U-M basketball’s Dusty May adds ex-assistant Akeem Miskdeen to staff
The coaching staff under new Michigan basketball coach Dusty May is beginning to take shape.
Akeem Miskdeen, a former assistant coach under May at Florida Atlantic from 2018-21, will join the U-M staff as an assistant to May, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Free Press.
Miskdeen, who joins the Wolverines after two years at Georgia and another at Florida, helped May lead the Owls to a combined 47-41 record with three straight winning records, a feat the program had only achieved once before in program history (1989-92).
He was on staff at Kent State (2016-17) when the Golden Flashes made consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and was at Hampton prior to that (2015) when the Pirates also made the big dance.
According to some reports, Miskdeen is the second staffer that May has hired. Former Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton Jr. has reportedly accepted a position on staff in Ann Arbor. A source close to the situation confirmed to the Free Press that an official decision is up to Boynton.
Boynton, 42, was relieved of his duties in Stillwater on March 14 after he led the Cowboys to a 119-109 record during his five-year tenure but was just 12-20 this season. He’s primarily seen as a defensive mind, prior to 2023-24 (No. 127) his teams had finished in KenPom top-20 defensive efficiency for each of the past three
seasons — finishing as high as No. 4 in the 202122 season.
A finalist for the 2021 Skip Prosser Man of the Year, awarded annually to a head coach “who exhibits strong moral character,” Oklahoma State reached as high as No. 11 in the AP rankings that season, thanks in large part to now
Detroit Pistons star point guard Cade Cunningham.
As far as the next steps for other assistants, May and the Wolverines are moving quickly to continue rounding out the staff. There is an expectation around the program for movement to continue later this weekend at the Final Four in
Phoenix, but nothing is set in stone.
Among the faces who will be there: former associate head coach Phil Martelli. The 69year-old is a director emeritus on the National Association of Basketball Coaches (as is Michigan State’s Tom Izzo), and was getting on a plane from Philadelphia to Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon to attend meetings throughout the weekend.
Martelli was seen as another possible candidate for the staff — one of the game’s longtime legends with deep ties to a key region like greater Philadelphia with more familiarity in Ann Arbor and Michigan than May has just yet — however at this point that’s not the direction it’s headed.
“I’m not chasing coaching,” Martelli said. “If there’s somebody out there, including Dusty that thinks I can help, that would be terrific. But I’m not interviewing, not making phone calls.”
Martelli’s next steps, no matter what, are “to serve” the people around the game however he can because as he put it, he’s not a “sit-at-home kind of guy.” He said he’s been taking phone calls and texts from former players with an open-door policy: whatever, whenever.
He said people utilize it to varying extents, but said he feels it’s “the least” he can do after having been at Michigan, a place he called special and added, “I got more than I gave.”
May can see the potential in Ann Arbor, too, he said.
“Dusty has picked that up, that passion for the block M,” Martelli said. “I think it’s a terrific opportunity, I wish him great, great luck.”