"As soon as you get a little bit tired, there's a sub coming," Michigan basketball guard Elliot Cadeau said. "And that sub is just as good as you."
Dusty May has been clear when talking about his team's shooting.
The No. 1 Wolverines hitting their shots, the Michigan basketball coach has said, simply sets the margin of victory. The rest of the time, U-M hopes to have enough grit and grind to find a way to win in ugly fashion.
Well, the Wolverines didn't shoot well on Tuesday, Dec. 9, against Villanova – making just 27.3% of their 3-pointers and only 56% on free throws.
An ugly win, then?
Not quite.
The Wolverines won beautifully, suffocating the Wildcats defensively while using waves of talent to simply overpower them inan 89-61 rout.
"It just shows how well we're defending," May said. "The shots aren't determining our defensive energy. ... That's a real sign of growth and maturity. ... For us to win with this margin against a program like Villanova – and they have good players – it's a testament to how our offense isn't dictating our defense."
Michigan ran another talented team down while proving it doesn't have to rely on lights-out shooting, thanks to the two tenets of this group: depth and defense.
Depth on display
Only three Michigan players scored in double figures (led by Elliot Cadeau with 18, his high in this, his first season at U-M). But five others scored at least seven, as seven players took at least six shots from the field.
No Wolverine played more than 25 minutes; eight went at least 18. That depth allows the Wolverines to empty the tank every time they're on the court in May's breakneck, up-tempo offense: there's no mandate to preserve their energy.
"As soon as you get a little bit tired, there's a sub coming, and that sub is just as good as you," Cadeau said. "That gives us an edge over a lot of teams because they're playing like tired guys, we're playing fresh guys.
"We can run faster than them, we can defend longer than them."
Perhaps the best example of this came midway through Tuesday's first half, with Michigan's 15-point lead cut to eight in a 33-second blitz by 'Nova. That's when U-M's second unit took the floor and widened the gap.
Roddy Gayle Jr. hit a floater in the paint, Trey McKenney drilled a 3 from the top of the arc and L.J. Cason made a transition layup. The sophomore then followed with another layup that rolled around the rim and fell in as he fell to the floor. Then Will Tschetter capped the run with a four-point play – fouled while drilling a three – as part of a 15-0 run over 2:49 of action.
"It's like, man, what a luxury," May said afterwards of that jolt. "They still have their starters in, [our] guys have them going and they're having to fight for every catch on every spot and now this next group comes in. ... Not only is there no dropoff, but there's an accelerant on the fire."
Defensive defiance
If there's anything that makes May as happy as his team not quibbling over minutes or roles, it's the collective buy-in on defense.
The Wolverines entered Tuesday as KenPom's No. 1 defensive team and lived up to the billing in holding Villanova to 44% inside the arc and 27% on 3s. This, after the Wildcats entered hitting 56% on 2-pointers and 36.5% on 3s.
But what separated U-M was an unwillingness to allow anything easy around the rim. Villanova was the nation's No. 2 offensive rebounding team coming in, grabbing 44.5% of their missed shots. On Tuesday? That clip was 14.6% – just six offensive boards on 41 misses, which translated into only seven second-chance points.
"I thought our guys were able to, as coach [Justin] Joyner said, 'Take away their fastball,'" May said. "I think Villanova made a tradeoff decision where they were sending three or four back [to stop transition] and letting the five man go to work.
"Our guys, they realized they gotta get a hit on him, have to outwork him and trust their teammates would fly in. ... I thought that was probably the biggest difference of keeping them off the glass."
Ho hum, another one
Add it all up and it was the Wolverines' sixth consecutive victory by 25 points or more, and their seventh overall. That's tied for third most ever in a season by UM. The only two teams with more 25-point wins? The 2012-13 squad, with nine, and the 1988-89 squad, with 10 – over a full season. Both made the Final Four, with the '89 Wolverines winning it all.
It would've been five straight by 30 or more, but May put his deep reserves in for the final few minutes – Michigan was up 36 with 4:43 left – and a Villanova 3 with 15 seconds left made it just a 28-point victory.
"I mean, obviously, it's a great problem to have," Tschetter joked. "I think our attention to detail, our defense, our unselfishness in the first half is definitely what shined and made that lead possible."
Tschetter has seen a lot during his time in Ann Arbor; the Wolverines made a Sweet 16 in his freshman year, missed the tournament twice after, then made another run to the Sweet 16 a season ago.
But this appears to be something else.
Tuesday's win improved the Wolverines to 9-0, a day after they rose to No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll for the first time since January 2013. This is their best start since 2020-21, when the team made the Elite Eight. But this group is looking beyond that.
And right now, the way everything is going, who can blame them?
"Guys are having to sacrifice minutes, shots, things like that," Tschetter said. "But having an unselfish group like we have has been paramount so far. ... Just need to make sure we keep this within the team, keep on trudging forward."
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball has simple formula for wins: defense and depth
Category: General Sports
