The End

Of the Season, the Period, but not May's Era.

I posted a few photos from the ceremony at Crisler.

Good ones, I think. Or at least honest ones. The kind where the light does half the work, and the rest is just what’s actually there.

Caption?

The end.

That’s it. No garnish. No filter. No “what a ride.” Just the full stop.

And oh boy. Apparently, you’re not allowed to do that. Replies came in like I had just canceled Art-Fair in Ann Arbor.

“It is the beginning.”
“It’s not the end.”
“You are being dramatic.”

Dramatic? Please. I shoot giant humans jumping into chaos under arena lighting. Dramatic is the job.

But fine. Let’s talk about it. Because “the end” is doing a lot of work here. It starts simply: A season ending.

Not a funeral. No violins. Nobody collapsing on the hardwood like it’s the final act of something ancient and irreversible.

It’s… bittersweet. Which is a word that feels overused until you’re actually standing there, my two cameras in hand, watching a guy you’ve been framing for months walk off like it’s just another Tuesday.

And it’s not. It was a Saturday. And it felt like a goodbye.
For me, it starts with Will Tschetter. It always does.

He’s the kind of player photographers love because he makes sense. His reactions are readable. His joy is loud without being staged. You don’t chase moments with him. He hands them to you, like a polite Midwesterner holding the door just a bit too long.

And then there’s Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr, and the rest of this very specific, very fun group that somehow turned impossible into something that looked like joie de vivre¹ in sneakers.

Now, we’ve all seen the takes.
“Last of the true Michigan Men.”
“NIL turned this into mercenaries.”

Ah yes. The comforting myth of a past that was, conveniently, simpler.

From where I stand, which is usually baseline, slightly crouched, negotiating my own survival, that take misses everything. I disagree in English and in French. Yaxel Lendeborg was here for, what, six months? And yet.

After the game at Ohio State University, I watched him get pulled toward the locker room. Staff doing the polite but firm routine. Lendeborg kept looking back.
Not for cameras. For once, he was ignoring them.
He was looking at this kid. Tiny. Second grade energy. Holding onto that moment like it might disappear.

Yax stops. There’s a brief negotiation. Efficiency versus humanity. Humanity wins. “This is the youngest fan. I have to.” Said Yax, grabbing the parent phone.
Click. That’s the frame. That’s Michigan.

That kid might never join the University. But he will wear maize and blue in his heart forever. This matters.

For a few seconds, they shared something real. Something très simple². And yet, you don’t fake that. You don’t rent that for a season. You either are Michigan, or you’re not.

Same thing in games. In warm-ups. In those strange in-between moments where nobody thinks anything important is happening.

He was always leaning toward the team. Toward others. Even wearing Roddy Gayle Jr.’s jersey, not for the cameras but for the team. Michigan didn’t change him. He just fit.

Not a long story. Closer to a coup de foudre³. Sudden. Intense. Slightly unreasonable. Entirely real. You saw it when Yaxel asked for one last celebration with the Maize Rage. Playful. Loud. Completely genuine.

You saw it in the small things too. The way he thanked Chris Williams, who made sure he could play that last game despite the injury. Or simply the way he always acknowledged my lens.

And just like that, without warning, a season folds into something bigger. Because it never really stops at the roster.

This was also the end of a period.

The rebuild under Dusty May crossed that invisible line where people stop saying “rebuild” and start adjusting expectations upward without fully admitting it. With this, the last Juwan Howard players moved on. The structure now, fully, belongs to something new.

Also, minor detail, they won a national championship. Which tends to accelerate timelines.

From behind the lens, near the bench, you start noticing the shift early. Less proving. More knowing. I kept coming back to a simple triangle. Will Tschetter. Aday Mara. Oscar Goodman.

Different timelines. Different expectations. And yet, perfectly aligned. Mara is difficult to explain, even in photos. Physically, yes, we all see it. Length that bends space. Timing that feels slightly ahead of reality.

But off the court, it’s something else. I met him. Met his parents. And there’s this calm. This ease. Like he arrived, shrugged, and decided this made sense in seconds.

You forget how short it’s been. If you told me Mara had been here for years, I would probably believe you and blame my own archive.

He hasn’t. And he probably won’t stay long. That’s not pessimism. That’s reality (Alejandro, I need the Spanish word for that.)

But some presences don’t measure themselves in time. They expand. They leave traces. He did. And I would bet, without hesitation, that this isn’t the last time Michigan intersects with him. So no, Aday, Yax, Roddy, and all are no Mercenaries. I do not buy that storyline.

Each elements framed in a third: Trophies, Team, Coach, jerseys in the rafter!

Some players leave. Crisler stays. Three banners hanged. Which is how you realize this was a period ending. A full book closing.

Because winning it all does that. There is no next step. That was the step for this period. You take the photo. You print it. And later, you realize that it was an important memory. The end.

And then, inevitably, you look up and notice it has already started again. There is still so much room in Crisler’s rafters… This is a new beginning.

The next phase of the Dusty May Era is not coming. It’s here. Five trophies in two years. Which qualifies as pas mal⁴, even by standards that pretend to be unimpressed.

But the real story is underneath. It’s in the choices. The last two teams are not random assembly. It’s not collecting talent like souvenirs. It’s building something, Michigan is a regular national contender.

And the staff matters. A lot. One day, I will be able to explain it.

Dusty talks about it all the time. Winning together, remembering it forever as a unique groupe⁵. You can see it. The way guys who are leaving still act like they’re not really leaving.

People said Will would be the last of his kind. I’ve heard that before. Usually right before being proven wrong. Because you can already see the next layer forming.

LJ Cason settling into 4 seasons…?
Trey McKenney coming back with that “we’ve done this before” edge and personal love for Michigan.
Goodman growing into something more than a role. A presence. An energy. Is there a specialty cheese from New Zealand? Because something is aging like Cheddar here.

And then there are the details. The players you don’t always notice unless you are there, too close, watching the edges. Walk-ons. Practice bodies. The ones who carry memory instead of headlines.

They matter. They always have. They are the quiet continuity when everything else turns over. This season, I keep catching Harrison Hochberg in the edges of frames. Not loud. Not obvious. But steady. The kind of steady that becomes essential before anyone names it. (Y’all will see!).

That’s how this continues. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just like Dusty planned it. Just enough continuity to make the next beginning feel familiar.

Which is why, yes. This is the final part.

Of a season that gave more than expected.
Of a period that proved more than predicted.
Of a team that was special.

From behind the lens, endings are strange.

You rarely know you just captured the last frame until you’re already looking at it. And then it lands. Quietly.

No announcement. No ceremony. Just an image that won’t exist again.

But here’s the part that feels very Ann Arbor, with just a slight French shrug layered on top.

Endings here don’t really end. They bend. They loop. They return in new shapes.

So yes.

The end.

And, very obviously,

Not even close.

1. Rare condition observed in March when a B1G team looks like it’s having fun. OSU and MSU doctors still confused.

2. French for “this is easy,” usually followed by something absolutely not easy like OREB vs DREB.

3. Also applicable to a perfectly timed pass hitting the back board for a perfect finish by a “Gigantes” Wolverine.

4. The highest form of praise I would received from my non-Basketball Family.

5. Intentional French node.