Inside Michigan Basketball After Dusty May Left. Harrison Hochberg gives inside look. Go Blue Hoops

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Insight. Legacy. Michigan basketball. This is Go Blue Hoops.

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So, welcome everybody to the Go Blue Hoops podcast. Episode number 40—a milestone.

I’m so proud. We’ve gone 40 straight weeks, no weeks off, bringing you great Michigan basketball content and stories from the heroes who have played at Michigan and done amazing things.

I think it’s a great time right now to reset the team. We faced so much drama and uncertainty and anxiety and speculation—major questions ever since Dusty May left. And some of them are still hard to figure out.

Why did Dusty leave? Who will replace him? Which players are going to stay? Which are going to leave? Who will go into the transfer portal?

I am going to answer all of those questions for you today.

I’m also really excited for you to stick with us for our Michigan Man interview. It’s somebody who is very important to Michigan’s basketball program that you may not know by name.

Harrison Hochberg is a 6-foot-7 junior forward on the Michigan basketball team. He plays a key role on this team, both on and off the court. He is a walk-on. His story is interesting, and it’s inspiring.

I love hearing about people who love Michigan as much as I do.

To say that Michigan basketball was in a precarious situation might be a great understatement. So far, the results and the efforts of Mike Boynton as the coach at Michigan and his staff have been so encouraging.

Instead of the mass exodus, we are moving in the direction of roster stability, and it gets me fired up and feeling excited about the possibility of another banner season for Michigan basketball.

Here’s good news. I’ve got five talking points that I want to go over with you.

Number one, Mike Boynton has a reputation as a fantastic recruiter. His reputation is legit. I know that Dusty May gets a lot of credit for his recruiting abilities, but Mike Boynton was right there with him.

In college basketball today, players don’t stay around very long. They’re always looking for the next best opportunity, a little bit more money. Michigan was able to convince its players that they are at a great university with a chance to win championships.

I expect Boynton to have great success on the recruiting trail as he builds this team in his design.

Number two, Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney have shown great leadership. They’ve taken ownership of this program. They spoke to their teammates. They shared their championship vision.

And trust me, the NBA is watching really closely. They covet players who lead their teams.

Trey and Elliot showed great loyalty to Michigan. They’re committed to the university. Kudos to those two guys.

Number three, my big concern throughout the recruiting wasn’t Elliot and Trey. I was very confident they would come back. It was retaining the three big men who were all transfers.

They don’t know the school yet. They don’t know their way around Ann Arbor. There were going to be a lot of people looking for three big men to come help their program. I thought that was huge.

I didn’t expect all three—Jaylen Reed, Morez Johnson Jr. and JP Estrella—to return. They did. They liked their teammates. They liked their coaching staff. And all three of them showed loyalty to their school.

I will still be a bit wary until the portal officially closes. There are going to be people chasing them. There’s no doubt about it.

But bigs are so rare, and if Michigan would have lost any of the three big men, I would have huge concerns with their lack of depth.

Instead, Michigan’s roster is deep, talented and good enough to go back-to-back with Big Ten titles.

The two favorites in the Big Ten right now: Michigan and Illinois. I think this is really good news for the Michigan Wolverines.

The next question that was in my mind that was answered this week: Brandon McCoy is a five-star freshman, and he’s staying with Michigan.

This is critical for our development. Five-star recruits are hard to recruit. They’re difficult to find. They’re hard to retain. They get a lot of attention. They generate a great deal of buzz out there.

McCoy coming back to Michigan was huge. I pumped my fist like 10 straight times when I saw he was coming back.

Here’s why.

Brandon McCoy is the backup point guard to Elliot Cadeau. We need that depth. There’s no other backup point guard on the roster.

He’s also possibly your starting small forward. He’ll compete with Ricky Liburd for that position.

Also, he’s probably the team’s top defensive stopper on the perimeter.

Don’t be surprised if Brandon McCoy is a one-and-done player this year. That would do nothing but boost Michigan’s blue-blood reputation for other five-star recruits who want a chance to get to the NBA.

Last, Michigan has a firm commitment from its top eight players. That’s a wonderful foundation for next season.

Remember, teams aren’t going to go much deeper than eight, maybe nine players.

The addition of Oscar Goodman—he said he’s coming back. Awesome. And Quinn Costello, who has yet to make that announcement. Those guys offer depth and really good building blocks for the future.

If one of those guys were to leave, it provides an opportunity for freshmen Joseph Hartman and Malachi Brown to maybe get into the rotation as well.

This is such good news that this coaching staff has done such a great job keeping its roster.

A couple of other developments. LJ Cason is going to play next year, and I think he’s definitely going to play for Michigan.

This is great news for him and exciting for so many of us who absolutely love his game and his approach and the freshness that he brings to the roster.

He will hopefully return in February and be able to play half of the Big Ten season.

Once again, LJ Cason seems like a great Michigan fit, and the fact that he can see a pathway to minutes just by getting healthy and stronger and fresh, I think LJ Cason can be a great addition as well.

Also, the timing of all this is perfect for Michigan.

They have their European trip coming up in late August, where they’re visiting Lithuania, and they’ll play three really high-level pro teams from Europe.

During that time, you get a chance to bond on an international trip. Michigan also gets 10 extra practices to help add its new system, for Mike Boynton to put the changes in that he wants to see for next year.

It’s so valuable for him to put his stamp on the team and get to know the 10 players who will be new to Michigan basketball this year.

What had become a precarious situation has now evolved into a positive outlook for next year, and the expectation is another exciting, dreamlike season for University of Michigan basketball.

All right. Each year on the Fourth of July, to me, that signals the start of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. Two games at a time on the campus of UNLV.

If you miss your Michigan basketball players, you’re going to get a chance to see a lot of them in Summer League.

Here’s a brief little update. A few guys have played games, but for the most part, it’s kind of interesting who’s playing where.

Aday Mara plays for OKC. In his first game last weekend, he scored 10 points and had three rebounds.

Also, Yaxel Lendeborg has played in two games for Golden State. He’s averaged 15 points and seven boards per game.

Morez Johnson Jr. will continue playing for Dusty May in a Dallas Mavericks uniform. They don’t get started until Saturday afternoon.

Also, for Michigan senior guys who were not drafted but were signed as free agents, you’ve got three of them.

Nimari Burnett is playing his first game on the 10th for Toronto. Roddy Gayle Jr. was signed by Detroit. He plays Thursday. And Will Tschetter plays for the Portland Trail Blazers. He gets his first action on Friday.

Two other Wolverines who are playing that I’ll be watching, too. I still have fond memories about them. Hunter Dickinson is playing for the Pelicans and Tarris Reed Jr. with the Spurs.

Hey Michigan fans, we will be right back. But first, a word from our sponsor.

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All right, everybody. Our Michigan Man interview is going to be really interesting.

Harrison Hochberg, we really appreciate you joining us. You’re a junior on the basketball team. You’re a power forward. You’re a small forward. And you’ve got a great story because you’re a Michigan Man going way back, right?

Yeah, that’s the idea.

I know that when you started out, Juwan Howard was the coach. When I think about the 8-24 record and then Dusty May wins the national championship, what changed the most inside the program in the time that you arrived and now, all of a sudden, you guys are national champs?

I think what changed the most, obviously, was the talent level. I believe our team last year was the greatest college basketball team of all time, on paper.

And I think we had the greatest connection of any team I’ve ever been a part of. We just really had a group that loved each other.

Every year, I loved the guys in our locker room, and every year it just seemed that we got more talented.

To say Coach May came in hot is an understatement. He really came in and won the Big Ten championship the first year, Big Ten and national championship the second year.

The talent level is really what elevated the most at first.

I think that the culture that we had—Juwan laid down a great Michigan culture at first. That was a tough year because he wasn’t 100% healthy the entire time and was in and out of practices and stuff like that, and that was hard for our group to really get going with that.

But the group that we had this past year was just a really special group on and off the court, and I think that’s what contributed most.

Yeah, the talent was obvious to see, but you’ve shared with me how you would have teammates over for dinner and that the chemistry and the love was real. Do you have any stories about a dinner or something behind the scenes that people have probably never heard?

Yeah. I lived in a house this past year with Will Tschetter, Charlie May and Oscar Goodman. I’m a big cook. Will could cook a little bit. Charlie and Oscar were really there for the eating.

We would often have a lot of the other guys over. Aday Mara was over a lot.

My family is Jewish and Italian, so I would always cook Italian food. Aday came in, and he’s from Spain, so he would always cook the most amazing Spanish food.

I’d never really had Spanish food before, but he would make this huge tray of paella. He would make some potato with bacon—I don’t even know what all the names are.

But just the off-the-court memories that we built. I feel like our house was the group hangout spot, and guys were always coming in and out. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cleaning up the next day after a team hangout wasn’t always the most fun, but having all the guys over in the moment was always worth it.

The real connection we had off the court was just so unique in my experience. I felt like I had a lot of close teams, but this team in particular just loved each other so much in a way that made all the winning more fun.

As a walk-on, third year in the program, I was thinking back: You’ve played against some elite players—Tarris Reed, Danny Wolf, Vlad Goldin, Aday Mara, Morez, Yaxel. Who is the toughest guy for you to cover in practice?

I mean, it’s hard not to say Aday. If he’s within six feet, you’re screwed. You can’t do anything.

You could be as physical as you want and give the best contest you can. He moves so well, so he’s able to find his shot from anywhere inside six feet.

Danny Wolf, I think, is the most unique player I’ve ever played against. Just the size, the skill, the speed.

My freshman year coming in, Tarris Reed banged me up a little bit for sure. Coach Howard used to call him Big Hoss. He used to call himself Po from Dragon Warrior. He was built like a panda. He was huge.

Every year, I feel like there was one kid where I was like, “Damn, this is just another level.”

Tarris Reed’s strength, Danny’s elusiveness and fluidity, and then Aday Mara’s—I thought he was the biggest mismatch in college basketball last year on both sides of the ball, to be honest.

Dusty May takes over. You knew Juwan and Phil Martelli. They helped you come to Ann Arbor. What did you have to say to convince Dusty May that you deserved a roster spot? How did you do that? What do you remember about your first meeting?

I remember Dusty got hired on a Saturday night, and then Sunday he was coming to campus.

I was in the gym working out when he came in. I met him, let’s say, at 11:30. At 12:00, we had a team meeting, and it was all the guys from last year. Whether you were coming back or not, you were invited to this meeting.

I just remember Dusty saying, “We’re going to play unselfish ball.”

What he said that really made me think was, he pointed down at the Block M in the middle of the locker room and goes, “I may not have been here before, but I know what this means to a lot of people, and we’re going to always play for that.”

Being a Michigan Man and growing up feeling like I was brought around a Michigan culture, that meant a lot to me.

So I walked right into his office maybe 10 minutes later, and I was like, “Coach, do you have a minute?”

He was like, “Yeah, absolutely.”

I sat down and said, “Listen, I’m here unless you’re kicking me out. I want to be here. What do you need from me to help make this transition the smoothest?”

He was like, “Well, this was an easy recruiting meeting.”

From then, we just started talking.

I remember asking him, “So you were in Boca. What was that like?”

He was like, “It was great.”

I was like, “Play golf?”

He’s like, “No.”

“You fish?”

“No.”

I was like, “Well, Coach, Boca is a beautiful place. FAU—I’ve driven by the campus. What do you do all day?”

He was like, “Sit on the couch and watch basketball.”

I was like, “But Coach, what if there’s no basketball?”

He’s like, “There’s always basketball on.”

He’ll literally walk into practice and be like, “I was watching a game at 2:00 in the morning last night.” It could be the G League. It could be a game in Lithuania or something. He will pick up concepts from those games.

It’s just the basketball junkie in him, I think, where he and I really connected. I love watching ball. I don’t really care about the level, to be honest.

That’s how I kind of knew that he was going to be really successful, and I knew I was going to learn a lot from him.

Harrison, were you at all surprised, shocked, bewildered? What was your response when you heard that he was going to Dallas?

It was a little bit of shock. We all saw him earlier that morning. I saw him maybe 30 minutes before the ESPN news dropped, and he had a great poker face. You couldn’t really tell that anything was off.

It was actually supposed to be our first day of practice, and we were up in the weight room lifting.

He walks in, daps everyone up, “Hype me! Let’s go! Let’s get it going! Let’s get it going!”

I think he actually sat down on the bench press and hit like three reps real quick and walked out, which is very, very normal for him. He’s a very active guy.

Maybe 10 minutes later, I remember Jaylen Reed coming in with his phone, which had the ESPN alert.

I didn’t believe it at first because I was like, “He was literally just in here.”

At that point, he’d been going around telling the staff that we had a team meeting at 11:30. I guess it got leaked before he had the chance to tell us.

There was definitely an initial shock, but at the end of the day, I’m so happy for him and his entire family.

His three kids, specifically Charlie and Eli, I’ve been around the last two years, and Jack’s been in and out of Ann Arbor. I’m so happy for them.

I think he made the best decision for his career. Talk about leaving somewhere in a better place than you found it. He left us with all the tools to be just as successful this year as we were last year.

The thing that surprised me, Harrison, is how hard his practices were, especially right before going to the Big Ten Tournament and then before the Final Four.

People have heard, “Is practice easier than a game?” That’s not really the case with Michigan basketball and Dusty May, right?

No. I believe that our second five last year would have finished in the top five in the Big Ten.

Our practices, I thought, were more competitive than most games.

There were often times that the second team would beat the first team. You could see Elliot was really the ringleader of being like, “Yo, we’ve got to pick this up.”

Those practices last year were the best. We’d go into a game, we’d win by 35 points, next game win by 40 points.

It really was because our practices were more difficult than the games. By the time the games came, we put all our superpowers together, and you just weren’t going to stop us.

Fans don’t really see or understand the effort and the role of a walk-on. What is a walk-on’s role? Talk about scout team and building culture and all the little things that you have to do.

Walk-ons, I feel like, have a very unique role.

We’re there to contribute to the success of the guys on the team in every way except stepping on the court.

Scout team is something that we have to take with absolute seriousness because it really makes a difference in preparing for the next game.

My freshman year, I really saw the difference between a good scout and a bad scout. We’d have a bad scout a lot and lose by 30. Good scouts, it would be a very close, competitive game.

I kind of understood early that what I do has an impact on the guys being prepared for the next game.

We’re also hype guys. I feel like I bring a lot of energy to practice every day, and I take a lot of pride in my role in being a part of this team.

I’m always trying to pick up the energy, especially because the season is long. There are a lot of days where it can get tough. Guys are physically and mentally drained.

Those are the days where myself and, if we have another walk-on or two, really have to step up and bring the energy to practice.

It starts from the beginning. It starts with the warm-ups.

Coach Matt Aldred leads our warm-ups, and if he says, “Quad pull,” we have to echo, “Quad pull.”

I feel like that gets the energy going and could be the difference between a good practice and a bad practice, which then could carry over to a game.

Harrison, you were a tremendous All-League player in high school. You could have gone to other schools and been a featured player.

Why did you chase the dream to play for Michigan? And talk a little bit about your family and their love of Michigan.

I was brought up that way. The first time I went to Ann Arbor, I was seven weeks old.

I’m from New York City. My parents stuck me on an airplane as a toddler, and it was the Michigan-Ohio State game, the 100th game in 2003, and Michigan won the game.

It was one of two times we won before we went on that four-year streak in 2021.

I was mainly brought up a Michigan football fan. It’s my mom’s side of the family, starting with my grandfather, who started this whole thing of going to Michigan. Everyone in our family went to Michigan.

When my parents got married, my cousins on my dad’s side all went to Michigan.

Every day, I remember arguing with my mom, wanting to wear a Michigan shirt to school every day. I wanted to wear something maize and blue—or yellow, and if it wasn’t Michigan, it wasn’t actually maize.

So if something was yellow and blue, that’s what I wanted to wear that day.

The dream of playing basketball here was always in the front of my mind, specifically because my parents wouldn’t let me play football. If it were up to me, I’d probably be on the football team right now.

But I always loved basketball, and I grew up watching those John Beilein teams.

I was there in 2013. I was there in 2018 at those Final Fours and national championship games.

I was nine years old in 2013. When the buzzer sounded and we lost the game, I started bawling, crying in my seat and refusing to leave.

We were there probably 30 minutes after the trophy ceremony ended. My parents were pissed, wanting to drag me out of that arena.

But I just always grew up so passionate about the team and so passionate about the Block M and Michigan. Those John Beilein teams really were the ones that fueled my love and my dream.

When it was time to make a decision on where to go to school, I always knew that if Coach Juwan offered me an opportunity to be on the team—a walk-on roster spot—I was going to take it.

There’s nothing in my life I would rather do than be on this team, especially with this group of guys.

I didn’t plan on winning a national championship, but obviously that was a big cherry on top.

This was always my dream.

I know I could be other places and be on the court playing. I’m very confident in my abilities. I’m sure if I went somewhere else, I could be averaging 20 points a game and be an All-League college player.

But every time we get a gear drop, I think back to all the times I would be on Fanatics or MDen.com, looking at all the Michigan gear and having to buy it. Now I get it all for free.

Every time I walk in the locker room, I see my name with my number on a locker.

Every time I walk into Crisler, I think about all the times we used to go to probably three Michigan basketball games a year growing up.

This is just the most full-circle thing for me, and I wouldn’t rather be doing it anywhere else or with anyone else.

When we talked earlier, you mentioned a story with what Juwan said about the color of gear that you guys had to wear.

Yeah. Juwan and I got along really well. That was my guy.

I think a lot of it was because we had a lot of pride in Michigan.

We had a team meeting in the beginning of the year where we went over team rules. At the end of it, he was like, “This is very important. I want you guys to take this very seriously. No green, no red. If I catch you wearing any of it, you’re going to be in big trouble, especially around the facility.”

That was easy for me because I wasn’t allowed to wear red or green anything growing up. I wasn’t even allowed to have friends who were Michigan State or Ohio State fans.

It just was never something that occurred to my parents that I should be allowed to do or wear.

That was a pretty easy transition for me, I guess.

I don’t think anyone actually ever violated those rules.

But that’s Juwan. That’s the Michigan Man in him saying, “We don’t like those guys up north or down south,” and that’s just the way it is.

I’m really interested in your perspective on Mike Boynton. I know you guys have worked closely, being on the scout team. He did a lot of work with the defense.

Why will Mike Boynton succeed at Michigan, in your estimation?

I think he’s been the most overqualified assistant coach in the country the last two years.

He recruited and coached Cade Cunningham in college. He’s turning out pretty well right now.

One thing that I think a lot of people didn’t understand about our team last year—and I believe that Dusty May is the best basketball coach on the planet, and I think when he wins an NBA championship in the next three to five years, he’s going to solidify that—but the real power in our team was Dusty being able to rely on our other guys.

Mike Boynton was our defensive guru.

I really remember Dusty stepping onto the defensive side of practice maybe once or twice in two years.

All credit to Dusty for that, for finding guys that he could trust and just being able to trust them in general.

Our defense is going to be the exact same.

Our offense is going to be as close as it was the last two years as far as the schemes and the concepts we run because it would be kind of weird to just start running a completely new offense when we had a top-five offense in the country last year.

I love Mike. He and I are very close. We’re both New Yorkers. We’re both huge Yankees fans, so we bonded on that pretty quickly.

He’s just such a good dude. He’s a very personable guy.

I think all those reasons really go into why he’ll succeed.

When you look at Mike Boynton, I’ve heard that Trey was in there pretty quickly talking to him, saying, “I’m coming back.” You were there too, right?

Yeah. They could have hired anyone as the coach and I would have stayed. Not as a discredit to Mike. I was very excited that it was him.

But Trey and Mike are very close. That was his personal coach last year, so I know Trey was really excited about the opportunity to play for him.

Trey and I took it upon ourselves to try to keep the group together as much as possible.

We set up a lot of different team activities. We had barbecues at my house. We rented a boat one day on Whitmore Lake, which was awesome.

We had a few different player meetings and stuff like that, just trying to keep the group in the same room as much as possible and telling the guys, “Look around. We all believed Sunday night, when Coach May was still the coach, that we could win a national championship. We’re all going to go to bed Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday believing the same thing.”

If the guys in the locker room don’t change, we’re going to be good.

I think everyone started believing that.

As time progressed over the last two weeks, you’ve seen every single kid commit—or recommit, I should say.

I’m dying to hear about the boat ride. Who was the skipper? Who set that up? Were there any cocktails on the boat? Was there anybody who was maybe leaning toward not coming back?

I don’t want to get into too many specifics.

I think guys were just working with their own people and trying to assess the situation and take their time, which, when I talked to each kid individually, I said, “Listen, take all the time you need, but understand what’s here. And what’s here isn’t changing. It’s the same reasons you committed.”

The boat ride was awesome. We rented two pontoon boats.

I drove one. Oscar Goodman drove one.

If Will Tschetter was around, he definitely would have been the captain on one of them.

It was fun. We were fishing, just listening to music, vibing out. I think we had the boat for like three hours. It was an amazing day.

Whitmore Lake is beautiful. Will Tschetter took me out a bunch last year when he had his own boat.

All these team activities have just been great.

We’ve been making our locker room feel like a family a lot quicker than a lot of teams I’ve been on, and I think it’s due to the amount of time we’ve been spending together.

At the end of the day, it’s one of the reasons guys are like, “I don’t want to go anywhere. I love this group of guys.”

I also love the coaching staff because our coaches are all great dudes. They’re all in their mid-40s. They all played college ball. They’re just great people to be around.

It was tough at first because when Coach May left, I feel like a lot of the new guys didn’t have a full grasp on the kind of people we had around our facility.

As they gained an understanding of that, it was kind of like, “Why would I want to go anywhere else?”

That’s just the truth of the culture that Coach May built. We’re just going to have great people around.

They happen to be good basketball players or good coaches, but the people part, I felt, was always first.

All right, I’m going to segue to the part of the interview that I can’t wait to get into.

You’re in individual and team workouts with our freshmen, with our transfers. I need some lowdown here.

Tell me about Morez Johnson Jr.

Okay, so I was in a three-person workout with Morez and JP today, and it was kind of building that Area 50-1 connection that Vlad and Danny had.

You could see the excitement that they have to play together.

That’s why you come to Michigan, because we allow JP Estrella, who’s a 7-footer, to be on the ball a little bit more and shoot.

Same thing with Morez. If you prove you can dribble, you can shoot, we’re all for that.

The two of them haven’t been able to participate in actual practices yet because there are some NCAA rules and Michigan admission stuff that I think they’re working out. It’s going to get worked out. It’s just that the summer term just started, so now it’s all working itself out.

But they’ve been working out with managers and individually. I’ve been watching, and they look good.

That’s not going to be the type of paint you want to drive into if Morez and JP are in there because they’re sending that to the second row.

And on JP?

Yeah, JP, I think, is a very skilled offensive player. He’s very fundamentally sound. He can certainly shoot the ball well.

He and Morez—I was working out with them today—and the way that they were sharing the ball together and playing off of each other, I think, is going to be something that’s really special.

You add in Elliot Cadeau’s playmaking and Trey McKenney spacing the floor, it’s going to be a scary offense this year. I really believe that.

Defensively, I think it just speaks for itself.

Michigan fans are dying to hear about five-star Brandon McCoy. What have you seen from him?

He’s a superb athlete.

I don’t really think I’ve seen an athlete like him come through here. I’m pretty sure he could hit his head on the rim if he wanted to.

That really translates over to his defense. I think he’s going to be a very versatile defender for us.

He’s going to be another ball handler for us and a playmaker. I think he’s going to play very well in that backcourt with Trey McKenney and Elliot.

Learning from them this whole summer is going to be really valuable.

I will say, he puts in a lot of work. That’s something that I obviously didn’t know about him going in.

We have our Noah numbers. We have our shot-tracking system at the facility, and he’s at the top of the chart every single week, putting the most shots up.

As a freshman coming in, I think that’s something that’s really impressive—how diligent he is about his work. It’s only going to pay off.

Harrison, this is our 40th podcast, and some people think that I’ve overdone it by hyping Ricky Liburd.

I love watching him play. What’s your take on Ricky?

Ricky and I both redshirted last year, and we were both on scout team together.

He’s a scorer. I’ll give him that.

He could have been at other Big Ten schools and certainly other Division I schools and averaged 20 points a game last year.

I really believe that he can shoot the ball well. He’s very physical getting downhill, and he’s a superb athlete.

But I do think his best quality is probably going to end up being his defense.

He’s also just a great kid and will be the best role player we have as far as playing off of Elliot and Trey, who are probably going to be our primary ball handlers.

He’s going to fill that role perfectly and win us a lot of games.

He’s going to have a few 20-point games too because he’s just such a natural scorer. Whatever offense happens, he’ll fall into the right places for it.

Tim, you’ve watched enough practices to know that he’s going to be a special talent.

He’s also a young kid, and he works really hard too.

I’m really excited for not only his development this year but the year after as well. Not to hype up the year after this year yet, but I think he’s going to be a prolific part of this program for a few years to come.

And the two guys who are banged up, Jaylen Reed and LJ Cason—have they been around? Do you see them on the court? How are they doing?

Yeah. Jaylen Reed has been working out a little bit.

He can’t move all that well right now because he’s still in recovery, but you can see the size and the skill.

I watch him dribble the ball in some of his workouts. He’s got a great handle on it.

That’s really going to translate because we love when our bigger guys can handle and dribble the ball. I’m sure he’s going to be running ball screens with JP and Morez.

LJ is working his way back.

He’s at the point where he can fully shoot now. I don’t want to speak too much on that, but I think lateral movement is the next step for him, and jumping.

But from all I hear, his recovery is going really well. Hopefully, we can see him on the back half of the season and just in time for March.

Harrison, you redshirted this year. I’m sure Dusty May had some input.

Was it injury-based, or did they not see enough game time? Did they want to get you ready for the future? What were the pros and cons of your redshirt year?

It was mainly injury-based.

I suffered some ankle injuries in the beginning of the season and had to sit out the first few games. I was just in and out with ankle injuries, and the decision to redshirt became pretty clear.

I love this place. If I could stick around here for another 10 years, I probably would.

Getting not one degree but two Michigan degrees is definitely something that I’m really interested in.

So I was all for it, and I knew my role wasn’t going to change that much.

We had what I believe was the best roster in all of college basketball history last year, so finding time on the court would have been pretty difficult.

But being able to take a step back and just fully embrace the role of being a hype guy, of being a practice player and all that stuff honestly excited me a lot.

Knowing that I contributed this much to the success that we had means the world to me, and it really allowed me to blossom in that role.

One of the things that made your team so unique—I liked waiting after practice to watch the coaches and the managers and the redshirts and the walk-ons play against each other, and Dusty May would be right in the middle.

Did you ever block his shot? Were you always reluctant to do that? And what kind of player is Dusty May?

Dusty played pickup with us one time my sophomore year. He only played once.

I feel like if I got more comfortable with him, I could have been a little more physical and knocked him off a few screens or something.

But I didn’t really want to hit him at first. I was like, “This is my coach. I don’t really want to hurt him.”

Dusty definitely plays the way that he coaches.

He’s very intense. He’s always cutting. He’s always moving. He’s always just trying to create offense, find offense for others.

I think he does it to learn a little bit too—to learn different reads and stuff like that.

Harrison, earlier you talked about playing with Danny Wolf. I think it’s great that you two are two of the only Jewish athletes to play Division I basketball, at least in the Big Ten.

How has that opened doors for you and created space to be a leader in your community?

Danny and I actually have kind of an interesting little story.

Our moms were roommates at Michigan back in the day. We kind of knew each other when we were babies, I guess.

Then we ended up going to IMG basketball camp together at the same time without knowing any of the prior connection and became fast friends there.

Fast-forward to me going to boarding school. I was committed to the school that Danny was at, and we reconnected again there.

It was like, “Wait, we went to IMG together.”

Then my mom said to me, “Oh, my friend Tina Wolf’s son, who I was roommates with at Michigan, goes to Northfield Mount Hermon,” where I was looking.

I was like, “I know him.”

It was kind of just a crazy, full-circle thing.

Danny today, I consider probably one of my best friends in the world. I talk to him every single day.

I couldn’t be happier that he’s in Brooklyn because every time I go home, we grab dinner, we grab lunch, we’re hanging out.

As a Jewish athlete, I have a lot of admiration for how he carries himself.

The two of us have really found ways to be in the Jewish community as athletes.

I remember two seasons ago, we were in the Sweet 16 against Auburn, and Bruce Pearl, who’s also Jewish, invited Alexander’s family to our game against them in Atlanta.

At the time, Edan Alexander was a hostage in Gaza under Hamas. It was during a time when they’d lost contact with him and they didn’t know if he was alive or not.

Coach Pearl invited them to the game.

Danny and I got wind of it, and we were like, “We’d love to meet the family.”

We met the family, and it truly was an incredible experience for me because I’m sitting there trying to think about the emotions that these people must be going through, not knowing if their son is alive or not.

It truly was a moving moment, and that was a time that the two of us shared our Jewish faith together.

Also that year, for the Jewish holidays, Danny would come home with me to New York and would come to my temple with me and celebrate. I think we did Rosh Hashanah together in October.

It’s been really good to have a Jewish teammate. I’d never had a Jewish teammate before, so that was a first for me.

I think it brought us even closer than we already were. Even now, we’re trying to celebrate holidays together as much as we can.

Thanks for sharing that. Fascinating.

For sure.

I want to finish up with what I call quick hitters. Short questions, fast answers.

What’s the most points, Harrison, you ever scored in a game at any level?

I remember scoring 38 in a seventh-grade AAU game.

I like it.

Favorite spot on campus? Maybe a restaurant, a bar, a hangout aside from Crisler?

I love getting breakfast at Jefferson Market. It’s a little smaller, just off of Main Street. It’s very quiet, and the food’s amazing.

What do you do with all of the gear, and how many shoes do you think that you’ve received over your career?

I would say we probably get 15 to 20 pairs of shoes. Probably closer to 20 between basketball and walk-around shoes, Jordan Retros.

What do I do with all the gear? Honestly, a lot of it is sitting in garbage bags in my basement right now, waiting for me to find the opportunity to take it home because I just don’t have enough room for all of it.

Who’s the most famous person you’ve met because of your basketball career?

Most famous person I met? Well, this is famous for me because I’m a New Yorker.

I met Derek Jeter at a Michigan event in May, which was a childhood hero for me. So that was pretty incredible.

Favorite class you’ve taken at Michigan?

I’m in sports marketing right now, so I take a lot of sports business classes, which is what I’m interested in.

Honestly, I love business, but I really love the intersection of sports and business. I could give you 10 right now, honestly.

What’s the loudest Big Ten venue?

Am I going to give respect to Little Brother up north? Probably not.

Let’s go with Mackey.

The reason I’m going with Mackey is because when we went in my freshman year and we were at the bottom of the Big Ten, it was just as loud as it was this past year when we went in and we were the number one team in the country.

If not Michigan, what was your second choice?

Probably would have been an Ivy League school. I probably would be playing at an Ivy League school right now.

But to me, once I got Michigan, there was no second choice.

The clock hits zero in Lucas Oil Stadium. Cutting down the net, the parade or hoisting the banner—rank them.

Honestly, the clock hitting zero.

I always say one of my favorite speeches ever is the Jim Valvano speech, and he says, “You think, you laugh, you cry. That’s a full day.”

I went from being on the bench, just praying that a shot missed or we got the rebound, to screaming in excitement with my teammates when the buzzer went off, to then five seconds after that just absolutely bawling, crying.

Knowing that this was the pinnacle of my life—and not to get too into it—but my grandfather was the original Michigan Man and the one who instilled all that in me, and I just wish that he was there.

I experienced a lot of emotions in about 25 seconds, and I don’t think I’m ever going to go through that again.

So don’t tell me that this is the peak of your life. There are more good things coming.

Yeah, we talked about that.

So my final question: I want a preview of what this upcoming season is going to look like.

Strengths, weaknesses—how is it better or worse than last year’s team? What do you see from this upcoming season?

I’m really optimistic.

I think two weeks in, we’ve been through a lot together, and I think, in essence, it brought us a lot closer as a team.

So I think you’re going to see a resilient team for those reasons.

And the skill is there. We have a lot of freshmen this year, and I didn’t know what to think of that going into summer workouts.

But two weeks in now, I can say our freshmen are all college-ready.

I’m optimistic.

I think we’re going to three-peat as Big Ten champs, and I think we’re going to have a chance to go to the Final Four and win another national championship.

I’m really, really, really excited, and I want to end my senior year on the right note.

Harrison Hochberg, you’re a great guest. You’re a great Michigan Man. Your stories are fascinating, and we’ve wanted to do this for a long time, haven’t we?

We’ve been talking about it.

Yeah. But if I can ever help you with anything, please let me know. We’re really anxious to see you get on the court this year and do your thing.

Go Blue.

Let’s do it. Go Blue.

Thanks, everybody, for the 40th time listening to the Go Blue Hoops podcast. Have a great one. Go Blue.

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And as always, Go Blue.]