Aday Mara remembers the silence interrupted by yells to fire the coach. He was 16 years old, called up to the professional team of his hometown club in Spain, Basket Zaragoza, and quickly introduced to life as a professional.
Four head coaches in eight months. The third one gave him his shot to finally play two days before he got fired — and only four games into the season —because he knew the axe was coming. Mara played nearly 20 minutes, the coach telling him to “do whatever you want.”
This is the model in Europe, where the best prospects work their way up through a professional club — starting with their youth teams — and those who are good enough get a shot at the higher levels as teenagers. Mara was good enough, playing 22 games in the Spanish ACB league as a 17-year-old. He was proud to represent his hometown team, but he felt out of place playing with teammates in their 20s and 30s.
“At the end of the day, they’re working,” Mara said. “And if you don’t do great, someone is going to take your job and you have to feed your family, you know? It’s not like playing with your friends. It’s just working.”
The next summer, Mara got to play with his friends at the Under-18 Euro Championships. He played his best ball, averaging 14.0 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.7 blocks per game, helping Spain win a silver medal. He didn’t care about those numbers. It was basketball in its purest form. No egos. No agendas. Simply playing for his country with his friends he’d grown up with.
This season, starting at center for No. 2 Michigan, Mara has found that happy place. The 7-foot-3 junior is on the shortlist for best defenders in the nation, ranking third in college basketball in blocks per game and anchoring a Wolverines (23-1, 12-1 Big Ten) team that could be the favorite to win the national championship.
And three years into his college career and more than four since his pro debut, Mara is appreciative of what he has because of where he’s come from.
Midway through his freshman season, once he had fallen out of the rotation at UCLA, Mara would escape every night to the weight room. He’d blast his favorite old school reggaeton music, quieting the thoughts that were often racing through his mind — Why wasn’t he playing? What was he doing wrong? – and putting in the work he hoped would lead to better days ahead.
Mara was one of four international prospects who signed with UCLA in the summer of 2023. That same summer, UCLA named Nemanja Jovanovic, a Serbian native, the director of international recruiting, and the Bruins immediately leaned into a strategy of chasing after elite international prospects. Mara, who was seen as a one-and-done draft pick, picked UCLA over Duke and Gonzaga because he knew Jovanovic and was sold on a developmental plan and role that would help him reach the NBA and adapt to American basketball and culture.
Instead, Mara’s role diminished quickly.
“The first months, they were difficult because I didn’t know what was happening,” Mara said. “Because before I went to UCLA, I was hearing some things and then when I was there, it was totally different.”
Mara admits the physicality and quickness of college basketball were a big adjustment. In Europe, there’s more structure with set plays and playing to advantages. He said the college game was more “individual.”
In the second half of his freshman season, his playing time dwindled, and he played just 24 minutes in UCLA’s final six games of 2023-24. At first, he questioned what he had done wrong and eventually accepted that it was just a coach’s decision. Then, Mara says he simply focused on just getting better and proving he was capable of playing.
“When I stopped thinking about it,” Mara said of obsessing over why he wasn’t playing, “that’s when I really enjoyed the opportunity that I had to be there in UCLA.”
Aday Mara was a five-star recruit and the No. 15 player in his class, but struggled to get on the court early, averaging 9.6 minutes per game at UCLA as a freshman. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
It helped that Mara had made some Spanish friends and was acclimating to college life. He also wasn’t alone; the other international recruits had a similar experience. Ilane Fibleuil and Jan Vide both got on the floor early but played sparingly the rest of the season. Berke Buyuktuncel stayed in the rotation most of the year but only played six minutes in two games at the Pac-12 tournament. The three others all left after that season — Buyuktuncel and Vide transferring, while Fibleuil returned to France — and Mara’s family and his agent wanted him to also leave, but Mara pushed back.
“It was more an ego thing, like pride,” he said. “I don’t want to leave the team after not having a good season. … I didn’t want to leave the team, and just give the message that ‘I cannot play here.’”
Mara met that offseason with UCLA coach Mick Cronin, who he said laid out a plan similar to the one he’d been given during the recruiting process. Then the season started, and Mara began the year in a similar spot as the 10th man.
Mara had dealt with frustration before. As a child, because he grew so fast — he was 6-3 at 11 and 7-foot by 14 — his long limbs wouldn’t move how he wanted them to. He loved basketball but would get mad and cry after games because “I wasn’t able to do the same things that the other players were doing.” That’s when he started therapy, helping him understand the feelings he was having and how he could manage the frustration.
During his sophomore year, he returned to therapy for the first time since his youth, with weekly video sessions with a therapist from back home in Spain, which he’s continued this season at Michigan. UCLA strength coach Dave Andrews, in his first year with the program, also helped give him perspective, sharing inspirational parables like “The Horse in the Well.”
Mara was confused why he wasn’t playing, but he kept working on his body and game, and his opportunity came out of nowhere. After Mara did not see the floor in a home win against Iowa on Jan. 17, Cronin turned to Mara after a slow start against Wisconsin in the next game. Mara proceeded to score 22 points, grab four rebounds and block two shots in 21 minutes. UCLA was plus-7 with Mara on the floor and won the game. Three minutes into the next game at Washington, starter Tyler Bilodeau injured his knee and Mara scored 12 points and played a season-high 30 minutes in another win. Bilodeau missed the next game and Mara started for the first time all year and was the most valuable player on the floor in a win at USC, finishing with 12 points, 11 rebounds, two assists and five blocks.
“Those three games, I gave a message to the people that I was able to help the team,” Mara said.
The latter two games would end up being the most minutes Mara would get all season, but it was obvious he was good enough to play in the Big Ten. Had he played enough minutes to qualify, he would have had the highest block rate (17.1) in college basketball. He averaged 19.6 points and 12.3 rebounds per 40 minutes, and UCLA’s defense was at its best (allowing 95.6 points per 100 possessions) with Mara on the floor, according to CBB Analytics.
Mara agreed with his parents and agents after the season that it was time to move on, and they targeted six schools where he fit stylistically: Gonzaga, Purdue, Florida, Kentucky, San Francisco and Michigan.
Mara said he chose the Wolverines because of how coach Dusty May used 7-footers Danny Wolf and Vladislav Goldin last season, and in their absence, he knew there was an opportunity.
“After Danny and Vlad, most of the big guys that went in the portal, they recruited us probably more aggressively than we recruited them,” May said. “There were a handful of guys that just were intrigued by our bigs being so involved.”
May was willing to play those two 7-footers together. While other coaches recruiting the three bigs he signed (Mara, Morez Johnson and Yaxel Lendeborg) tried to convince them that their roles would be diminished, Mara had heard that May was trustworthy and he put his faith in the Michigan plan.
In the first half of Michigan’s exhibition game at St. John’s in October, Mara missed two dunks and was 0-of-4 from the floor. May could see the disappointment in his eyes.
“At that point we just felt like we needed to kind of love him up and let him know that he’s going to be fine,” May said. “He’s gonna play well and this is part of the anticipation of what you think you’re going to do and it’s not always gonna happen that way, so just go out and continue playing. It’s going to happen. It might not happen today or tomorrow, but it’s gonna happen for you because you’re too good.”
Mara scored 12 points in the second half, including three big buckets down the stretch that allowed Michigan to force overtime, in a game it eventually won.
“I understand what he wants from me,” Mara said of May. ”It’s never enough for him in practice, and that’s a really good thing for me because he’s always trying to get me to be better in every practice. But when we are in the game or we are doing film, he’s giving me that confidence. And then I feel like when someone is pushing you a lot, and then he gives you the confidence to play and play your game and help your team, I think it’s just a great combination to do things.”
A preseason exhibition against St. John’s turned out to be a confidence builder for Aday Mara. (Ishika Samant / Getty Images)
The Wolverines play what he considers a European style, with no one dominating the ball and always searching for the best shot possible. (The Wolverines are balanced, with five players, including Mara, averaging in double figures and eight averaging 7-plus points per game.)
Mara has been a hub of that offense, showcasing the passing ability that made him such an attractive prospect when he played in Spain. He’s one of the best outlet passers in the country, often setting up teammates for easy buckets. Nothing brings him more joy than being able to do so with a little flair.
“When he gets the ball in the post,” Lendeborg said, “there’s no pass he won’t try to make.”
Mara has always played the game with a lesson an old coach taught him: An assist makes two players happy; a basket just one. “I’d rather have a good assist than a layup or dunk,” he said.
He has found an environment at Michigan that reminds him of his days playing with his friends on the Spanish youth teams, where he can be himself and constantly smiling.
May calls him a “gentle giant”, a “teddy bear” and, usually, by his nickname “Big Goof.”
“If he is not in the heat of the battle,” May said, “he’s just goofing around.”
An example of that goofiness: Mara showed up to Michigan’s preseason promo shoot with props: A chef hat, a wooden spoon and an apron with “The Grill Father” written on the front.
“He’s one of the nicest, most caring human beings I’ve ever been around,” May said. “And so he doesn’t have the asshole in him that a lot of guys have and need. And so it’s trying to almost create two Adays, where off the floor, before the game, you’re like this, but when those lights are on and that clock is moving, you gotta recreate yourself into a different person, into a killer.”
May said that it has mostly been a success. Mara has embraced physicality and has more confidence because of the work he’s put in the weight room. The Wolverines, which have the best defense in college basketball, control the paint when he’s on the floor, holding opponents to 33.1 percent shooting in the lane with Mara on the floor, per CBB Analytics.
“It’s the first year that I’ve been this aggressive and open to gambling,” Lendeborg said. “I’m able to guard the ball a little differently because I know he’s back there protecting me.”
Offensively, Mara has been efficient, making 68.4 percent of his 2s, and drawing a career-best 5.6 fouls per 40 minutes. His one weakness has been free-throw shooting (46.7 percent), but he’s improved there lately, shooting 63.6 percent over his last seven games.
Mara is getting confident enough in that shot that he even made the first two 3s of his career on Saturday at Ohio State when he played arguably the best game of his career, finishing with 24 points, six boards, three assists and two blocks.
“Every NBA scout just took note of that one.”
Aday Mara from DOWNTOWN pic.twitter.com/577s6rseyr
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) February 8, 2026
The biggest change might be in his conditioning, which May said has Mara getting end to end much faster. Defensively, May has seen an improvement in his lateral quickness, which gives the Wolverines more versatility in how they guard. Michigan usually has him in drop coverage against pick-and-rolls, but he’s starting to switch in some situations, especially late in games. He had a big stop against Nebraska recently, getting switched onto Pryce Sandfort with just under a minute left and Michigan ahead by 2. Sandfort tried to drive left, and Mara, down in a stance, cut him off and forced Sandfort into a contested 3-pointer that he missed, which May showed the team at the next film session.
“This is the new standard,” May said. “This is who you are now.”
Mara embraces the feedback, and even accepts his past struggles. He said he wouldn’t change anything about his journey, because he believes in destiny.
“Not every time, every day is going to be perfect or it’s going to go well,” he said. “So you just have to learn from it and just don’t make the same mistakes.”
May and Lendeborg both said Mara doesn’t talk a lot about his past, and he’s very much living in the present. The Wolverines have a real shot to win their first national championship since 1989, in large part thanks to the three bigs they’re able to play together.
It could be a special March and April, but Mara is not in a hurry to get there.
“I’m trying to enjoy all the time, because this is one of the teams that you really miss when it’s done,” Mara said. “It’s one of the teams that you have really good chemistry with all the teammates, that we have a good relationship, even with the coaches. We are always enjoying everything we do.”