Nimari Burnett is running it back one last time at Michigan.
The 6-foot-5 starting guard announced in an Instagram post Monday that he will return to the Wolverines for a third year in what will be his sixth and final season of college basketball.
“Let’s win it all,” Burnett wrote in a caption that accompanied a video of his highlights from this past season and ended with the message, “I’m back.”
Burnett started all 37 games this past season and averaged 9.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 26.3 minutes while shooting a career-best 47.6% from the field. He also led the team in made 3-pointers, shooting a career-high 40% from deep (66-for-165).
Burnett’s return is a boon for the Wolverines, considering fellow starters Vlad Goldin and Rubin Jones have exhausted their eligibility, Danny Wolf is entering the NBA Draft and Tre Donaldson transferred to Miami (Fla.).
While Burnett was contemplating his future this offseason, coach Dusty May made it clear he would welcome the Chicago native back with open arms.
“We want him back at the University of Michigan. We’re supporting his fact-finding mission of gathering information right now, but he’s a big part of this program,” May said on WTKA’s “The Michigan Insider earlier this month. “He’s going to get healthy and have a really good basketball season next year. We anticipate it to be here, but nothing is finalized until it’s final.
“We expect him to be back. We’re excited for him to be back. He was a big part of our success this year. His maturity and his leadership is impressive. He’s a guy that at any point — weights and conditioning and practice — we can point a young kid in his direction and say, ‘That’s what it looks like.’”
Burnett, a former top-40 recruit, began his college career at Texas Tech in 2020-21, but that didn’t count toward his eligibility due to the NCAA’s COVID-19 waiver. He then transferred to Alabama, where he spent two seasons but missed the entire 2021-22 campaign due to a knee injury, which qualified him for a medical redshirt.
He joined the Wolverines and former coach Juwan Howard in 2023-24. During his first year in Ann Arbor, Burnett had a lot put on his plate, shared ball-handling responsibilities and averaged a career-high 9.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game as a full-time starter.
After a miserable 8-24 campaign led to a coaching change and May’s hiring, Burnett was one of the few Wolverines who opted not to leave. Under May, he played more off the ball and played a key role in the program’s turnaround that resulted in a 27-win season, a Big Ten tournament title and a Sweet 16 appearance.
“Coming off of last year, Coach Dusty came in with a plan to win and to get a group of guys together that were fit to win and eventually become brothers, and that’s exactly what we did,” Burnett said after the season-ending loss to Auburn in the Sweet 16.
“Coming off a tough year last year, especially the returners like me, Will (Tschetter), Jace (Howard), the plan was to write the story and represent the block ‘M’ in the right way. This season was amazing. Not only did we build brothers and brotherhood, but we’re going to talk about this for the rest of our lives. It’s something we’re all going to remember.”
After helping get the program back to its winning ways, Burnett will look to help May build off this season’s success. He’ll be part of a returning core that will include fellow guards Roddy Gayle Jr. and L.J. Cason and forward Tschetter.
On a retooled roster that’s bringing in several transfer portal newcomers (Elliot Cadeau, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara and Yaxel Lendeborg) and a freshman class headlined by Orchard Lake St. Mary’s star Trey McKenney, Burnett will provide much-needed shooting, experience and reliability (he’s started all 69 games the past two seasons with the Wolverines).
“This is an absolutely beautiful future ahead of us, especially the type of guys that Dusty recruits, the type of guy that Dusty is, and the type of coach that he is, his schemes, his game plans offensively, defensively,” Burnett said after the Auburn loss.
“He keeps really good people around him as well, and I think that’s just a brand for a beautiful future ahead and representing Michigan the right way going forward.”
With Monday’s announcement, it’s a future that Burnett will be a part of for one more year.
jhawkins@detroitnews.com
@jamesbhawkins
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