Newsstand: Michigan basketball's men and women impress in season openers
The men’s and women’s Michigan Wolverines basketball programs opened their respective seasons on Monday night and turned heads in very different ways.
The men hosted Cleveland State at home and blew them off the court 101-53 all while shooting 68.4% from the floor, the second-highest single-game mark in program history. Head coach Dusty May promised an exciting style of basketball in his first year, and his group absolutely delivered.
“Yeah, we’d like to do this every night,” May told the media after the season-opening win. “I don’t think we’re going to, but, yeah, this would be ideal. We’d like to get the highest [mark]. I think this is the second-highest field goal percentage in the history of the program. We’d like to get the highest, but we’re not going to be able to count on that. We have to be able to find different ways to win each night when the ball’s not going in.”
The Michigan women impressed on perhaps the biggest stage they could have opened the year on, losing 68-62 to No. 1 South Carolina, the defending national champions, during their season tip-off in Las Vegas.
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The Wolverines were expected to get run off the floor, especially with the youth and inexperience on the roster. But head coach Kim Barnes Arico’s youth movement nearly culminated in an upset win, headlined by freshman Syla Swords dropping 27 points and 12 rebounds in her debut. Swords is the highest-ranked signee in program history and lived up to the hype in her debut.
The men are back in action Sunday at 1 p.m. against Wake Forest in Greensboro, North Carolina, while the women make their Crisler Center debut against Lehigh on Friday night at 7 p.m.
Tweets of the day
Michigan quote of the day
“The record’s not where we want it to be, but I love watching the fight. Like I just said, you go in the second half of that game, and a lot of teams were laid down. A lot of teams just said, ah, it’s over. Well, we told the team, you know, we want to go out three and out. Then we want to go down and score, and that’s what they did. So it’s a lot of pride to do that, and that’s the standard that you want to live up to. So the record’s not where it is, but we want to keep fighting. And that’s the goal, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing.”
– Michigan football head coach Sherrone Moore on message to his team and the fans
Headlines of the day
Five takeaways from Michigan’s win over Cleveland State: A heck of a first impression
Get your Michigan basketball tickets now, Dusty May says after blowout win: ‘We’ll give [the fans] a month’
WATCH: Dusty May, Michigan players react to blowout win over Cleveland State
Michigan HC Sherrone Moore reviews coaching staff, adjustments made this season
Blue Chips: More buzz coming out of big recruiting weekend at Michigan
