Michigan defeated Washington by a score of 91-75 at Crisler Center on Sunday afternoon. The Wolverines improved to 5-0 in the Big Ten with the victory in Dusty May's first season as head coach.
Five players scored in double-figures for the Wolverines, with Vlad Goldin leading the way with 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting.
Michigan only turned the ball over 11 times, which is about four fewer than the team's season average. By all accounts, box score watchers would have concluded that Michigan cruised to an easy 15-point victory behind strong shooting and bench production.
But the game was remarkably choppy. May gave his thoughts on the contest after the win.
"I thought we did some nice things overall for a choppy Sunday afternoon game," May said. "I don't think either team would have been pleased with the flow of the game, but also we both contributed to it. We were changing defenses, we were going zone to man, we were both in limited foul trouble and so just an odd game, but over the course of a 20 game Big Ten season, you have to beable to play a lot of different styles, a lot of different ways and we definitely got something done today."
Winning in different styles has been Michigan's calling card all year long. The Wolverines have beaten teams with elite 3-point shooting, dominant post play and suffocating defense.
But the most impressive part of Michigan's season thus far has been the unbelievably efficient offense. The Wolverines are tied with Northern Iowa for the nation's best field goal percentage at 51.89 percent.
Michigan also ranks 36th in the country in 3-point percentage, coming in at 37.82 percent.
For a team full of transfers and newcomers all coming together to play in May's system, Michigan's offense has been remarkable in 2024-25. Comically, though, May said after the 91-75 win — the eighth game in a row in which the Wolverines have scored at least 85 points — that the offense isn't even close to reaching its full potential.
"No. Not even close. Not even close. Absolutely not," May adamantly stated when asked if the offensive efficiency has reached its peak. "We're improving our ball fakes, our eye fakes, our spacing — when to cut, when not to cut. It's getting better. But no. We're not functioning on an elite level offensively yet. And we're not crashing with the aggression we need to (in order) to be at a championship level. We have a long ways to go."
A big knock on the Wolverines all season has been the sky high turnover rates. Michigan ranks 342nd in the nation in turnovers per game with 15.2 per contest. That's a clear area of improvement for the Wolverines.
In Sunday's win, Michigan turned it over only 11 times, the fewest number of turnovers it's had in almost a month. May said even 11 turnovers is too many, although there are some they can live with.
"The 11 tonight, I thought three or four were just careless mistakes, and part of it is when you play a new system. ... There's a lot that goes into the way we play as far as just those guys reading each other, and ultimately it comes down to reading the defense, so no, we care about the careless ones, and the poor decisions, with the way we play, we want to get 80 possessions, so it's probably not realistic to be under, in single digits, if we're going to play with aggression, we're going to play speed, that many possessions, and we do want to take some chances."
Michigan will head to Minnesota to take on the Big Ten bottom-feeding Golden Gophers on Thursday at 7 p.m. The game will air on FS1.
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