5 Takeaways From Michigan’s Second-Round Win Over Saint Louis

In a dominant win over Saint Louis, the Michigan men’s basketball team looked about as good as it has all season — and that’s saying a lot considering the success it’s enjoyed from start to finish.

The top-seeded Wolverines wore down the ninth-seeded Billikens with their overwhelming combination of size and speed.

Saint Louis, for what it’s worth, played a solid game, but it simply had no answer for Michigan’s frontcourt. The Billikens walloped Georgia, 102-77, Thursday night in the opening round, but they simply couldn’t reproduce that same magic.

The Wolverines will head to Chicago for next weekend’s Sweet 16, where they will face the winner of Alabama and Texas Tech.

Here are five key takeaways from the win…

As a team, Michigan sent away nine Saint Louis shots. The Wolverines are one of the best shot-blocking teams in the country — ranking third in the nation with 5.9 per game — and they showed why Saturday afternoon.

Junior center Aday Mara had four blocks by halftime, and the entire starting lineup earned one as well. Mara didn’t get another block in the second half, but the mere thought of his lengthy arms in the paint deterred Saint Louis shots.

Especially against teams that are smaller, like the Billikens, Michigan’s core of athletes come out to feast.

Graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg only took five shots and scored nine points Thursday night against Howard, but he remedied that against Saint Louis.

He finished with 25 points on 9-for-13 shooting and also grabbed six rebounds. Head coach Dusty May is constantly urging Lendeborg to play more aggressively, and he certainly did. But at the same time, he was under control at all times.

Lendeborg has the ability to impact the game even without scoring 20 points, but the Wolverines are a better team when he is a bigger threat to score. It doesn’t have to be 25 points every night, but the aggression he showed against the Billikens is more like what May wants to see.

For much of the regular season, the Wolverines ran a nine-man rotation. A season-ending ACL injury to sophomore guard L.J. Cason shortened it to eight, and against Saint Louis, it was effectively seven.

Graduate forward Will Tschetter had been the final bench piece all year, but he played only seven minutes on Saturday. No one else in the rotation played less than 20 minutes.

It’s not abnormal for teams to squeeze the rotation as the season reaches its climax — and Tschetter could still see extended minutes if the frontcourt gets in foul trouble — but it’s a trend to keep an eye on as the tournament progresses.

In its opening round game against Howard, Michigan shot 67.3% from the field. Against Saint Louis, it shot 55.7%. When you shoot that efficiently from the floor, it’s hard to lose games.

A lot of that efficiency comes from the Wolverines’ big size advantage over both the Bison and the Billikens. They were able to simply feed the frontcourt and get inherent mismatches. That won’t necessarily be the case as Michigan progresses through the rounds, but it’s been an impressive display of might either way.

The Wolverines are also shooting 22-for-47 (46.8%) from beyond the arc in the tournament. The frontcourt is drawing a lot of attention in the middle of the court, and when the defense collapses to help, the kick-out shots have been open. Michigan has struggled to hit even open shots at times this season, so the hot shooting is a positive sign.

The Wolverines will head back to the Windy City for the second weekend of the tournament. They were just at United Center for the Big Ten Tournament last weekend, so they’ll have an extra level of comfort having played three games on that court. Michigan also has a large contingent of fans in Chicago and the surrounding areas, so it might be able to get a little extra boost from the crowd.

It will face the winner of the game between No. 5 seed Texas Tech and No. 4 seed Alabama in the Sweet 16.