The Wolverine Basketball Show: Reacting to Michigan's exhibition game against Cincinnati

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — On the first ever episode of The Wolverine Basketball Show, Clayton Sayfie reacts to Michigan’s 100-98 loss to Cincinnati to open the exhibition season, sharing takeaways from the game.

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Sayfie shared his overall thoughts on a weird exhibition from Crisler Center.

“Yeah, Cincinnati wins, 100-98,” Sayfie said. “It’s worth noting: Michigan was without 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara and 6-foot-9, 250-pound forward Morez Johnson Jr. Dusty May said after the game that both of them, at least they’re hopeful, that they’ll be back soon. L.J. Cason, sophomore guard, was limited with an injury. He played 14 minutes. I think they wanted him to be around 10 to 15, and he played 14. From what we heard, he was on a little bit of a pitch count there.

“Michigan’s starters in this game were Elliot Cadeau, Roddy Gayle Jr., Nimari Burnett, Yaxel Lendeborg and Will Tschetter. Will Tschetter played the ‘5.’ Michigan was really undersized against a very, very tall, very lengthy, very active defensively Cincinnati team that did come into the season No. 5 in the country in Kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric.

“It’s very predictive, obviously, at this point, but Wes Miller, Cincinnati’s coach, has had really good defensive teams since he’s been there. And, let me tell you, they were pretty incredible defensively, especially in the first half, or maybe only in the first half. Michigan had a long stretch there in the mid first half to late in the half where they barely scored. I think it was a 24-4 run for Cincinnati. Michigan turned it over all over the place with 14 turnovers in the first half. They finished with 20 for the game, so only six in the second half. They cleaned those up. That was a big issue, and a lot of it is just laziness up top, maybe a guy wasn’t looking when there was a pass when they were trying to initiate the offense.”

For much more, check out the show on Michigan’s exhibition loss to Cincinnati.