Michigan Basketball on the brink of a Top-5 start in the history of college basketball

The Michigan Wolverines survived a scare on Tuesday night against the Penn State Nittany Lions in Happy Valley. As 22-point favorites on the road against one of the bottom teams in the Big Ten without their best player, that was a bit of a surprise.

But the regular season is approaching its midway point, and the Wolverines remain undefeated in the second year of the Dusty May era. They are off to a historic start despite the close one they played Tuesday.

Advertisement

After beating USC last week, Michigan became the first team in AP Poll history to win three straight games against ranked opponents by more than 30 points, according to ESPN research. Using KenPom’s data, Michigan also became the No. 2 team in the history of the metric, trailing only Duke’s 1999 squad. Overall, Michigan’s margin of victory the last 10 games (prior to the win against Penn State) was 34.5 points.

We’re talking about a potentially astronomical pace and potentially one of the best teams ever. Not just in the modern era or in Michigan program history — ever.

With 14 games in the books, we decided to compare this start for the Wolverines with some of the other best starts of all time to see where the 2025-26 Michigan squad ranks. To do so, we took a dive into some of the best starts halfway through the season (15 games) in the history of the sport, and then dove closer into the modern era. The results are telling, as this squad’s start is among the best of all time.

1971-72 UCLA Bruins

Through 15 games, the Bruins’ margin of victory was an astounding 35.8 points per game, winning 14 times by 20 or more. That included a 79-53 win over the No. 6 Ohio State Buckeyes. The knock here is 13 of those 15 games were at home, Ohio State was the only ranked opponent they played in the regular season, and there was such little parity in this era. In the end, Wooden and the Bruins won their sixth straight national championship, going 30-0 in the midst of their 88-game winning…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/michigan-basketball-brink-top-5-170000898.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-01-07 17:00:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.