Danny Wolf says playing at Michigan this year 'was the greatest honor of my lifetime'

ATLANTA – The Michigan Wolverines‘ season had just come to an end when junior forward Danny Wolf was asked about a chip on his shoulder and showing the type of player he is ahead of the 78-65 loss to the Auburn Tigers in the Sweet Sixteen.

Wolf, who scored 20 points on Friday night, asked for clarification before the reporter said he was wondering if he thought he showed what he wanted to against the top-seeded Tigers.

“That’s the last thing on my mind,” Wolf said. “I had no intention of showing anyone what type of player I was. All I really cared about was getting a win, and we weren’t able to do it, credit to Auburn. I had no intention of really showing anyone what type of game I played. That was the last thing on my mind.”

While the moment may not have been right, Michigan’s run through the NCAA Tournament came with the idea to many that it would be Wolf’s swan song with the program. He is a projected first-round pick in this year’s NBA Draft, and that vision played itself out for head coach Dusty May and company.

Michigan’s unorthodox frontcourt pairing of Wolf and Vladislav Goldin had plenty of question marks coming into the season. Both players got what they hoped for out of it, and May and the Wolverines saw Wolf emerge as a star nationally.

Even in a loss, the connection was on display.

“I loved every single minute I played with Danny,” Goldin said. “He’s obviously a great player. It’s been fun. We did something that not many people do, and we did something that me personally, I haven’t done before. I think I learned a lot playing by his side with him.

Wolf, knowingly or not, spoke about the year he spent in Ann Arbor in the past tense. It confirmed to some that there are difficult decisions to be made for he and his family.

“Playing at Michigan this year was the greatest honor of my lifetime,” Wolf said. “When Coach May and his staff kind of gave me the opportunity to come here and laid out a plan for Vlad and I, I questioned it at first, but they put so much trust in the two of us, and our teammates make us look way better than we are.”

Playing at Michigan has been the realization of a dream for Wolf, who grew up a Michigan fan. The run came to a bitter end, especially when U-M had a 9-point lead with a little over 12 minutes to go.

“First of all, when I left Yale, I didn’t know what my basketball future held,” Wolf said. “I knew I wanted to be at this level. Obviously in the back of my mind I’d grown up a big Michigan fan and sported a ton of Michigan clothes. After their Final Fours, all I wanted for my birthday was signed basketballs.

“I have so much respect and gratitude for my coaches for allowing me to come here. It was arguably the greatest year of my life, and I made so many amazing relationships. I met my brothers for life, and we had an unbelievable locker room. We stuck with each other through the ups and downs.

“It sucks to see it cut short, but yeah, this last year has been the greatest in my life. I have to thank the coaches and my teammates for that.”

Well, number one, I credit them. They bought into a vision, and sometimes it’s hard to buy into something that’s not seen, that you can’t see. Also, they worked. They wanted to figure out solutions. They wanted to figure out the best way to do it, and it starts with just getting really quality people that are good at basketball and then figure out a way to make it work.

Now my mind shifts to next season immediately. What’s it going to look like? How do we replicate the best of this season? And how do we fix some things? We’re still playing for another few weeks.

Yeah, those guys, they became a national story because of the unique skill sets, how well they worked together. But also, the other three guys on the court didn’t get as much credit as they deserve because they were the ones spacing, cutting, feeding the ball, whatever the case.

Yeah, it was unique for us for those guys to get some really quality attention and press and give us another kind of, I guess, subculture or identity going forward.