Through four games, the No. 7 Michigan men’s basketball team has employed three different starting lineups, with the newest rendition on Wednesday night against Middle Tennessee. Throughout the game, Wolverines coach Dusty May also tried to mix up lineups to see which combinations worked best.
May’s conclusion: There’s still a lot to learn.
“No, I didn’t learn anything about the combinations off the top of my head, and I haven’t looked at the numbers,” May said.
Similar to last season with a bunch of new players filling out the roster, May and the coaching staff are in a testing-things-out phase during the early stages of the season. Junior guard Elliot Cadeau, graduate guard Nimari Burnett, and graduate forward Yaxel Lendeborg have started the first four games, but the other three have seen multiple other combinations.
Wednesday night, graduate forward Will Tschetter earned the start over junior center Aday Mara, who started the first three games, in combination with sophomore forward Morez Johnson Jr. Once again, senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. came off the bench with a high volume of minutes at 18.
While Michigan may not have found precisely what rotations play the best through four games, May is still determined to use the early parts of the season to figure things out.
“We’re just looking for rotations, we’re looking for guys that play well together,” May said. “We wanted to see Morez with that first group tonight versus Aday and Aday had missed a practice or two, so that went into the decision making process. So no, we’re not married to anything right now. We’re still looking for the right combinations and right rhythm. But it might be just a night by night basis with this team until we figure it out, and might be 15 or 20 games before we do.”
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