Michigan had to rebuild its entire frontcourt after the departures of Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara, and Morez Johnson — the core of a national championship team. Dusty May didn’t flinch. He went to work in the transfer portal and landed a frontcourt that might be better.
JP Estrella and Jaylen Reed brought real pedigree and versatility. But the piece that changes Michigan’s ceiling entirely? Moustapha Thiam — a 7’2 big man with a dynamic, multi-dimensional game that makes him one of the most coveted prospects to enter the transfer portal this cycle.
We broke down the film from his time at Cincinnati to understand exactly why Thiam is so special and why Michigan fans should be genuinely excited heading into next season.
Post Game: Polished, Reliable, Physical
Thiam spent roughly 60% of his touches at Cincinnati working in the post — and it shows. He’s an elite target for guards to find: he seals his man effectively, climbs behind defenders when they attempt to front him, and gives his guard a clean window to throw over the top.
What stands out most on film is his hands. He simply doesn’t fumble passes. Guards at Cincinnati trusted him to go get the ball wherever they threw it — high, wide, over a defender’s outstretched arms. That trust is earned, not assumed.
His finishing repertoire is diverse. He relies on soft, controlled touch finishes — the kind that draws fouls — but he’s also comfortable flushing the ball when the angle is there. His turnaround game with both hands is legitimately polished: little baby hooks from either side, combined with the ability to hit a turnaround fade, creates the kind of foul-drawing presence you can’t manufacture in recruiting.
The one area where there’s room to grow: raw power. He doesn’t always impose his size when backing down a defender. That said, for Michigan’s offense — which creates driving lanes and kick-out opportunities around him — what he already brings more than checks the box.
The Pick-and-Roll: Where Things Get Scary
If the post game is his bread and butter, the pick-and-roll is where Thiam’s game truly becomes something defenses cannot solve. His 7’2 frame alone sets a screen that guards simply cannot navigate cleanly — that’s the first prerequisite for a functioning pick-and-roll, and Thiam passes it with ease.
But the reason he’s a nightmare has nothing to do with size. It’s options. Coming out of a pick-and-roll, Thiam gives Michigan three credible weapons — and the defense has to commit to stopping one, leaving the others open.
The hard roll: He gets to the rim and catches lobs. Guards trust him. He dunks most of them, but his hand-eye coordination lets him adjust in traffic — a skill you can’t coach into most bigs.
The short roll: He stops around the free-throw line, catches the ball in rhythm, and goes straight into a mid-range jumper. It’s an extension of the same turnaround post fades he’s been knocking down all season.
The pop: Still developing, but flashes of a three-point threat appeared at both Cincinnati and UCF. If this becomes reliable — even 32–33% on limited attempts — defenses will have no viable scheme to guard him.
When all three options are live, opposing bigs are stuck in an impossible situation: they’re forced to make reads on the fly, in real time, against a 7’2 athlete who can punish every wrong answer. If Michigan’s offense can activate all three phases of Thiam’s pick-and-roll game consistently, they will be one of the most difficult offensive teams in the country to game-plan against.
Defense: You Can’t Teach 7’2
There’s an old saying in basketball: you can’t teach 7’2. In Thiam’s case, it’s particularly true. Around the rim, he is a legitimate force — long, rangy, and capable of sliding from one side of the paint to the other without lumbering.
What separates him from most rim protectors his size is that he doesn’t need to fully load up for every block attempt. He can simply be tall and long, get his hand up to the rim and backboard quickly, and swat shots away almost casually. And when a play demands athleticism — something you wouldn’t expect from a conventional 6’10 center — he has the tools to make that play too.
For guards playing alongside him, this changes everything. Rather than fighting to contain ball-handlers, they can funnel traffic toward Thiam, force opponents to a specific side of the floor, and trust him to be there as the last line of defense. That’s not a role every big can fill. Thiam can.
The Frontcourt Fit: Thiam + Estrella + Reed
Pair Thiam with JP Estrella — another excellent defender — and Michigan’s scheme options multiply. When both are on the floor simultaneously, you can run a system where one big slides to cut off drives while the other slides behind as the helper’s helper, eliminating those drop-off passes to the rim that kill so many defensive schemes.
Jaylen Reed then provides depth behind them, following the exact same formula Michigan deployed so successfully last year. The rotation is layered. The personnel is versatile. The ceiling is real.
If Morez Johnson somehow finds his way back to Ann Arbor as well? That changes the calculus entirely — but even without that scenario, this frontcourt is set up to be a genuine strength, not just a replacement for what was lost.
The One Question to Watch
For all the optimism, there is a single variable that will determine how dangerous Michigan’s offense truly becomes: floor spacing.
Can Thiam shoot well enough to keep spacing integrity? If he can hit 32–33% from three on a limited number of attempts per game, every other action on the floor opens up — for him, for Estrella, for the guards running off screens. That’s the threshold. Even modest shooting competence from Thiam would make the rest of Michigan’s offense significantly harder to guard.
Alternatively, perhaps Estrella is that spacer. He shot a strong percentage last season, though on low volume. Either way, this is the question Michigan fans will be watching most closely through non-conference play and into Big Ten action.
Dusty May didn’t just replace a national championship frontcourt — he may have built a better one. Thiam is the crown jewel, and the film backs it up.
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