Is the NCAA’s sign-gate investigation close to wrapping up? Is it holding up Jim Harbaugh’s extension?
The Michigan men’s basketball team returns to action after a week-long break with a road game at Oregon on Saturday afternoon.
Tipoff between the future conference opponents is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1. Jordan Kent and Eldridge Recasner are the slated broadcast team. The matchup is the much-discussed return game following a 2019 showdown at the Crisler Center.
“It has been a long time coming,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said of the game, per Oregon Live. “We played them in Dec. ‘19, so it has been a while. Glad we’re playing them. We’re a little short-handed, but it is what it is and just going to have to fight it.”
The Ducks are 4-2 with a win over Georgia but enter off consecutive losses to Santa Clara and Alabama. They’ll also be shorthanded: Neither N’Faly Dante nor Nate Bittle are expected to play. That means Oregon will either play small ball — with 6-foot-9 freshman Kwame Evans Jr. at the ‘5’ — or turn to Mahamadou Diawara, a grad transfer who averaged 4.1 points and 4.4 rebounds last year at Stetson.
Still, the Ducks present a formidable challenge for a U-M defense that struggled mightily in The Bahamas. Oregon has the nation’s No. 27 adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom, shooting better than 57% inside the arc and 37.5% on 3-pointers.
U-M will see a familiar face in Jesse Zarzuela, whose “Previous School” section on the roster is as long as I’ve seen: Navarro JC / Missouri St. WP JC / Coppin State / Central Michigan. He scored 19 in that CMU upset at Crisler Center last December.
Like the Ducks, the Wolverines are also shorthanded, with Jace Howard and Jaelin Llewellyn both working their way back from injuries. In a call with reporters on Friday, interim coach Phil Martelli said Llewellyn is getting more reps in practice — but both he and Howard’s timetables for return remain unclear. Llewellyn is officially listed as questionable on the availability report.
Another return to watch: Juwan Howard should be on the bench as an assistant coach as he continues to progress from offseason heart surgery.
KenPom predicts a four-point Oregon victory in the non-conference game before Big Ten play starts against Indiana on Tuesday.
Michigan vs. Oregon: Game notes of interest
Via the programs:
- Oregon is 2-4 all time against the Wolverines, winning the last two matchups by one point. The No. 10 ranked Ducks defeated No. 5 Michigan in Ann Arbor on 12/14/19, an overtime contest that UO won 71-70. UO advanced to the 2017 Elite Eight with a 69-68 victory over the Wolverines. Tyler Dorsey scored a team-high 20 pts.
- Dug McDaniel has scored in double figures in all eight games and leads U-M with 18.4 points per game. He has scored 20-plus points in half of those games, including a career-best 26 vs. St. John’s (Nov. 13) at the Gavitt Tipoff Games in New York.
