It was safe to wonder if there would be somewhat of a letdown for Michigan basketball after coming home from an NCAA Tournament-like atmosphere playing Duke on Saturday. And with a pesky Minnesota team coming to Ann Arbor, that's precisely what transpired.
The Wolverines went up 5-0 to start the game, but it didn't take long before the Gophers tied it. The first half ended up being a back-and-forth affair, with the maize and blue eventually asserting themselves, jumping out to a late-first-half 10-point lead, on the heels of Minnesota going scoreless for six minutes. However, as Minnesota stopped trying to slow things down and went quickly to the rim, the Wolverines ended up going into the locker room at halftime with just a four-point lead.
The second half saw both teams essentially trade baskets for the first six minutes, but Michigan was one point better than before the half, with a five-point lead. The Wolverines started to push in the middle of the second half, with a Yaxel Lendeborg 3 (his first points of the game), a Morez Johnson Jr. layup, an LJ Cason 3, an Aday Mara dunk, and a Cason layup leading into a Minnesota timeout just before the under-12. The Michigan lead was nine.
But the Gophers kept at it, and the two-three zone frustrated the Wolverine offense. Isaac Asuma hit a 3 to cut the Michigan lead back to six.
A 12-2 run, most of which came from a barrage of 3s, helped the maize and blue to pull away and accumulate a 14-point lead with 7:43 remaining. In the coming minutes, Minnesota erased a bit of Michigan's eventual 18-point lead, taking an 11-point deficit into the under-four media timeout with 2:47 remaining in the game. But it wasn't enough, and the Wolverines won, 77-67.
Here are our five takeaways.
A slow start for Michigan
Minnesota wanted to slow the game down on offense and make things difficult for the Wolverines on the other. Well, mission accomplished.
The Gophers were plodding on the offensive side of the court, and the zone defense clearly bothered Michigan at the other end. Minnesota actually outshot the maize and blue in the first half, and held star forward Yaxel Lendeborg scoreless in the process.
It took until halfway through the second half before the Wolverines started looking like themselves, with hot shooting (59.3% in the second half) to make the lead insurmountable.
The bench was the difference
Michigan has one of the best, if not the best, benches in college basketball (though Duke would like to have a word), but usually the bench plays second fiddle to the starters. Not so in this one.
While the starters did play more minutes in the first half, it was marginal. We saw heavy doses of Trey McKenney, Roddy Gayle Jr., LJ Cason, and Will Tschetter right out of the gates, playing nearly as much as the starters in the opening 20 minutes. Of Michigan's 32 first-half points, the bench accounted for half, 16 points, led by Gayle's seven.
The second half saw LJ Cason and Trey McKenney have the hot hands, as both were hitting at-will from 3 to stretch the lead. Cason had 14 points (second on the team) while McKenney had 12 and Gayle had nine.
Ultimately, Michigan had 35 points from its bench while Minnesota had zero.
Perimeter defense was an issue
The stats say that Michigan should have destroyed and decimated the Gophers, except for one place -- 3-point shooting. Led by forward Cade Tyson (who made five 3s, 50% of his attempts), Minnesota kept things relatively even by hitting the long ball -- despite being relatively equal in turnovers (though the Gophers were better at getting points off turnovers) and absolutely on the wrong side of rebounds, second-chance points, and bench points.
Even after the Wolverines took a commanding lead, Minnesota kept shooting and kept hitting from deep, keeping the game relatively interesting. The Gophers managed to score 12-of-34 3-point attempts (35.3%).
Perimeter offense was not
Michigan was certainly annoyed by the two-three zone, and that meant that the Wolverines didn't push the ball inside as much as they would have liked. But the result? An aerial assault from outside.
Despite the issues keeping the Gophers from scoring outside the arc, the maize and blue were red hot from 3 in the second half, managing 9-of-18 from deep in the final 20 minutes. As mentioned in the lead, four-straight 3s helped push the advantage to a point where Minnesota just could not recover.
Michigan hit 42.4 overall from deep in the game, hitting 14-of-33 attempts.
A share of the Big Ten
It's been five years since Michigan won the Big Ten regular season title (2021), but that drought is officially over. The question is now not if it will win it, but whether it will have sole possession of said title.
The win by the Wolverines, still a team-best start to a season, ensured that the maize and blue will have at least a share of the Big Ten regular season championship, and with three games remaining, including against fellow contender Illinois on Saturday, Michigan is in the driver's seat for top conference honors.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Takeaways: Michigan beats Minnesota, secures Big Ten title share