5 Takeaways From Michigan’s Win Over USC

The No. 2 Michigan men’s basketball team convincingly answered another question Friday night: Will the Wolverines dominance come to an end against high-quality Big Ten teams?

The answer was no.

Even with No. 24 USC coming into town, Michigan won yet another game by 30 points, winning 96-66. The Wolverines relied heavily on their defense and pace to ultimately bury the Trojans, proving once again that they can win in many different fashions.

With its smallest margin of victory in its three Big Ten games sitting at 18, Michigan is undoubtedly the team to beat in not only the conference, but the entire country.

Here are five key takeaways from the Wolverines’ win over USC…

For the second game in a row, sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. was the star of the show. He finished the game with 29 points, six rebounds, and two steals, dominating the contest from start to finish.

Johnson is extremely efficient. He leads the Big Ten in field goal percentage, and it’s not particularly close, with his 68.2% leading the second place 61.8%. He’s even expanded his game beyond the 3-point line, hitting his third triple of the season Friday night.

Johnson does everything a coach wants from a big man. He hustles, he defends, and he rebounds — the scoring chops he has displayed recently is the cherry on top. He’s still just 19 years old and has plenty of time to develop even more, which is a scary idea for Big Ten foes.

So far this season, Michigan has been prone to occasional poor deep-range shooting nights, and this was one of them. The Wolverines shot 6-for-30 from beyond the arc, good for just 20%.

It wasn’t that they weren’t generating good looks — they were — the shot just wasn’t falling. For a lot of teams in the country, that spells disaster. With the 3-point shot as prevalent as it is in the game nowadays, having almost no production from deep can be crippling.

Not for the Wolverines. They can score in so many ways that they don’t really need the threes to fall. It’s certainly a luxury when they do, but they’ve proved it isn’t necessary.

Michigan’s long shot wasn’t falling, so it went to the paint. Dominating down low on both ends of the floor has been the Wolverines’ identity for much of the season, and Friday night was no different.

Michigan won the points-in-the-paint battle 46-to-24. It was one thing to dominate in this fashion against small, mid- to low-major programs, but doing so against a Big Ten foe puts it in a whole new perspective. Teams are scared to attack the Wolverines’ rim protectors, and have no answer for their size on the other end. 

Junior point guard Elliot Cadeau quietly had a very productive evening. He finished with seven points, seven assists, six rebounds, and two steals in his 29 minutes of play.

While he didn’t have his best game shooting the ball — he shot just 2-for-8 from the field and 2-for-4 from the free throw line — he did all the little things. There was a stretch at the end of the first half where Cadeau assisted on three-straight Johnson buckets that were key in the Wolverines pulling away.

Cadeau is playing extremely well in this young season and doing everything Michigan asks him to do. Having an elite point guard like him is a major part of Michigan’s success.

It’s no secret that the Wolverines want to get out and run. They play at one of the fastest paces in the country, and they use it to their advantage. The half-court offense was looking out of sorts, so they bypassed it entirely and ran the break.

Every rebound, Michigan is looking to throw a deep outlet pass. Even off of made baskets, it wastes no time getting the ball inbounded and looking up the court. It’s not just relegated to the guards, either, as junior center Aday Mara has connected on two baseball-like full-court passes in the past two games.

The pace that the Wolverines played at against USC was a big reason why they were able to navigate their rough shooting night and still score 96 points.