The Wolverine Basketball Show: Reacting to Michigan's blowout win over San Diego State

On this episode of The Wolverine Basketball Show, Clayton Sayfie reacts to Michigan’s 94-54 blowout win over San Diego State Tuesday night at the Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas as part of its first game in the Players Era Festival. U-M will take on Auburn Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. ET on TNT.

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Sayfie broke down Michigan’s win over San Diego State, highlighting the stellar defensive performance.

“Just a blowout win for Michigan,” the host said. “They lead by 12 at halftime — 45-33 — and then they turn it on in the second half, and defense was really the story.

“You did not expect it to go necessarily that way [with a blowout win]. Michigan entered the game 7.5 point favorites in Las Vegas line, and it got down to 5.5 on some services. And it was just a domination in the second half.

“I want to start with the defense, and this is a trend, it’s something we’ve talked about this show after all of these games, but the shot quality for Michigan’s opponents is extremely inefficient.

“San Diego State comes in as a team that shoots a lot of mid-range shots anyway, and Dusty May said on his pregame radio show the keys to this game are not giving them anything easy — anything at the rim or open threes. Michigan did not give them many open looks. There were a few open threes, but pretty much shut the water off on all of those things. And he wanted to contest the mid-range shots, because there were going to be a lot of them. San Diego State’s good at it, but if you know anything about the way Dusty May sees the game of basketball, they’re going to live with some of those looks. Michigan contested the overwhelming majority of those. They didn’t give them anything at the rim. A few open threes, but other than that …”

Get the full breakdown on Michigan’s win in the episode above.