Michigan basketball blows out Middle Tennessee State, 86-61

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan Wolverines basketball led by six points at halftime but surged in the second half to blow out Middle Tennessee State, 86-61, Wednesday night at Crisler Center. Here’s how the game unfolded and the recap.

First half

Michigan started graduate forward Will Tschetter in the front court, in replacement of junior center Aday Mara, and he hit a three-pointer on the game’s first possession, the Wolverines taking advantage of Middle Tennessee aggressively trapping the first ball screen.

However, Middle Tennessee won the first four minutes, leading 9-7 thanks to 2 three-pointers from wing Kamari Lands and 1 from 6-foot-11 big man Chris Loofe. The Blue Raiders came out with full court pressure on most early possessions off of makes, and Michigan had a couple turnovers struggling to handle it.

Michigan went on an 11-0 run as part of an extended 15-3 surge following the under-four timeout, finding some success with its backup guards — sophomore guard L.J. Cason and freshman guard Trey McKenney — in the game. McKenney had an offensive rebound underneath that led to a three from graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg to give the Maize and Blue the lead, Cason had a layup and dunk in transition and McKenney drilled a triple off a baseline out of bounds. The Wolverines led 18-9 at the 11:53 media timeout.

The Wolverines’ lead ballooned to 12 points (23-11) on an and-one in transition from senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr., who drew 4 fouls early on. Middle Tennessee battled back, though, stringing together some stops and seeing two threes go in from Alec Oglesby, who entered the night with 131 career triples. Michigan head coach Dusty May called timeout with his team up six, 23-17, at the 7:27 mark.

Middle Tennessee found itself down 8 points before going on a 7-0 run to make it a one-point game, cashing in on a turnover from Mara on an errant pass from the post. Cason stopped the run with a transition layup to put him up to a team-high 8 points at that juncture. He was 4-of-5 from the field with an assist and no turnovers in his first eight minutes. Michigan held a 27-24 lead at the under-four timeout.

Michigan went up 36-27 with eight seconds remaining in the half, with graduate guard Nimari Burnett making one of two foul shots as part of an all-free-throw 5-0 run. But the Wolverines didn’t foul up top even though they had multiple to give, and Tory Alston finished an and-one with 0.4 seconds to go. That made it 36-30 at halftime.

Michigan shot 39 percent from the field and turned the ball over 7 times in the first half. Middle Tennessee, meanwhile, connected on only 32 percent of its looks and had 10 turnovers, but 7 of the makes were from three-point distance.

Second half

Cadeau drilled a three right out of halftime, after an offensive rebound by Burnett, and Michigan jumped out to a 15-point edge after a Lendeborg triple and sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. layup off a sick feed from Cadeau. MTSU’s Tre Green hit a three to cut the lead to 47-34, at which point head coach Nicholas McDevitt called a timeout with 16:48 on the clock.

Michigan was feeling itself offensively in the opening minutes of the half, shooting 7-of-10 from the field, including a 2-of-4 mark from long range, leading 53-38 at the 14:42 media timeout. Lendeborg made the free throw to cap off a three-point play to make it 54-38 just out of the media break.

Lendeborg had another and-one to give the Maize and Blue their largest advantage of the night, 57-38, after Gayle dove on the floor for a loose ball to get the possession going.

Mara had a put-back dunk, and Gayle sliced in for a layup to give Michigan a 21-point edge, 61-40, leading into the under-12 media timeout. Dating back to late in the first half, Michigan made 11 of its last 17 field goal attempts at that point.

Lendeborg continued to dominate for Michigan, with a layup in transition that put the Wolverines up 26 points — 73-47 — with 7:12 remaining. Michigan was executing its offense at a high level in the second half, with 1.4 points per possession after the break to that point.

Michigan emptied the bench late in the game, and we saw the first of freshman guard/forward Winters Grady, who burned his redshirt by seeing action. The largest lead was 27 points at the 2:34 mark — 83-56.

The Wolverines held on to win comfortably, led by Lendborg’s 25-point outburst. The final score was 86-61.

Michigan vs. Middle Tennessee State box score