So far this season, the No. 3 Michigan men’s basketball team played its best basketball in November. During their trip to Las Vegas, the Wolverines won by a combined 110 points in three games — two of which were ranked opponents, including a now-No. 6 Gonzaga team whose only loss is to Michigan by 40 points.
Last season, the Wolverines proved they could succeed in a tournament setting with a Big Ten Tournament Title and Sweet 16 appearance. The Players Era Tournament in Las Vegas was no different. But Michigan hasn’t played that level of basketball since.
Turnover issues, lack of physicality when rebounding and missing free throws are just the shortlist of problems the Wolverines faced during a stretch where the margin of victory has slipped in the last eight games. Michigan was handed its first loss to Wisconsin at home after making a multitude of mistakes — most notably giving up 91 points, the most points they’ve allowed all season. From the Players Era Tournament to struggling, the Wolverines have still won 20 out of 21 games, but there’s still much room for improvement.
“This team has such a high ceiling,” Michigan coach Dusty May said following the Wolverines’ 81-73 win over No. 7 Michigan State. “We’re not anywhere near being where we need to be if we’re gonna win a regular season championship, which is the ultimate marathon.”
May’s statement, though, is exactly what makes Michigan scary.
Even when not playing “anywhere near” where they need to be, the Wolverines took down two top-10 teams. The first against an illness-ridden No. 5 Nebraska team at home in a game where Michigan committed 19 turnovers and shot 23% from deep. The latter was the Wolverines’ first win at the Breslin Center since 2018. While turnovers and shooting weren’t an issue Friday night, they did nearly allow a second-half comeback after jumping to a 16-point halftime lead.
Averaging 14.6 turnovers in the last five games, lacking frontcourt consistency in a two-point win over Penn State and struggling to contain a red-hot Wisconsin team defensively have all been issues over the last month of league play.
It’s clear the Wolverines haven’t played their best basketball since November, yet they’ve found different ways to win in the two biggest games of the season. And in March when the games matter most, finding ways to win against the nation’s best is all that matters.
“We proved that we can still win in different ways,” May said. “We haven’t been in two games like we were in this week where there’s so little movement. You’re challenged for every inch of the court. You’re challenged for every step. And last year’s team, we didn’t respond very well once the Big Ten got into this part of the season. We addressed that through recruiting, and our guys were able to do that tonight. They were able to get just enough space and separation and create the angles, and guys stepped up and made plays.”
Last season, Michigan often found itself on the right side of close games. In an eight-game, mid-season stretch, it won seven of those games by an average of 3.4 points. But in the last five games of the regular season when it mattered most, the Wolverines lost to the Spartans twice and lost back-to-back games at home against Illinois and Maryland to let the regular season title slip away.
For a Michigan team that won its first 13 games this season by an average of 30.2 points, it always knew blowing out teams night in and night out wasn’t going to be sustainable once it entered Big Ten play. Similar to last season, finding ways to win in close matchups has become crucial.
The Wolverines, however, are fundamentally a completely different team from a year ago in terms of roster construction. And the even bigger difference from last year to this year so far has been the messaging. The mentality has grown throughout the year to emphasize that no matter the method, stakes or outside noise along the way, winning is all that matters.
“I thought (Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti) made a great point, he just said, ‘This team’s never played here,’ ” May said. “We just kind of went into it, obviously last year we were 0-2 against these guys, but this team that we have in our locker room, they were 0-0 and so we’re not talking about what the past teams have done.”
That key distinction is what will separate last year’s team from this year’s. Both last year and this year, Michigan started to follow a similar trend of winning conference games by a close margin in the thick of Big Ten play. But this season the Wolverines showed in November what they can be when everything clicks. They just have to make it more consistent in a way season-long turnover issues prohibited what the Wolverines could be a year ago.
And a start to that was when Michigan and May proved they’re an entirely new team from last year with the sheer physicality and composure they showed in East Lansing. The Wolverines were letting the stakes of games in prior weeks loom too large. But a 20-7 start, 16-point halftime lead and squashed potential second-half comeback Friday night proved otherwise. That wouldn’t have happened in years past.
So far, aside from an early-2026 blunder against the Badgers, Michigan has simply won. If the Wolverines can eliminate the list of issues plaguing them on any given night and commit the revitalized mentality shown against Michigan State, a team currently “not anywhere near being where we need to be” could become one bringing home hardware in March.
