The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1541451
38 THE WOLVERINE ❱ DECEMBER 2025 BY CHRIS BALAS D usty May's second Michigan bas- ketball team fell from No. 6 to No. 7 in the AP rankings released Nov. 17 fol- lowing tougher-than-expected wins over Wake Forest (at Little Caesar's Arena in Detroit) and at TCU. The Wolverines gave up a big halftime lead against the Demon Deacons before rallying from 77-70 down to force overtime, winning in the extra session (85-84), and they came back from as many as eight down in the first half versus the Horned Frogs to capture a 67- 63 win. Both came on the heels of a 121-78, opening-night win over Oakland Nov. 3 in which the Wolverines made a program record-tying 19 three-pointers. "We're excited to be back home 3-0 af- ter obviously not feeling like we're play- ing anywhere near our potential or our best," May said Nov. 17. "But we feel like we know ourselves a little bit better today than we did a week ago." Among what they learned — they have a plethora of scorers, and any player could be the leader on any given night. Sopho- more Morez Johnson Jr. led the Wolver- ines with 14.7 points per game through three contests, fueled by a 24-point per- formance in the win over Oakland. Fresh- man guard Trey McKenney (13.3), junior center Aday Mara (12.0), grad forward Yaxel Lendeborg (11.7), and guard Roddy Gayle Jr. (11.3) were all averaging double digits, while point guard Elliot Cadeau (8.3), grad wing Nimari Burnett (8.0), and sophomore guard L.J. Cason (6.5) were all contributing, as well. May has made it clear he'd like to play as up-tempo as possible to take advan- tage of his team's depth. At the same time, they need to be able to win when other teams try to slow them down — so far, so good, but barely. "We're still figuring out what are going to be our ways of scoring when the game slows down. We call them 'cheat codes' in-house," May said. "What are our cheat codes going to be? We knew what they were going to be because we coached [last year's center] Vlad [Goldin]. We didn't know that [departed forward] Danny ❱ MICHIGAN BASKETBALL Still Questions After A 3-0 Start, But So Much Potential Sophomore Morez Johnson Jr., an Illinois transfer, led the Wolverines with 14.7 points per game through three contests, fueled by a 24-point performance in the season-opening win against Oakland. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL