Takeaways from Michigan Basketball’s exhibition loss to Cincinnati

The Michigan men’s basketball team returned to the floor on Friday night for the most anticipated season for the program in the past half-decade.

The Wolverines played the Cincinnati Bearcats in their first exhibition game of the season. This wa the first time Michigan and Cincinnati played each other in 33 years, with the Wolverines holding a 3-1 advantage in the all-time series. The last matchup came in the 1992 NCAA Final Four in Minneapolis, where U-M earned a 76-72 victory to advance to the National Championship.

Michigan looked sloppy offensively, with double-digit turnovers in the first 16 game minutes putting the Wolverines in a 15-point hole that ballooned up to 20 before the first half was over. A Yaxel Lendeborg takeover cut into that lead in the second half, and some big threes made this a one-possession game late, but Cincinnati went on to win, 100-98.

Here are some takeaways from the exhibition loss.

Injury Update

Morez Johnson Jr. and Aday Mara did not play on Friday. Morez told Maize n Brew he’s dealing with “something minor” and that he expects to be available to start the regular season. A member of Michigan’s coaching staff also told Maize n Brew that Mara is expected to be ready for the start of the regular season and that he was sitting out as a pre-caution. A team spokesperson said that he rolled his ankle recently.

With both players out, Michigan started Yaxel Lendeborg, Will Tschetter, Elliot Cadeau, Nimari Burnett and Roddy Gayle Jr. Malick Kordel played limited minutes at the 5, but Michigan mostly stayed with this smaller lineup. I don’t think Lendeborg or Tschetter were ever on the bench at the same time.

Yaxel is as good as advertised

Lendeborg was the best player on the court Friday by a fairly significant margin. In his first seven minutes of play, he knocked down a corner three and finished a dunk off a Elliot Cadeau lob. He also was everywhere defensively early, recording a steal and using his length to swarm the Bearcats. He was exciting to watch in transition as well, dissecting the game a half-step quicker than everyone else.

He woke up Michigan’s lackadaisical offense in the second half, scoring nine points in three minutes to bring Michigan back within 11 and force a Cincinnati timeout. Overall, he finished with an impressive 31 points and 12 rebounds in 30 minutes. He is going to be a whole lot of fun to watch this season, especially when Michigan is fully healthy.

A whole lot of turnovers

Turnovers were a recurring issue for the Wolverines last season, and turnovers continued to be a problem in this one.

Michigan turned the ball over 14 times in the first half alone, eight more times than Cincinnati did. Michigan took care of the ball much better in the second half, with the Wolverines finishing the night with 19 turnovers. A lot of those turnovers came in the flow of the offense, but this is clearly a group that hasn’t gotten used to playing with one another quite yet.

You have to think this gets better in a few weeks once the team gets more game reps, but turnovers are definitely something you’ll want to keep an eye on as the season goes along.

Elliot is QUICK

One thing that stood out was Cadeau’s speed. Michigan had him run the pick-and-roll a lot, and he did a great job getting downhill and getting to the rim, finishing an impressive and-one in the opening minutes.

I really liked his commitment to getting paint touches, and his court vision was solid as well. He had a sick lob to Lendeborg early to complete an alley-oop — this was probably one of the best plays of the game for Michigan.

I also liked how Cadeau got to the free throw line a lot. The refs weren’t letting a whole lot go, but he shot 15 free throws and made 12 of them. He finished with 14 points, four fewer than Michigan’s second-leading scorer, Roddy Gayle Jr. He doesn’t have the red-hot shooting touch Tre Donaldson did last year, but Cadeau looks like a better distributor, finding shooters and lob threats all night.

SO MANY FREE THROWS

The Big Ten refs were in midseason form for this exhibition game. There were 60 (!) free throws shot in the first 30:50 of the game, with both teams combining to shoot 83 free throws. Both teams were in the double bonus midway through the second half. Michigan shot better from the charity stripe (85 percent to 63 percent).

The officials were not letting either team get into a rhythm offensively, and the game had no real flow because of it. Stuff like this is why some people can’t stand college basketball — just let the guys play, especially in an exhibition when we want to see players run plays and not shoot free throws.

Two big contributors from three (one old, one young)

Three-pointers were the catalyst for Michigan’s comeback, and some of the biggest shots came from a returnee and a freshman.

Tschetter was asked to do a lot with the bigs out, but he handled himself well handing off the ball and distributing in the half court. He hit back-to-back threes in the second half to cut the deficit. to five, but he did get a technical foul after celebrating his second three. He also made a desperation attempt to make it a two-point game with 4.3 seconds left. He finished with 15 points, played solid interior defense and looked as quick as he ever has in transition.

True freshman Winters Grady was firing from three (six points on 2-of-4 shooting) and knocked down two big ones in the second half. It was good to see he wasn’t afraid to let it fly. If he can hold up on defense, he might earn some playing time because of his three-point prowess.

Freshman Focus

The first three guys that came in off the bench were freshman — Trey McKenney, redshirt Oscar Goodman and Grady. Malick Kordel and Ricky Liburd played limited minutes, too. Grady stood out the most, and the rest of the group very much looked like first-year players getting their footing.

McKenney struggled to settle in, coming out after three minutes following a possession where he turned the ball over and then fouled on a layup attempt in transition. I thought he looked fine after that, he kinda struggled to get his footing offensively but he defended well. Goodman was good defensively and cut real well on offense, but he didn’t play much in the second half.

Both Kordel and Liburd didn’t do much in their limited minutes, as they were both clearly just getting used to the speed of college basketball.

Play of the Night

A few minutes after checking in — right around the eight-minute mark of the first half — L.J. Cason got put on a poster by Cincinnati’s Shon Abaev.

Abaev did get issued a technicial after flexing on Cason after that, if that counts as a silver lining.

Remember, this was an exhibition game

I can report with full confidence the sky is indeed not falling. Yes, it’s bad to turn the ball over as much as Michigan did, and you have to shoot the ball better, especially in that first half. But Dusty May told us at Media Day he likes to get beat in games like this that don’t count like this to “expose some of our own weaknesses.” It’s better to learn what you need to fix now than in the middle of Big Ten play three months from now.

We know Michigan has to do a better job taking care of the ball, and we still got plenty of time for this group to establish chemistry. Hopefully we can see these issues addressed next week, when Michigan takes on a real good St. John’s team in New York for another exhibition next week.

Source link