In its attempt to slay Goliath, McNeese went for the feet.
Ranked tenth nationally in average offensive possession length entering the contest, the No. 2 Michigan men’s basketball team’s offense prioritizes transition buckets over set-heavy schemes. And it’s worked, with the Wolverines eclipsing the 100-point mark in six of their first 11 games .
In attempting to stop themselves from becoming the seventh team, the Cowboys aimed to even the playing field by grinding out Michigan (12-0) on defense. But even with full court presses and overtly physical play down low, McNeese (10-3) couldn’t trip up the Wolverines, losing 112-71.
Against tight defense from the get-go, Michigan raised its offensive standard. With the ball outside the arc, graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg drove through the lane and met 6-foot-10 McNeese forward Peitok Machar at the rim before hitting a reverse lay up for the and-1 — just the second Wolverine basket of the game.
Seeing Michigan continue to thrive despite sticky defense, McNeese upped the ante. Full court pressing and attempting traps before half court whenever possible, the Cowboys slowed down the speed at which the Wolverines played, but only forced one turnover directly off the increased pressure.
“I just think our spurtability, when you defend the way we defend and if you just stay with it, then you’re going to turn some of those stops into baskets,” Michigan coach Dusty May said.
Still the Wolverines proved themselves inexorable. As they continued to look like offensive juggernauts in spite of McNeese’s increased pressure, the Cowboys once again took it up a notch physically. Emphasized by a flagrant yank on junior center Aday Mara down low, McNeese’s resort to over-the-top physicality earned Michigan 27 free throws off of 16 total fouls in the first half alone. Even Cowboys coach Bill Armstrong got into the action, getting called for a technical foul while Mara took his shots at the line for the aforementioned flagrant.
“Fouls are a part of the game, you just got to keep playing,” sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. said.
By the end of the half, McNeese had succeeded in slowing down the Wolverines’ pace. But even with 11 more field goals than Michigan through the first half, the Cowboys still were subjected to a typical Wolverines mid-game beat down, entering the locker room trailing 60-29.
To start the second half, McNeese couldn’t even stop the fastbreak. After Mara scooped up an offensive rebound and knocked it in for two, graduate guard Nimari Burnett, Johnson and Lendeborg all scored in back-to-back-to-back plays, with the final being an and-1 Lendeborg dunk.
By the time the Cowboys had earned their first point of the half, Michigan had already knocked in 16. While the Wolverines returned to their fleet-footed nature, they were still aided by McNeese’s tendency to reach in, gathering 18 free throws in the final 20 minutes.
Despite their best efforts to — at times literally — topple the offensive juggernaut that Michigan is, the Cowboys turned out to be just another hurdle that the Wolverines handily hopped over en route to their seventh century-eclipsing final score.
