In their final exhibition game of the season, No. 16 Michigann fell No. 10 Houston in Grand Rapids, 83-66.
The Battleground 2k26 at Van Andel Arena was a great test for the defending National Champions. Kelvin Sampson’s squad has won 30+ games the past five seasons. Houston is projected to be one of the best teams in the country yet again, led by All-Big 12 preseason selections Joseph Tugler and Dedan Thomas Jr. Tests like this are fantastic for preparing Michigan for a tough non-conference slate that starts in just over a week.
Houston got off to a hot shooting start and dictated the pace of play for the first half. Michigan couldn’t get into much of a rhythm offensively while committing a lot of fouls.
Houston took a 13-point lead with 12:20 to play and the lead stayed there for a while. Michigan made a little push with back-to-back threes from Quinn Costello cutting the Houston lead to nine with 5:44 left, but Michigan couldn’t get enough consistent stops to climb back into this one.
Here are some takeaways from a loss that doesn’t affect Michigan’s record.
Three-pointers were the difference
The Cougars were hot from three, making five of their 10 attempts in the first half. Sampson’s team moved the ball well to create open shots; Michigan contested a good amount of them, but was a bit late on rotating to a few of the attempts.
Michigan shot many more threes than Houston (33 attempts to 15), and Houston (47 percent) was more efficient than Michigan (27 percent) from deep. Houston won by double digits because of this, and turning the ball over (seven) less than Michigan (11) certainly helped the Cougars.
I would have liked to see Michigan settle for less threes and take it to the rim more, but Houston’s tight interior defense sort of forced U-M’s hands. I’d like to see more shots around the rim for the Wolverines when the regular season starts.
It’s good to have Roddy Gayle Jr. back
This was Roddy Gayle’s first game back with the Wolverines after he was ruled eligible earlier in the week, and he played pretty well.
Gayle finished with a team-high 14 points, getting tough buckets while playing good defense as he did the past two seasons. His drive-first approach is a welcome addition to a Michigan offense that we’ve seen settle for threes in the three exhibition games this season.
The fifth-year wing knocked down Michigan’s first bucket of the second half, with Kenny Noland finding Gayle in transition for a three.
Gayle gives Michigan another shot creator who can defend multiple positions on defense; you can never have enough of those wings in college basketball.
McKenney and Cadeau lead the way in the first half before being shut down in the second half
As we’ve seen all preseason, Trey McKenney and Elliot Cadeau were the most consistent offensive hubs for the Wolverines. The pair combined for 15 points in the first half, with McKenney leading all Wolverines at the half with eight points.
Neither of those guys could get going in the second half, with the starting guards being held scoreless in that second half until Cadeau hit a push shot with two-and-a-half miunutes to play when the game was already out of reach. The duo combined to shoot 1/8 from the field, with Houston not making life easy for them.
This team relies so heavily on Cadeau and McKenney to create shots, so kudos to Houston for shutting both guys down in the second half. Michigan’s got to learn to spread the wealth a little more when the games start to count.
Foul trouble
The Cougars came out firing in Van Andel and started out hot, making four of their first six threes to climb out to an early lead.The Wolverines got into foul trouble quickly in this one; Michigan committed it’s seventh foul with 11:55 left in the first half, giving Houston lots of chances at the free throw to end the half.
Moustapha Thiam sat for a large portion of the first half, with two fouls called on him in just four minutes of play.
Michigan took the lead late in the first half, though, with U-M going on a 12-1 run to go from being down 10 to up 1 in a two-minute span. Houston retook the lead to the end half, and making 11 of their 16 attempts from the charity stripe was a big reason the Cougars led for most of the first half.
Foul trouble plagued the Wolverines in the second half too, with Cadeau, Moustapha Thiam, and JP Estrella each picking up their third fouls of the game in the opening minutes of the second half. Estrella picked up his fourth on a technical, when he pointed at the Houston defender he dunked on, following a beautiful feed from Cadeau.
The refs called this game consistently tight, which the Michigan crowd was not happy with. I don’t understand why you don’t let more stuff go in a game that doesn’t count towards either teams’ record, but I guess referees need to prepare for the regular season, too.
A Sweet Sixteen preview?
This was easily the most fun Michigan exhibition game to watch, as with how intense both teams played inside, it felt like an NCAA tournament game.
It was an entertaining basketball game, and I’m glad these high-profile exhibitions appear to be here to say; it gets more people caring about college basketball before March, which is a great thing for the sport.
A few bonus takeaways
-Oscar Goodman is going to need to shoot the three well to earn minutes for this team, but he did that this afternoon, making two of his four attempts from three in that first half while playing solid help-side defense.
-Michigan tried to press Houston with Noland, Quinn Costello, and Ricky Liburd, and then the starters late in the second half, but I don’t think it created any turnovers for Houston, who took care of the ball well all game.
-The media seat I ended up at was near one of the baskets, so I had a good angle of Michigan’s interior defense in the first half and Michigan’s paint possessions in the second half. Houston is known as a physical team, but Michigan didn’t back down, matching that physciality. I thought Thiam especially played great interior defense, making it hard for Houston to score around the rim with his length and strength.
-That technical foul on Estrella (above) was one of the weakest I’ve seen called in a while. I was right there and he didn’t say anything to the Houston defender; he just pointed at a guy. I know the NCAA wants to weed taunting out of the game, but it seemed like a warning should have come before a tech was issued.
Up Next
That’s three exhibition games in the books, and Michigan’s regular season starts in a little over a week. The Wolverines host Greg Kampe and Oakland on Monday, Nov. 2 (6 p.m. on Big Ten Network) before heading to TD Garden in Boston to face No. 4 UConn in a national championship rematch on Friday, Nov. 6 (8 p.m. on TNT).