As soon as the clock hit 00:00 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday night — well, technically Saturday morning — the Michigan Wolverines’ 2024-25 season officially came to an end with a 78-65 loss to the No. 1 overall seeded Auburn Tigers.
With how college athletics is nowadays, many folks instantly turned the page to the offseason (myself included). My mind initially went to questions about which guys would stay, which guys would enter the portal, and which guys would come to Michigan through the portal.
We already know of one Wolverine leaving: freshman guard Justin Pippen. Now, with the season over, head coach Dusty May and his staff can devote their full attention to attracting players in the portal to Michigan and begin building for next season.
But retaining your players is also important, and other than the aforementioned Pippen news, Michigan is already off to a good start in this department. In the early hours of Saturday, following the game, two important role players — guard Roddy Gayle Jr. and forward Will Tschetter — confirmed their commitment to the 2025-26 team with reporters after the game.
I plan on (coming back),” Gayle said.
“100 percent I’m coming back,” Tschetter said.
To get those two answers immediately following the team’s season-ending loss goes to show how much trust these guys have in the coaching staff and the desire to build on a successful first year for May.
Tschetter has been with the program since the Juwan Howard era and saw his role evolve this season. Instead of being one of the starters at the 4 or 5, Tschetter was among the first off the bench, playing the 4 when Danny Wolf needed a breather and playing the 5 in the small ball lineup. Tschetter averaged 6.4 points on 47.7 percent shooting from the field and 35.1 percent from beyond the arc this season.
Gayle had an up-and-down first season at Michigan after transferring from Ohio State. He was in the starting lineup for the first half of the season before being benched in early February in the game at Indiana in favor of Rubin Jones. Gayle ended the season averaging 9.8 points, 3,4 assists, and 2.2 rebounds per game, shooting 43.1 percent from the field and a career-low 23.2 percent from three.
Even though he was no longer in the starting lineup, Gayle and his teammates and coaches remained confident in him. A few months’ worth of patience paid off in the Big Ten Tournament, with Gayle scoring 11 points against Purdue and nine points against Maryland. He came up clutch in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32 against Texas A&M, going off for a season-high 26 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 4-of-6 from three.
As Wolf said after that game: “Roddy got his mojo back.”I am hopeful that mojo carries over to the 2025-26 season, as Gayle — whether he comes off the bench or becomes a starter again — will undoubtedly be a big part of what May and company have cooking up.
Tschetter and Gayle each have one year of eligibility remaining, so to have that one year be in Ann Arbor is huge for the program.
