Michigan basketball adds internationally experienced assistant coach

Michigan basketball appears to have rounded out its coaching staff.

While the program has not made an official announcement, Mody Maor is listed as an assistant basketball coach in the athletic department's staff directory. Maor, 40, has served as a head coach for the Nagasaki Velca in the Japanese B League as well as the New Zealand Breakers of the Australia Basketball League.

It seems as though Maor will replace former assistant coach Justin Joyner, who spent two years in Ann Arbor under Dusty May before he left to become Oregon State's coach earlier this spring.

A banner recognizing the Michigan Wolverines as NCAA men’s basketball national champions hangs inside the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 11, 2026.

Maor was born in Los Angeles before moving to Israel when he was eight. He began his coaching career in 2012 as an assistant Hapoel Holon (2012-14) in that country, then continued as an assistant with Maccabi Ashdod (2016-17) – winning a title in 2017 – and then taking over Hapoel Jerusalem (2017-18) before going to New Zealand.

"The first thing you look at is who you're building your team with. We wanted to bring people that want to be part of something. The first step is getting everyone connected to the same goal, to having one common goal," Maor told ESPN in 2022 in a story written about how he "transformed" the New Zealand Breakers. "Once you have those goals, it's everybody understanding why you do things and how that connects to the goal.

"I think we've done that really well and the guys have bought into those ideas and those concepts, I think that's what you see."

The Breakers advanced to the ABL grand final series in 2023, before falling in five games.