More mature Michigan makes most of season-opener, but Phil Martelli wants to see more

The Michigan Wolverines had a rough go of it last season, missing out on the NCAA Tournament and then losing a pair of first-round picks and a former All-American center off the roster. But that just meant it was time to go back to work.

After an offseason that included hitting the hard reset button with fresh faces and veterans via the transfer portal, Michigan flexed a maturity muscle that has been in the works for months in Tuesday night’s 99-74 opening win over UNC Asheville.

The Bulldogs won 27 games last season and made an NCAA Tournament appearance and returned most of the players from that team. It didn’t matter to Michigan and graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua, who had 25 points in his team debut after coming over from Tennessee.

Nkamhoua was voted a team captain by his peers, and it’s not hard to see why he’s already become a tone-setter for the program.

“We’re just showing everybody that anybody who steps on the court with us is gonna have to beat us,” Nkamhoua said Tuesday night. “Anybody who steps on the court with us, regardless of what they did last year, what they’re considered to be this year is going to have to prove that to us on the court. Regardless of how people see us or what the word on the street is about us, we’re gonna come to play every day, every night, every morning, whichever time of the day it is.”

“We’re here to play.”

Michigan was dealt a curveball late in the offseason when head coach Juwan Howard had to step away from the program to tend to heart surgery recovery. In recent weeks, he has begun to work himself back into the flow of the program while still focusing on resting.

In the meantime, associate head coach Phil Martelli is running the show and respects the way that Michigan’s players have handled their head coach’s absence.

“I think the biggest thing that stands out to me now, this is a personal thing is we have not had a day…we’ve not had an hour in a day, we’ve not had a drill in a day where they’re looking around and going, ‘Where’s coach? And what would coach do? Why do you do it that way?’ This offense and this defense is Juwan Howard’s offense and defense. But the way we practice is the way that I like to practice. They haven’t blinked. So that’s where I appreciate them.,” Martelli said in his postgame press conference.

“Remember when you were a kid and you walked in and your eyes got this big and you went, ‘Substitute teacher!’ Well, I’m not the substitute teacher. I don’t mean that egotistically. I know what I’m doing here. So they have allowed me to be me and I don’t have to walk on eggshells and say, ‘Well, I don’t want to upset them.’ No, we coached him every day in practice and that to me is the most mature thing.”

Recently, Michigan beat Marquette 115-111 in a 48-minute secret scrimmage and the offense has been just as potent in an exhibition win over Northwood and Tuesday night’s victory over UNC Asheville. Whether or not that is sustainable remains to be seen, but Martelli is ready to see what happens when someone counterpunches.

“The most mature that we need them to be is yet to come,” he said. “Just call it the way it is. We just haven’t trailed. Suppose, and I’m not reporting this, but just suppose we had a secret scrimmage in Milwaukee.  Suppose that the score that was reported was the score of that 48 minutes and that in 48 minutes, we trailed twice. 

“So we haven’t gotten blood in our mouths yet.  You get blood in your mouth when you’re trailing when it’s not going your way. And that’s when I would like to see their maturity come forth.”

Michigan played with a quicker pace and pep to its step than we have seen on the offensive end of the floor in some time, and Martelli said that was all part of the plan and will be a defining trait for this squad. They will have to continue to do so, even if the shots are not falling at the clip they did on Tuesday night.

“It was a decision that we made in the summer,” Martelli said. “And one of the things we talked about at halftime is we weren’t quick enough. Fast is not a good word in basketball. Quick is the word for basketball. You need to be fast in football. But in basketball, you need to be quick. And we were not quick enough up and down the floor in the first half, even though we scored 48 points.

“We are dedicated to being a transition team because, don’t tell anybody, one of our Achilles heels could be our outside shooting. We weren’t sure how we were going to shoot the ball. So in order to score enough points, 75 or 76 in college basketball, to score enough points, we had to be quick down the floor, not fast down the floor.”

Michigan will look to keep the momentum going on Friday night when it hosts Youngstown State at 6:30 p.m. ET at Crisler Center.