5 Takeaways From Michigan’s Overtime Win Over Wake Forest

The No. 6 Michigan men’s basketball team (2-0) found itself in an early-season battle against Wake Forest (2-1) Tuesday night, ultimately pulling out an 85-84 victory in overtime.

The contest technically took place at a neutral site, although Little Caesars Arena in Detroit is hardly going to warrant a fifty-fifty fan split. Even with the crowd at its back, Michigan struggled in the second half. The Wolverines entered the break with a 47-34 lead, but couldn’t hold on to it in regulation.

While the game didn’t go how Michigan wanted it to, it put together enough offense and key stops to secure the win.

Here are five key takeaways from the nail-biting victory…

Junior center Aday Mara had his fingerprints all over Tuesday’s game. He stuffed the stat sheet, scoring 18 points alongside his 13 rebounds, six assists, and five blocks. When Mara was on the floor, good things happened.

His five blocks don’t do his defensive presence justice — the Demon Deacons rarely got off a clean look around the rim for fear of the 7-foot-3 Mara’s long arms swatting the ball away. Past his five blocks, Mara probably directly altered half a dozen more.

Naturally, his scoring came mostly off stick-backs and lobs around the rim, but he also flashed his court vision that the coaching staff has raved about. Thanks to his height, he can see the court largely unhindered, and his good decision making and accurate passes make him unique for his position.

In all facets of the game, Mara was the key for the Wolverines.

Alongside Mara, Michigan’s other two transfer forwards — graduate Yaxel Lendeborg and sophomore Morez Johnson Jr. — had off days for their standards.

Lendeborg scored nine points on 4-for-12 shooting from the floor, while Johnson added 10 points and eight rebounds. While neither stat line jumps off the page as particularly bad, the Wolverines want a little more impact from the duo.

Especially late in the second half and into overtime, Lendeborg and Johnson didn’t play as prominent of roles as one would expect. It’s early in the season, and these kinds of performances happen. They’ll both have plenty of chances to get back on track.

The Wolverines had seven players score eight points or more, and that’s a bigger deal than it seems. 

There were moments last year when the offense seemingly ran through one or two players, and if they were having an off night, Michigan struggled mightily. This year, however, there are many more weapons. Someone like Lendeborg can have a rough offensive showing, but the team is still able to pull out a gritty win.

Ideally, every player would be playing at their best all the time, but that’s just not realistic. But when one player isn’t having a great night, there are several others that are more than capable of stepping up.

Michigan isn’t filled to the brim with lights-out shooters, but they are certainly an above-average three-point shooting team. Thus, a 4-for-25 shooting night from deep isn’t something the Wolverines are going to put up very often.

While there were plenty of good looks that just didn’t fall, there were times where Michigan didn’t help itself with its shot selection. There were several early-shot clock deep threes that weren’t in the flow of the offense — while the Wolverines have guys that can make those, most of the time they can find a better, higher-percentage look later in the possession.

Regardless, Michigan is too good of a shooting team to routinely have cold nights like these, so winning despite it is a good sign.

Last year, the Wolverines lost their second game of the season by one point to Wake Forest, and they still went on to have a successful campaign. This year, however, they flipped the script, beating the Demon Deacons by one point in the second game of the year. 

The point being, it’s far too early in the season to draw overarching conclusions about the team. The second game of a 30-game season never defines a team. The most important thing is that Michigan gets a tick in the win column, and it doesn’t hurt to get a little bit of late-game execution practice in, either.