Eli Brooks had seen it in practice before.

With 12:36 to play in the first half, Michigan forward Moussa Diabate collected a deflected pass. Seeing a numbers advantage, the freshman pushed the ball forward himself on the fast break. He saw fellow freshman Kobe Bufkin filling the lane on the opposite side of the paint, but after a crossover dribble at the top of the key, there was only one thing Diabate had in mind.

There was a UNLV big man beneath the rim. That didn’t matter. With a full head of steam, Diabate threw down a thunderous one-handed dunk on his head. Trotting back to Michigan’s end of the floor, he flexed his biceps with an outstretched tongue.

The slam accounted for Diabate’s two loudest points of the night during the Wolverines’ 74-61 win at the Roman Main Event in Las Vegas, but they were far from his only two. He scored 14 points — double his previous season-high — on an efficient 6-of-7 shooting. Diabate also pulled down seven rebounds, swatted two shots and recorded a steal. Perhaps most importantly, he looked a step faster than anyone else on the floor in everything he did.

After three games of adjusting, the former five-star prospect introduced himself to college basketball on Friday night.

“We knew he was going to have a breakout game,” fifth-year guard Eli Brooks said. “It was just a matter of time.”

And yet, Diabate still looks like he’s merely scratching the surface. After a dominant end to his high school career at IMG Academy, he spent the summer in Ann Arbor adjusting to the up-tempo style of the college game. Michigan, in particular, has established a reputation for pushing the pace under third-year coach Juwan Howard after being one of the nation’s slower teams under John Beilein.

In high school, most five-star recruits can rely on elite athleticism to get by. That typically changes when they get to college, and Diabate is no exception.

“As a freshman coming straight out of high school, basketball on the collegiate level is a little bit faster, more physical, a lot of moving parts, a new system, a lot of different things asked that you’ve probably never done before,” Howard said. “I see each and every game, (Diabate) is getting better and better with his confidence as well as adjusting to the style of what’s being asked of him and his role. It’s challenging when you’re the marquee guy of your high school team, a McDonald’s All-American, now you have to sacrifice.”

Howard isn’t the only one noticing, either. Diabate can feel himself starting to settle in, though that process doesn’t happen overnight.

“Especially now, I’m definitely starting to get used to the college pace,” Diabate said. “As time goes, I’m just going to keep on getting used to it.”

Once Diabate feels the game slow down for good, few teams in the country will have an answer for him. His lateral quickness and vertical explosiveness allows him to switch ‘1’ through ‘5’ at the defensive end, while his offensive game is starting to come along as he develops face-up and back-to-the-basket moves. At 6-foot-11, his combination of skill and athleticism makes him a matchup nightmare in all aspects of the game.

The version of Diabate that Michigan saw on Friday night was special. And if he keeps growing at this pace, it could become the status quo sooner rather than later.

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