Thursday morning. “But, at the same time, I think our guys understand how important this opportunity is for me.”
There’s a rivalry brewing in the Joyner household these days. Tracy Joyner is Oregon’s head soccer coach and had been in Oregon because of work obligations while her husband was in Michigan because of his role on Dusty May’s staff. Now, though, they’ll be in the same place less than a year into their marriage–even if they work at rival schools.
The opportunity to take an assistant coaching position at Michigan was arguably the best thing to happen to Joyner in his career, but moving on and taking the Oregon State role made too much sense for him to pass this up.
Joyner is finally a head coach for the first time. This gets him back on the west coast–where he’d been for the entirety of his career prior to 2024. It gets him back into his recruiting footprint. It puts him in a position that makes a whole lot of sense for his young family, too.
Taking this job without knowing that he had what he needed in order to win wasn’t all that appealing to Joyner, though. He may not have taken it otherwise. When he speaks in regard to his decision to take the job, he leads with what Oregon State can be rather than how this fits him personally.
“It was a great opportunity,” Joyner said. “I really believe in the new Pac 12. I was raised in the Pac 10, the Pac 10 was always super attractive to me. I grew up rooting for UCLA, Cal, and from the Bay Area. I always loved the Pac 10 and the opportunity to coach in this league, the revitalized league, was something I couldn't pass up.”
The Pac 12’s revitalization and the idea that it includes Gonzaga, Utah State, San Diego State, Colorado State and Washington State indicates that Joyner is going to have his work cut out for him if he’s going to make this program into a league title contender. Joyner isn’t hiding from his goal of consistently being one of the league’s best programs, though.
Now, he’s got a chance to chase it. He made his first stride towards fulfilling the vision by landing a commitment between the Final Four and national title game. Expect more where that came from.
Michigan walk-on Charlie May doesn’t know a life in which he’s separated from college basketball coaching. His dad, Dusty, has emerged as one of college basketball’s best young coaches and had the luxury of turning down the North Carolina job in the days prior to Michigan playing in the national championship game.
When the Michigan walk-on speaks about Joyner, he highlights a number of the same qualities that have gotten his father to the pinnacle of this profession.
“His personality stands out and how he's able to connect with players, he's so likable,” Charlie May told Basket Under Review. “He knows a lot about basketball and he's just going to be a good coach. He's going to be successful.”
The Michigan head coach’s son was on Joyner early and says he felt like he could eventually be a head coach around the middle of their first season together. He says that at that point, everyone in the building took him seriously, had a relationship with him and could tell that he hit his groove after adjusting to his role on the staff.
Perhaps the way Gayle talks about him is the biggest dignifier of Charlie May’s praise for him. Gayle says that Joyner is one of the hardest workers he’s ever seen and that he’s never devoid of a positive energy.
Bennett and May noticed that in Joyner early on and are the two most prominent coaches to praise Joyner in statements that Oregon State released. The practice of former coaches promoting one of their own upon their official hiring isn’t rare in itself, but Joyner having two coaches of that ilk vouching for him is rare–and significant.
“Justin has one of the best young minds in coaching,” May said. “His ability to teach the game, connect with players and build a program the right way makes him a tremendous fit at Oregon State... We’re excited for this opportunity for Justin, Tracy and Weslee, and I know he’s going to do a terrific job leading the Beavers.”
It’s easy to understand why two years ago, May wanted to dip into the pool of the Randy Bennett coaching tree to find coaches who could help build the Michigan program. After all, Bennett is the originator of the Kyle Smith/Todd Golden coaching tree that has produced many head coaches. Joyner is the next.
While May brought a few of his former FAU staffers, like Kyle Church, Drew Williamson, and a reunion with Akeem Miskadeen, he also found it important to go and expand his circles. He added Joyner and former Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton to the staff.
Joyner said that he’s leaned on Boynton and May in order to build out his own identity, and help him grow into the head coach that he is now set to become.
“They understand the mission of coaching,” Joyner said. “In 2026, it’s to empower these players to help these guys create value for themselves, and also make our institution proud and win at a high level. All of those coaches have been first-year head coaches before in their life. So just learning from them, day-to-day, allowing them to help me develop as a coach, as a leader, as a thinker, and develop my own identity, has been great.”
When you’re as good as Michigan was in 2025-26, and you know the formula as well as Joyner did, you know that it’s how you can build another winner. With that in mind, he has a pretty strong inclination of how he wants his teams to play.
“The idea is to have a brand of ball that’s similar to Michigan,” Joyner said. “We want to be able to put a roster together that can play fast, can play in transition, shoot threes, play big, have a healthy shot diet of threes, layups, free throws, and then some mastery shots in the mid-range and floaters. Lean into the math, and then defensively, we want to be one of the best rebounding teams in the country.”
It’s a style of play that Joyner knows he needs to attract high-level big men for. It’s the way that modern college basketball is turning at the moment. The Wolverines, among other top teams in 2025-26 like Arizona, Illinois, Duke, Michigan State, and Florida all leaned into playing big lineups with physical frontcourts.
In turn, big men are the most in-demand position in the transfer portal. Michigan, with its resources, was able to attract three really good ones in the transfer portal last year, between Aday Mara, Morez Johnson, and Yaxel Lendeborg. It’s safe to say that Oregon State probably won’t be dishing out enough cash to land one of those guys, but it can sell players on the vision of growth displayed by those three.
Johnson and Mara were far from finished products when they came to the Wolverines, but working with their staff, they turned into national champions. Now, a key piece of that mix is the man trying to recruit bigs to Corvallis.
“If you look at the track record with Michigan,” Joyner said of his pitch to big men. “We’ve had different types of bigs. Our ability as a staff to be adaptable to the type of player that we’re recruiting and that we’re coaching is really important... The ability to be adaptable and unlock the potential of players is really the secret sauce in college basketball.”
But the two years at Michigan aren’t the only thing that he’s taking with him to Corvallis. The team won’t look like the Saint Mary’s groups that have played at a snail's pace over the last two decades, but the expectations within the program and core values align with those lessons learned in Moraga.
Perhaps no program in the country has been as consistent in evaluating, retaining, and developing players and putting them into a system that emphasizes their strengths to create an NCAA Tournament team over the last decade as the Gaels. It would be a mistake to ignore the process that created that in Joyner’s first head coaching gig.
“Just understanding how important it is to know your job,” Joyner said of what he takes from Bennett. “To do your job, to do it every time, and to do it to the best of your abilities, from a defensive standpoint. And then to create great habits on the glass, whether you’re crashing, whether you’re blocking out, just creating a great culture that leans into those habits and values those habits.”
Both staffs that he’s worked for have an advanced analytical approach that leans on some of the most simple values in sports.
At Saint Mary’s, the nerdball formula that Kyle Smith and his tree has popularized took shape, valuing winning extra possessions on the margins. The Gaels – and many other teams coached by Bennett/Smith disciples are consistently near the top of the rankings in rebound+turnover differential. It’s all built on hustle and effort.
“That’s what we did there,” Joyner said. “Making sure we value the winning plays, the winning DNA that it takes to win at a high level.”
Meanwhile, May’s teams, dating back to his time at FAU, have always done an excellent job at creating a shot diet that makes sense, and attempting to force opponents into having an opposite-looking heat map.
“From an analytics perspective, I think where Dusty and this staff have been great is really leaning into the shot profile,” he said. “The shots that we want to take, ultimately are the shots that we want to prevent other teams from taking.”
Flash forward to Monday night, as maize and blue confetti streamed down onto the court, Joyner had some extra emotions. For he’d gone into the NCAA Tournament knowing that it would be his last chance to win a championship at Michigan with this staff, and he’d done just that.
The Wolverines reached the pinnacle of the sport, cementing one of the greatest seasons of all time with a 69-63 win over UConn in the national championship game. While the rest of the Michigan staff went hard at work in the transfer portal soon after it opened at midnight following the game, Joyner wasn’t part of that braintrust anymore.
His now former players were acutely aware of the situation.
“JJ is my guy. To be able to see that big smile on his face,” Will Tschetter said in the locker room. “And know that he’ll be able to be close to his family and jumpstart his career and be a very successful coach, it means the world.”
And for Joyner, himself, it’s the privilege of closure that not everybody can experience.
“It’s only right,” he told Basket Under Review on the floor on Monday night. “It’s been the ride of a lifetime for two years… and I’m just so blessed to be a small part of it. It’s the right way to go out for sure.”