Buffalo, N.Y. — Everybody loves to root for the underdog.
Everybody but the Wolverines, who found themselves in tighter-than-expected battle over the first 25 minutes in their No. 1 seed versus No. 16 seed matchup.
Michigan, the top seed in the Midwest Region, eventually put its foot on the gas and pulled away over the final 15 minutes for a 101-80 romp over Howard at KeyBank Center in Thursday’s first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“We stayed the course,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “We thought we took a haymaker from them in the first half, and our guys never played scared. They never played tight. They just continued to get to the next possession and found a way to separate in the second half.”
Morez Johnson Jr. had 21 points and 10 rebounds and Aday Mara had 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists for Michigan (32-3), which shot a season-best 67.3% from the field and made 69% of its shots after halftime.
BOX SCORE: Michigan 101, Howard 80
Michigan will face No. 9 seed Saint Louis, a 102-77 winner over No. 8 seed Georgia, in a second-round matchup on at 12:10 p.m. Saturday. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
The Wolverines led 50-46 at halftime despite a nearly perfect offensive first half due to Howard making 10 3-pointers to stay close. But in the second half, Michigan flipped a switch on defense and started battering the undersized Bison inside with strong stretches from Johnson and Mara, who finished a combined 16-for-18 from the field.
First it was Johnson, who scored 12 of the team’s first 15 points out of the break. He had an and-1 finish. After the Wolverines forced a turnover on a 10-second backcourt violation, Johnson scored at the rim off a lob pass from Mara.
Johnson continued to have his way against Howard’s defense. He added a corner 3-pointer and two more buckets inside to give Michigan a 65-56 lead.
“We didn’t even abuse (our size advantage) honestly. It was a lot of backdoors and 3-pointers that we were putting up,” said Yaxel Lendeborg, who finished with nine points and four assists. “But eventually we got back to our roots.”
The lead ballooned as the Wolverines kept stringing together shots and stops. Elliot Cadeau drained a 3-pointer from straightaway. Lendeborg muscled his way to the rim for a layup. Roddy Gayle Jr. capped a 12-1 surge and a stretch of 10 straight made shots with a corner 3-pointer to make it 77-59 with 12:35 to play.
Another 17-1 burst keyed by Mara, who either scored or assisted on nearly every basket, put the game out of reach. He dished an assist to Johnson for a dunk and threw an outlet pass to Trey McKenney for a fast-break layup. He had three dunks in a row. The Wolverines blew it open, 94-65, with 5:10 remaining.
Michigan led by as much as 31 points down the stretch before it emptied the bench in the final minutes and coasted to the finish line.
“These games are tricky,” May said. “We have a lot of respect for Howard. Especially everyone that’s a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, like I am, but David versus Goliath, according to Malcolm, wasn’t necessarily an upset because there’s a slingshot involved. In the first half, Howard had their slingshots out. They were shooting the cover off it — off the bounce, off the catch. I was actually thinking, this is how they usually happen.
“Fortunately, we were able to score the ball also. We did a good job against their pressure. We were able to get it inside, especially in the second half, and take advantage of what the game was giving us.”
Nimari Burnett scored 15 and made three of Michigan’s 11 3-pointers. Gayle finished with 14 of the team’s 32 bench points before fouling out late. McKenney added 10 points. The Wolverines outscored Howard 52-18 in the paint and won the rebounding battle by a 35-23 margin.
According to the Associated Press, Michigan’s 67.3% shooting is the highest mark in an NCAA Tournament game since Villanova shot 71.4% against Oklahoma in the 2016 Final Four.
Bryce Harris and Cam Gillus scored 21 each and Cedric Taylor III added 19 for Howard (24-11), which swept the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles.
The Bison made a season-high 14 3-pointers but went 4-for-13 from deep after halftime. And after shooting 51.5% from the field in the first half, they were held to 33.3% shooting in the second half.
“Even though we had a really good offensive first half, we knew defensively we had a lot to work on,” Gayle said. “I feel like they were way too comfortable. We weren’t playing with the edge that we needed to play with.
“Just reiterating to the guys that we can’t expect to win every game. We’ve got to go out and earn it. In that second half, we picked up the intensity, started pressuring the ball lot more and trying to disrupt their offense.”
Howard — playing for the second time in three days after beating UMBC in a First Four matchup on Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, for its first March Madness win in program history — entered Thursday’s tilt as 30½-point underdogs but certainly didn’t look like it in the first half.
After winning the opening tip, Cadeau threw a lob pass to Mara for an alley-oop dunk eight seconds into the game. The Wolverines knocked down their first three 3-pointers, with Lendeborg, Gayle and Burnett all knocking one down. Michigan took a 16-6 lead with 13:41 left in the first half.
Howard couldn’t get anything going against Michigan’s switching defense early on, often settling for contested 3-pointers and mid-range jumpers. The Bison missed eight of their first 11 field goals before shots kept dropping on both sides.
After missing its first five attempts from 3-point range, Howard started to catch fire from deep and went 10-for-11 from beyond the arc the rest of the half. That blazing stretch started with four 3-pointers within the span of two minutes to cut the deficit to 24-20 at the 10:21 mark.
“Now in March, these games, everyone is playing with so much confidence that the non-shooters, they’re going to start shooting. The guys who don’t dribble the ball, they’re going to dribble the ball,” Mara said. “It’s just about confidence in each team. I think they did a good job just coming in here, trying their best and playing good. But as soon as we changed our mentality in the second half, we were able to change the game.”
Howard didn’t have many answers for Michigan on the defensive end. The Wolverines got off to a 9-for-12 shooting start, kept rolling and shot 65.4% from the field in the opening 20 minutes. After Howard’s fifth 3-pointer made it a three-point game, Will Tschetter answered with a deep ball. Then after Howard’s sixth 3-pointer of the half cut it to four, Tschetter responded again with another 3 to make it 34-26 at the 6:57 mark.
But Howard kept knocking down outside shots to stick around. After McKenney buried a 3-pointer and a turnaround jumper to make it 45-34 with 2:30 left in the half, Howard hit its eighth 3-pointer to pull within six.
Then after an and-1 layup from Burnett gave the Wolverines a 50-39 advantage, a four-point play from Gillus and Howard’s 10th 3-pointer from Harris that beat the buzzer cut it to 50-46 at the break.
The second half, though, was a different story, as Michigan turned a close contest into one that wasn’t close by the end of it.
“You never know what can happen in March,” Lendeborg said. “First half, you would think the game would go either way and then second half we started pretty much dominating. It’s definitely fun to get a game like this out the way. You know that not every game is going to be easy.”
jhawkins@detroitnews.com
@jamesbhawkins
NCAA Tournament
NO. 1 SEED MICHIGAN VS. NO. 9 SEED SAINT LOUIS
What: Second-round NCAA Tournament game
When: Saturday, 12:10 p.m.
Where: KeyBank Arena, Buffalo
TV: CBS
Records: Michigan 32-3, Saint Louis 29-5
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan flips the switch, pulls away from Howard in March Madness opener
Reporting by James Hawkins, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
