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Michigan uses second-half surge to defeat Minnesota, 77-67
The No. 3 Michigan Wolverines used a second-half surge to defeat the Minnesota Golden Gophers on Tuesday in Ann Arbor, 77-67. With the starters struggling for most of the contest, Michigan received high production from its bench, as L.J. Cason finished with 14 points, Trey McKenney had 12 points and Roddy Gayle Jr. finished with nine. It wasn’t pretty, but the Wolverines clinched a share of the Big Ten regular season title, with a shot at the full title on Friday.
Here’s how it all went down.
FIRST HALF
The Wolverines started sluggishly against the Gophers at home. While it was nice for Michigan fans to see instant production from Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau, both of whom struggled mightily against Duke on Saturday, the Wolverines’ defense gave up an instant eight points to Minnesota’s leading scorers, Cade Tyson and Langston Reynolds, in the opening four minutes, trailing the Gophers, 8-7.
As Michigan’s starters continued to struggle to find the bottom of the rim, the Wolverines turned to their bench to get a spark. L.J. Cason provided that said spark, knocking down a three and getting a steal on back-to-back possessions, giving Michigan the lead. Then, Mara found Roddy Gayle Jr. on the baseline for a dunk. Out of the under-12 timeout, Gayle scored another five straight points, giving Michigan seven early points off the bench, and a 19-18 lead.
Through the first 12 minutes, Michigan starters Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. didn’t have a point, along with freshman Trey McKenney, and the Wolverines shot just 53 percent from the field and 3-for-8 from three.
Out of the next media timeout, Minnesota proceeded to go on a five-and-a-half-minute scoring drought. McKenney took control, splashing back-to-back threes, extending Michigan’s lead to eight. Johnson Jr. also finally got on the board with a dunk, giving the Wolverines a 10-point advantage.
However, in the final minutes of the half, Michigan turned the ball over three times on four possessions, and Minnesota finally broke its drought, courtesy of two Isaac Asuma layups. And with time expiring, Reynolds blew by the defense to cut the deficit to four into halftime.
Through 20 minutes, the Wolverines shot just 42 percent from the field, and their top scorer from a game ago, Yaxel Lendeborg, had zero points. Not to mention, Michigan shot just one free throw in the entire half, and it trailed in the paint, 16-14. The good news for the Wolverines, however, was that out of the 28 first half points, 16 came from the bench, and they easily controlled the boards, 21-11.
HALFTIME: MICHIGAN 32, MINNESOTA 28
SECOND HALF
Out of the break, Michigan’s starters appeared invigorated for a different outcome. Mara, Lendeborg, Johnson and Cadeau all scored within the first five minutes, matching the starters’ first half total in a fifth of the time. After a short stoppage, Mara flushed a dunk, and Cason added another five points to his total, ballooning the Wolverines’ lead to nine, 51-42, and forcing Minnesota coach Niko Medved to call a timeout.
The Gophers managed to get five back, but the Wolverines would take over from there and not look back.
With a four-point lead at the 9:50 mark, Cadeau, McKenney and Cason drilled back-to-back-to-back threes to give Michigan its largest lead of the game at 13. Minnesota’s Grayson Grove stopped the run momentarily with a deep two, followed by a bank-shot three by Reynolds, but Cason and McKenney one-upped them with their third and fourth triples, respectively, to cap off a 15-4 run, and gave Michigan a 66-52 lead.
The Gophers sparked a small 8-3 run as Reynolds drove to the rim, Durkin sank his third shot from beyond the arc and Tyson converted at the free throw line, but Michigan maintained a double-digit lead behind a Cadeau impressive euro-step to give himself 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting, Mara free throws, and a Burnett three. With 2:47 remaining, the Wolverines held a 73-62 lead.
To close the game out, Gayle made some more free throws and Johnson got a second-chance bucket, and Michigan defeated Minnesota, 77-67.
It was a much better second half for the Wolverines, shooting 60 percent from the field, and 50 percent from three, while outrebounding the Gophers 18-7, and outscoring Minnesota’s bench 19-0.
It wasn’t the classic Michigan blowout that many have become accustomed to, but the Wolverines rebounded from Saturday’s loss to Duke and will take a share of the Big Ten regular season title into Champaign on Friday for a Top-10 matchup with Illinois.
FINAL SCORE: MICHIGAN 77, MINNESOTA 67
MICHIGAN STAT LEADERS
G Elliot Cadeau: 15 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds
G L.J. Cason: 14 points, 5 rebounds
G Trey McKenney: 12 points
G Roddy Gayle Jr.: 9 points, 7 rebounds
MINNESOTA STAT LEADERS
F Cade Tyson: 20 points, 6 rebounds
G Langston Reynolds: 15 points, 4 rebounds
G Bobby Durkin: 12 points, 4 assists
F Isaac Asuma: 12 points, 4 rebounds
UP NEXT
The Wolverines will travel to face the second-place team in the Big Ten on Friday, taking on Illinois in Champaign (8:00 p.m. ET on FOX).
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Game thread: St. John’s men’s basketball at UConn
Welcome to the thread for Wednesday’s St. John’s men’s basketball matchup against UConn. Please be respectful in the comment section and do not share any illegal streams of the game.
You can follow updates of this game on Rumble in the Garden’s official X account (formerly Twitter) at @rumbleSBN or on Rumble in the Garden’s new Bluesky account at rumbleinthegarden.bsky.social. Make sure to check out our game recap and analysis after the game.
If you want to participate in the comment section but are not familiar with the new SB Nation log-in system, you can check out the link here.
Game information
Who: No. 15 St. John’s Red Storm (22-5, 15-1 Big East) at No. 6 UConn Huskies (25-3, 14-2 Big East)
When: Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Where: PeoplesBank Arena, Hartford, Connecticut
TV: Peacock/NBC Sports Network (Ugh.)
Radio:ESPN New York 880 / 1050
Series History: St. John’s leads all-time series, 40-34. After four consecutive losses, including three to begin the Rick Pitino era, the Red Storm have won each of the last three meetings with the Huskies dating back to last season. The Johnnies were also the last team to defeat the Huskies in Hartford back on January 15, 2023. Coincidentally, UConn was ranked No. 6 in the nation at the time of that game.
KenPom Predicted Score: UConn to win, 76-70 (30% chance of St. John’s win)
Injury news
According to Roger Rubin from Newsday, Ian Jackson (ankle) has returned to practice and will play in Wednesday’s game against UConn. Jackson missed Saturday’s game against Creighton after suffering an ankle injury in the first half of the Red Storm’s contest with Marquette a week ago.
Kelvin Odih (undisclosed) is out for Wednesday’s game.
What to watch for
Battle of the Bigs: There is no surprise that the player matchup to focus on is the center duel of Zuby Ejiofor versus Tarris Reed, which could garner more importance if both coaches decide to play smaller lineups and push more paint responsibilities onto those two. Ejiofor got the better of UConn’s big man in their first meeting, recording 21 points, ten rebounds, and seven assists to Reed’s 12 points, six rebounds, and two assists. Can Ejiofor do it again, this time in a hostile environment?
Locked Up: The Red Storm are among the country’s best at defending this month. According to BartTorvik, the Red Storm has the second-best adjusted defensive rating in the country in the month of February at 87.8. Only Arizona is better, with a rating of 86.8.
St. John’s is holding opponents to shooting 46% from two-point range and 29.5% from three-point range, both ranking within the top-45 in the country in this span.
Scatter-Shot: The Red Storm rank 319th in the country in effective field goal percentage (46.7%) over the past four games, and their offensive inconsistency nearly sank them against Xavier and Marquette. St. John’s also ranks 337th in three-point percentage in that span, hitting only 27.4% of their shots from deep.
Something will have to give in Hartford, though. Although UConn ranks top-20 nationally in three-point defense this season, they’ve struggled to stop opponents from lighting it up recently, allowing teams to shoot 38.3% from three to rank 306th in the country since they last met St. John’s.
Drawing a Line: Despite their clunky shooting performances, the Johnnies manufactured offense by driving to the basket and getting to the line. In six games played this month, the Johnnies rank 16th in the country with a 48.2% free throw rate. Meanwhile, their opponents have a 29.6% free throw rate in this span. Overall, St. John’s ranks fifth in the country in free throw attempts per game this season with 27.1.
Of course, forcing opponents into foul trouble has also helped them. According to CBB Analytics, St. John’s ranks first in opposing personal fouls per game with 22.3. Six UConn players, including their entire starting lineup, were charged with three or more fouls in their first meeting against the Red Storm.
Stopping Silas: You could make the argument that Silas Demary, Jr. was UConn’s best or worst player in their loss against St. John’s earlier this month, and you would have a convincing case either way. Yes, he did have a team-high 18 points on an efficient 11 shots, gave out five assists, and made a handful of electric plays like a posterizing dunk over Zuby Ejiofor, but he also gave up nine of the Huskies’ 15 turnovers that night. He’s been the same kind of player since, supplying chunks of offense and turning the ball over more than Dan Hurley could probably stomach.
UConn breezed past Villanova with a dominant second half, but Demary gave up the ball seven times to the Wildcats. The Huskies will likely beat Red Storm in the shot-making department, so Wednesday’s game will come down to whether St. John’s can force Demary into giving up a batch of turnovers again and limit Connecticut’s spurtability with their ball pressure.
Pregame links
- Rick Pitino and Dan Hurley’s chilly relationship adds even more juice to St. John’s-UConn rivalry — Mike Vaccaro, New York Post
- Bryce Hopkins, Zuby Ejiofor, and Dillon Mitchell appeared on the digital cover for SLAM Magazine this week. Max Resetar also wrote a feature on the Red Storm’s frontcourt trio.
- And they also appeared in a video on SLAM’s YouTube channel as they answered some questions about themselves like who is most likely to become TikTok famous and who is most likely to chirp at opposing fans. Pretty entertaining ten minutes if you’re interested in watching.
- If you thought the St. John’s/Providence fight discourse was laid to rest, you were wrong. Bryce Hopkins was asked about why he walked away from the brawl in Tuesday’s media availability, stating to Adam Zagoria that he “wanted to be the bigger person” and was only focused out getting out of Amica Mutual Pavilion “with a win”.
- St. John’s canceled their final “One Piece” promotion for this Saturday’s game against Villanova amid security concerns. Scalpers flooded Madison Square Garden’s Seventh Avenue entrance in hopes of buying the collectible cards fans were given after the St. John’s-UConn game earlier this month for hundreds of dollars, creating a logjam at the doors.
- Seventeen NBA personnel will be in attendance for Wednesday’s game