How Michigan football got Belleville QB Bryce Underwood in 2025 class
‘Hail Yes!’ hosts Tony Garcia and Rainer Sabin break down the Wolverines landing No. 1 overall recruit Bryce Underwood.
The 2024-25 college basketball season officially is at the quarter pole and Michigan basketball has shown enough evidence to know two things.
First, this is a really good basketball team.
As much has shown to be the case over the last four weeks when U-M has put together its seven-game winning streak. The run continued Saturday, when U-M survived Iowa 85-83 at Crisler Center — despite a late 10-2 push by the Hawkeyes over the final two minutes — helped by a Payton Sandfort game-tying 3-pointer with 20 seconds left.
Instead of panicking, coach Dusty May called a timeout and drew up a play. U-M got exactly what it wanted. The Wolverines used Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin as decoys and got the handoff from Tre Donaldson to Roddy Gayle.
From there, Gayle − one of five Michigan players in double figures − drove the lane and was credited with the game-winning layup on a goal-tending call with 4.3 seconds left. It proved to be the difference as Michigan (8-1) opened Big Ten play at 2-0 for the first time in four years. A very good team to be sure.
The second aspect we learned of this team is that it has a ceiling. The limiting factor? Turnovers. According to KenPom, Michigan is No. 336 (out of 355 NCAA Division I teams) in turning the ball over on 21.4% of its possessions and No. 350 on non-steal turnovers.
This has led to the opponent consistently having more opportunities than the Wolverines.
That was the case again Saturday as Michigan lost the turnover margin 17-4, leading to a monstrous 19-2 advantage for Iowa in points off of giveaways. In other words, Michigan won the game in the half-court 83-62 but still had to sweat out a game-winning shot attempt by Iowa at the buzzer.
“If we can figure out a way to fix this turnover issue — and it’s got to be all hands on deck, got to be the coaches, the players, managers, everybody involved has to be involved in what we can do to fix this problem — and if we can fix it then our ceiling, our team becomes a much better basketball team at the drop of a hat,” May said. “You weigh talking about it too much and not talking about it enough, but we have enough sample size now that we’ve got to figure out some ways to clean this up.”
‘Very very well, very very fast’
To be clear, knowing the team’s primary issue this early in the season is a good thing.
There’s not a team in the nation at this juncture that doesn’t have some area of weakness or concern that it’s working to improve. But saying it is one thing. Doing it is another.
“Been saying this after every game, but it’s something we have to focus on,” said senior Will Tschetter, who scored a season-high 13 points. “You can see what happens when we don’t turn it over − Xavier game − things go very very well, very very fast when we don’t turn it over and just take care of that rock.”
For Michigan, there is so much that it does well, it truly seems like fixing the turnover issue is the difference between U-M winning tight and U-M winning big. Michigan ranks No. 7 nationally in two-point shooting (60.7%), No. 23 at offensive rebound rate (37.2%) and effective FG shooting (57.3%) and is still No. 44 adjusted offensive efficiency (114.4).
But giving away so many possessions has at times neutralized what is an incredibly talented offense. U-M shot 55% (32 of 58) from the floor while Iowa shot 42% (32 of 77). The 19 additional shot attempts entirely made up for the efficiency discrepancy as they ended with the same amount of made shots from the floor.
“Without a doubt,” May said of this being the No. 1 reason Saturday was close. “First thing I usually look at is how many more shots we get than the other team, and I’ve had to stop looking at it because it’s frustrating.
“It can be a great learning lesson for us, that if we can turn the ball over at (their) rate, with our ability to finish around the rim…if we can clean that one thing up, I think it will energize our defense, too.”
The man usually in charge of energy is Tre Donaldson. The point-guard transfer from Auburn had 18 points and five assists compared to just two turnovers Saturday. He’s done well taking care of the ball (his assist-to-turnover ratio is nearly three to one) all season.
However if there is one primary concern on the turnovers, it’s probably Danny Wolf. The Yale transfer was good again Saturday with 13 points and 14 rebounds (his fourth double-double in nine games) but had a team-high four turnovers. It was his sixth time in nine games with four or more turnovers.
The last was, was almost most costly. U-M had possession leading 83-80 when Wolf brought the ball up court against Iowa’s three-quarter court press and threw a cross-court skip pass which was intercepted. Iowa took the ball the other way and seconds later, Payton Sandfort drilled the game-tying shot from the corner.
“If we take care of the ball, the game doesn’t come down to the wire like that,” Donaldson said. “Everybody knows that.”
Bright lights coming
Michigan had the momentum of its home crowd Saturday, but there are a pair of tough neutral sites upcoming.
The Wolverines head to New York City on Tuesday to face recently-ranked Arkansas and its new coach, the legendary John Calipari, at Madison Square Garden in the Jimmy V Classic. Then, they face still undefeated Oklahoma (8-0) in Charlotte on Dec. 18 in the Jumpman Invitational.
“Now this is where it gets really challenging,” May said. “The games are coming fast, the outside noise − I don’t know if we’re ranked or not − I think we’re ranked in one of the polls, but all the stuff that doesn’t matter to me, it does change the complexion.
“But I like where we are.”
The rest of the team is seemingly rounding into form, too. After scoring eight points or fewer in five of his first six games, center Vlad Goldin has scored 18 or more in three straight, which included Saturday when finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds, his first double-double for the maize and blue.
Though 83 points may not feel like it, U-M has also been quite good on defense. The Wolverines are No. 7 per KenPom in adjusted efficiency (93.3), No. 12 in effective field goal shooting allowed (42.4%), No. 8 in two-point defense (41.7%) and No. 5 in defensive assists allowed (36.4% of opponents baskets).
It wasn’t U-M’s usual recipe of depth that led to this victory as the bench scored a season-low 15 points. But even with that and an off-shooting night from deep (4 of 20) Michigan still beat a top-50 KenPom team.
Now just imagine what can happen if it can cut down those turnovers.
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
