ANN ARBOR — A team with three new transfers and three new starters playing in their first official game looked like they’d been playing together for years.
For Michigan on Tuesday night, the basketball didn’t stick. Defenders moved in sync. And Michigan dominated UNC Asheville for a 99-74 season-opening win.
This was one game. In November. But as Olivier Nkamhoua wrote on the whiteboard inside the Michigan locker room before the game — in small letters in the corner so he wouldn’t get in trouble — “a journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step.”
The Wolverines put their best foot forward on Tuesday.
Let’s start with Dug McDaniel, No. 0, the point guard and smallest player on the court. Pregame, he recalled what he told Jett Howard before last season’s opener: “The first game is how you set the tone, put yourself on the map for the rest of the season.” Howard scored 21 that night. McDaniel one-upped him, pouring in 22 to go along with eight assists.
His favorite play? The alley-oop he threw from halfcourt that Nkamhoua caught and dunked, somehow without banging his head against any part of the hoop.
It’s telling that McDaniel felt compelled to practice alley-oops this offseason. It wasn’t something he had to do in high school or last year, despite Michigan having two first-round draft picks.
These Wolverines are athletic, and it showed on Tuesday. Nkamhoua had one of the more impressive debuts in Michigan history: 25 points, 11 of 16 shooting, seven rebounds for the grad transfer from Tennessee. Yet it was his defense, specifically his ability to guard any position, that McDaniel cited postgame.
Looking for another encouraging individual performance? If anyone needed a strong start, it was Terrance Williams II. His shooting will once again be important to Michigan. Last year he struggled. On Tuesday he shined: 5 for 8 overall, 3 for 5 from deep.
For Michigan to be successful, interim head coach Phil Martelli said, balanced scoring is key.
Last season, redshirt sophomore Will Tschetter said, “If our top two guys weren’t producing, we were in trouble.” The idea for this season is that, on any given night, Michigan’s top two guys could be any two guys.
The chemistry Michigan showed on Tuesday was impressive.
“I feel like everybody’s playing on a string,” Nkamhoua said. “We’re moving the ball, trusting each other. There’s nobody that the ball is sticking to in an unnatural way. As much as we’re all trying to figure each other out in this system, we’re all still trusting each other.”
As Martelli said weeks ago, there was nothing wrong with last season’s strategy of dumping the ball inside knowing they’d likely get 20 points. But with Hunter Dickinson transferring to Kansas, that’s not an option. Jett Howard isn’t around to dribble his defender out of position before launching a jumper.
The one-game caveat applies, but the Wolverines are clearly willing to adapt. They’re going to have play smart, tough, team basketball. “Regardless of how people see us or what the word on the street is about us, we’re going to come to play every day,” Nkamhoua said.
They certainly did on Tuesday.