John Niyo: For Michigan's Danny Wolf, a new pack was the right path

DETROIT — Michigan’s Danny Wolf sat in a folding chair in the corner of a noisy locker room in Indianapolis early Sunday night, wearing a Big Ten Championship hat on his head, a souvenir medal draped around his neck and a weary smile on his face.

The 7-footer’s body was exhausted from playing a third conference tournament game in less than 48 hours — the Wolverines rattled off feel-good wins over Purdue, Maryland and Wisconsin — and his mind was understandably distracted with the NCAA Tournament selection show still playing on a nearby TV.

But he and his teammates already had seen what they needed to see: Michigan was the No. 5 seed in the South Regional, tipping off against 12th-seeded UC-San Diego in Thursday’s late game in Denver. And, of course, Wolf had seen something else: His former team, Yale, was the No. 13 seed in the same bracket pod in Denver.

“Yeah, it’s crazy how things work,” Wolf said, laughing.

It is, isn’t it? But the way this has all worked out for Wolf, a unique talent who has played a pivotal role in Michigan’s remarkable one-year turnaround, really isn’t so crazy when you take a step back. Or at least when he does, anyway.

“I think it’s kind of what I envisioned for myself when I decided to come here,” said Wolf, a second-team All-Big Ten selection who averaged nearly a double-double (13.1 points, 9.8 rebounds) for the Wolverines this season. “It's what I knew I could become.”

It just took a leap of faith for him to prove it, as Wolf, who’d enjoyed a breakout sophomore season in the Ivy League — capped by Yale’s first-round upset of No. 4 seed Auburn in the NCAAs — decided to enter the transfer portal last spring. A 7-foot, 250-pounder with guard skills, Wolf felt compelled to do so, he says, not because he was chasing NIL money or more playing time.

“No matter how you twist it, there was always gonna be an Ivy League stamp on how I played — on my play style, on our team,” Wolf explained. “And I knew from a next-level perspective, I needed to kind of get past that. Just being a 7-foot player, I needed to play against the best of the best. I wanted to challenge myself, show cracks in my game and weaknesses to really improve upon.”

Dominant midseason stretch

He did all of that, frankly, from a four-point, six-turnover outing against Wake Forest in early November to the dominant midseason stretch that left opposing coaches marveling. (“He transfers up,” USC's Eric Musselman said, “and he's dominating.”) By the time February rolled around, Yale coach James Jones was among those messaging the 20-year-old from suburban Chicago to credit Wolf for betting on himself — and making it pay off.

“He did a tremendous job for us and his stats are very similar, what he did for us and what he's doing now,” Jones said Wednesday in Denver. “I've been watching him, following Danny all year, and we've communicated all year. Great kid, great young man, great family. Couldn't be happier for him. I'm sure he couldn't be happier for us.”

Wolf confirmed as much Wednesday in Denver, where a practice-day reunion with some of his ex-teammates at Ball Arena “put a big smile on my face,” he said. “I have a lot of love for those guys. Super proud of all of them.”

As for himself, Wolf acknowledges it was “a huge risk” to sign on with a Michigan program that was in a state of flux last April following a disastrous 8-24 finish and a coaching change. Dusty May arrived from Florida Atlantic and hit the portal hard, bringing in six transfers, including another 7-footer in Vlad Goldin, who’d played for May at FAU.

“It was going into an unknown, especially with how drastically different I'm playing (at Michigan) and how our team is constructed,” said Wolf, who wanted to prove to NBA scouts he could play on the perimeter, among other things. “But honestly, it just goes back to work and how much time I put in this game and my coaches’ trust.”

And those guard skills, obviously. He’d honed them as a youngster, competing against two older brothers who’d go on to play college basketball — Josh at Lehigh, Jake at Division III Washington University in St. Louis — and then in AAU ball and high school, though he remained a largely overlooked recruit until the end of his prep career. (He’d grown up cheering for Michigan, where his mother, Tina, and other relatives went to school, but the Wolverines only offered him a walk-on spot at the time.)

Questions about the fit in Ann Arbor were soon put to rest, though, as May and his staff began to utilize Wolf as a point-forward, initiating the offense and running ball-screen actions with Goldin. Wolf flirted with a triple-double in that win at USC, and after a five-game stretch in early February vaulted Michigan to the top of the Big Ten standings, Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg joined the list of Big Ten coaching admirers.

“He’s a unicorn, man.” Hoiberg said. “What he does on the court — throws lob passes, shoots step-backs, at that size? — I mean, it’s (Nikola) Jokic-type stuff that he’s out there doing on the floor.”

Weighing the pros and cons is never easy in college hoops. But Michigan’s deepest NCAA Tournament runs over the last dozen years or so were led by future first-round talents: Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr., Nik Stauskas, Jordan Poole, Moe and Franz Wagner.

Projected NBA first-rounder

Wolf is eager to join that list, obviously. And various NBA mock drafts suggest the junior is well on his way, if he decides to bypass his final year of eligibility. ESPN’s latest projection has Wolf heading to the Indiana Pacers with the 18th overall pick, while The Athletic pegs him 30th to Phoenix with the final pick of the first round.

Pro scouts are understandably enamored with his rare mix of size, creative playmaking and basketball IQ. But there are concerns about Wolf’s high turnover rate as well as the shooting mechanics — his free-throw percentage (61.6) is a red flag for some. Then there’s the question about who he’ll defend at the next level, though U-M assistant Justin Joyner insists "his ability to switch and guard the best guards in the Big Ten has been super impressive."

"I think a lot of it is certainly his lateral quickness and his length," Joyner said, "but I think most of it is just because he's so smart and he understands what he's trying to take away and what he's trying to give up.”

As for moving on, Wolf is trying his best to ignore all that talk at the moment.

“Obviously, it's easy to get consumed with that (expletive),” he said. “I mean, growing up with my dream of playing NBA, I’ve got people that I don't want sending me stuff, and my social media feeds can be filled with things I don't need to see. …

“But all that's going to take care of itself, so I just gotta focus on the now, not the future. And the most important thing for any of this next-level stuff is winning. You can ask anyone: If you don't win games, your outlook is so much less than when you do.”

Wolf’s a winner in large part because he “really wants to learn,” Joyner adds. “He wants to get in the film room. He wants to talk strategy. He wants to talk scouting report details. He's one of those guys that just wants more information so that he can be the best when he steps on the floor.”

That constant search for answers does lead to “over-thinking,” Wolf admits.

“Yeah, he's got a lot of tabs open,” Joyner agreed, laughing.

“But I think it just comes from my desire to be great,” Wolf said. “I have such high hopes and expectations for myself and for this team. Sometimes that can come back to bite me in my ass, yes, because I can overthink things and kind of stray away from what's most important. But for me, I think it's a good thing, because it allows me to really get better.”

And, really, that's why he's here, isn't it?

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