​CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – MARCH 27: J.P. Estrella #13 of the Tennessee Volunteers dribbles against Blake Buchanan #23 of the Iowa State Cyclones in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at the United Center on March 27, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) | Getty Images For the third season in a row, the Michigan men’s basketball is relying on upperclassmen bigs, transferring into Ann Arbor to grow as players while providing size and stability around the rim.To say that strategy has payed off for the Wolverines would be a real understatement.If you count Yaxel Lendeborg as a big man, Michigan has sent all five starting bigs from the last two seasons — Danny Wolf, Vlad Goldin, Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara — to the NBA. Michigan reloaded in the front court this offseason, adding JP Estrella from Tennessee, Moustapha Thiam from Cincinnati and Jalen Reed from LSU. “We’re still pretty strong in the frontcourt,” head coach Mike Boynton said in Chicago at Big Ten Media Day. “I think probably the reason that we’re probably perceived as not being as strong, we’re not as strong, we don’t have to rely on it, let’s say that.”Michigan has developed all of those bigs in their short Ann Arbor tenures, bringing out the best parts of their games while unlocking new layers. That’s still the plan for the new bigs, with Boynton saying that Estrella and Thiam will be asked to do more from beyond the arc.“I think most importantly for them, it’s a part of the player development aspect of our program, where we want to add something to a player’s game that they haven’t unlocked before,” Boynton said. “But it’s also very critical for them to unlock those skills to get our team to function, because we do need space for Elliot to be able to penetrate, a guy like Roddy to get downhill, so if you got two guys in there that don’t shoot well, it makes it pretty difficult, and they both shoot pretty well. They’ll probably shoot more threes each individually than they’ve shot before, and that will be good for us.”Boynton sure made Estrella and Thiam sound like players Michigan fans are fond of when describing them to the media earlier this week.“JP is like the brute force, physical guy, in the similar mold to Morez,” Boynton said. “He’s one of the best offensive rebounders in the country, he was one last year, that will continue, but the evolution of his game, we play a lot different stylistically than he’s played the last three years, so playing on the perimeter more, being in more playmaker situations and shooting more threes honestly, is something that he’s worked on this summer.“It’s been a challenge for him,” Boynton continued. “You play a certain way for so long, it’s hard to change, but he’s worked really hard at it. Our staff has worked on film and spent some individual time with him and he’s taking the challenge on.”When it comes to E