With the crowds to his back, Mike Boynton is smiling as he stops to engage in the doorway of the locker room in Lucas Oil Stadium. Of course, he’ll take a second for an interview, he says. He didn’t know it at the time, but it’s perhaps the last time he ever had the luxury of walking freely through a Michigan locker room at an NCAA Tournament without a swarm ensuing.
Two months after nearly all of the multiple-hundred media members in the Michigan locker room passed Boynton by without giving him a second thought, he’s perhaps the most important person in the program as it looks to repeat. In this moment, though, he’s not thinking about anything other than what he just witnessed. He’s on top of the world. He’s a champion.
Boynton speaks into the recorder, declaring that the moment feels amazing. He can’t believe the droves of Michigan fans that made the trip south from Ann Arbor. The fact that Michigan found a way to become the sport’s national title winner in a championship game that he appeared to believe was counterintuitive to its brand of basketball isn’t lost on him, either. He’s got enough awareness in this moment to talk about everyone but himself.
In his estimation, Boynton and company landed here so quickly–in just year two of Dusty May’s tenure as Michigan’s head coach–for a simple reason: “It’s Dusty.” He said May set the vision for this and empowered everyone involved to do what they needed to build a championship program. Boynton wouldn’t have taken the job if he didn’t believe in May, but May was even better than he thought–and so was the program he was able to build.
“We thought we could build a championship program here, we thought we could build a team that could compete at the highest level each year, ” Boynton told Basket Under Review that night, “But, in two years, probably not.”
And now, all of a sudden, that program is Boynton’s to lead. At least, for now.
May has taken the Dallas Mavericks head coaching job, prompting Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel to appoint Boynton as the program’s interim head coach. Manuel could’ve opened a nationwide search for a new coach, but appeared to feel that an attempt at stability was more appropriate for his basketball program than working to add a coach in the middle of summer practice. As a result, Boynton has a chance to prove that he’s worthy of earning the full-time job.
Boynton’s first tasks are to keep the program together amid stunning news and to retain the entirety of a roster that Michigan’s staff appears to believe gives it a real chance of returning to the same places it was in 2025-26.
Joey Dwyer
Michigan returns star guards Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney and complements them with a class of three proven transfer bigs, five-star freshman Brandon McCoy, as well as returning role players Oscar Goodman and Ricky Liburd–both of whom appear to be in line to take steps forward. If that’s Boynton’s roster in 2026-27--and he'll have to do some serious work to make sure that's the case--he’s got a chance.
This is Boynton’s opportunity to prove that he belongs as a head coach at a program like this, and a level like this–and it’s likely his last one at this level. When Oklahoma State fired Boynton after the 2023-24 season, it wasn’t a given that he’d ever be given another opportunity to demonstrate that–and he likely never could have imagined his opportunity would come this quickly–but now he’s got one.
And with it, he’s got a chance at redemption.
Boynton finds himself at the center of big expectations, but has a team that appears to be one of the best in the sport and an administration that has historically been open-minded to giving interim coaches full-time positions if they take advantage of their opportunities.
The position is Boynton’s until he’s told otherwise. It’s unclear exactly what he needs to do in order to keep it–although the indication is that he may not have to take Michigan deep into the tournament to do so–but he’s in a position to control his own destiny. He’s in a position where he can rewrite the narrative on his legacy as a head coach.
At this stage, though, Boynton’s résumé is polarizing and likely wouldn’t have been conducive to his landing a top-15 job in the sport if the circumstances were different. Boynton was Oklahoma State’s head coach for seven seasons before athletic director Chad Weiberg fired him after the program fell short of “the desired results.”
Boynton finished his Oklahoma State tenure with a 119-109 overall record, a 51-75 mark in BIG 12 play, one NCAA Tournament berth, and just one season with a winning record in league play.
May said during the NCAA Tournament that Boynton did a “really good” job at Oklahoma State, considering “the circumstances,”-likely related to Oklahoma State’s resources and run-ins with the NCAA–but declared that he wasn’t going to get on that soapbox before changing the focus of his answer. May went on to label Boynton as a forward thinker who often takes things off his plate and said that he’s never heard a bad word about him from colleagues.
There is an argument to be made that Boynton is more ready to be successful now than when he joined May’s staff two seasons ago. He’s since been part of a program that won at the highest level for the first time in his career, and he was instrumental in its defense, becoming the most efficient in the country. He’s also got better players and resources to work with than last time around.
“He’s ready to do great things in his second opportunity as a head coach,” former Michigan assistant Justin Joyner–who is now the head coach at Oregon State–told Basket Under Review in a text message on Monday afternoon. ”One of the best people managers I’ve been around. Elite connector and relationship builder as well as an excellent basketball coach.”
May said he hoped his program could keep Boynton around beyond the 2025-26 season because it would be better off with him. May knew he wasn’t going to be Michigan’s head coach forever, but thought that he might have one more year in him. Now that he doesn’t, the program likely has the internal choice that he deems most worthy of the role.
He didn’t leave much of a doubt about that as he declared that Boynton is just as good a coach as he is during the NCAA Tournament. We’ll see about that. That expectation is almost assuredly too high for Boynton, but he doesn’t have to be May. He just has to prove he belongs.
And if he does, his career could be changed forever.
