It’s hard to forget Yaxel Lendeborg’s euro poster dunk against St. Louis in the Round of 32, or Morez Johnson Jr.’s alley-oop poster over Coen Carr against Michigan State in the regular-season finale.
But a dunk Michigan fans likely won’t forget anytime soon, considering the emphatic reaction from the bench, is Oscar Goodman’s poster dunk against Auburn at the Players Era Tournament.
Goodman was often outshined by the front court trio of soon-to-be first-round draft picks. There were a fair share of highlight moments, though, to make fans excited for a potential breakout 2026-27 season.
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Goodman joined Brian Boesch on Defend the Block this week to talk about the past season and this offseason heading into next year.
“Through practice, having to guard multiple NBA lottery picks helps with the confidence,” Goodman said on the podcast. “My circle was really helpful, telling me, ‘If you were anywhere else, it would be a whole different story.’ Ultimately I chose to do this because I wanted to win, and that’s probably the most important thing to me.”
After joining the Wolverines at the calendar turn of the 2024-25 season, Goodman now has a season-and-a-half’s worth of time in Ann Arbor under his belt. The time he’s spent at Michigan so far has helped improve his game, giving him confidence that he can be a bigger contributor moving forward.
“Getting used to the pace and the style of college basketball really helped me a lot,” Goodman said. “Just in the sense of the season coming, obviously hoping to have a bigger role and then knowing that I can perform at that level. Just having that is going to be really helpful going into this year.
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Although he redshirted in the 2024-25 season, Goodman played in 16 games in 2025-26 and accumulated 22 points and 20 rebounds. His most notable performance came against Penn State where he had six points, including an alley-oop finish and another poster dunk.
Now, with that experience under his belt, he’s taking parts of past teammates’ games to perfect his craft heading into the 2026-27 season. Specifically, he mentioned taking note of Lendeborg’s versatility, Johnson’s aggressiveness on the boards, Aday Mara’s post-up moves, Will Tschetter’s energy on and off the court and Elliot Cadeau’s ability to make the best reads.
What Goodman is looking to work on the most during the offseason is becoming a versatile scorer. And when he went back home to New Zealand, he would put up about 600 shots per day.
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“Just being a consistent shooter and a threat where people have to close out,” Goodman said when asked what part of his game he’s working on the most. “I’d like to say the better part of my game is getting downhill and making reads. So over the summer, getting in the gym a lot and just getting shots up, I worked on that a lot back home and I think just sticking with that is going to be the biggest thing for me.”
On top of looking to take on a bigger role this upcoming season, Goodman also hopes to simply set a good example for his brothers and what’s possible being from New Zealand.
“Being the oldest, just showing my brothers that it is possible to follow your dreams,” Goodman said. “Then for New Zealand as well, I wasn’t supposed to get out of my hometown — no one does — and to prove that if you really love something, you can do it. I think that I carry that with me a lot.”
