5 Takeaways from Michigan’s win over Marquette

After falling to a very good UConn team last week, the No. 20 Michigan Wolverines bounced back in a big way, beating fellow Big East opponent Marquette, 84-70.

Shaka Smart has a good team in Marquette this season, with the Golden Eagles being picked to finish fourth in a deep Big East conference in the preseason poll. Marquette blew out two sub-300 KenPom teams in Mercyhurst and Detroit Mercy, and in its final exhibition game, Marquette beat a Michigan State that just knocked off Duke by three possessions. While Marquette isn’t ranked yet, this team is no slouch and could make a deep tournament run, making this a good non-conference test for the Wolverines.

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There’s no such thing as a must-win game in November, but coming off an eight-point loss to UConn at a neutral site, Michigan wanted to avoid consecutive losses at the start of a difficult non-conference slate. Michigan avoided that skid with an emphatic win against a decent team that should be on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble come March.

Michigan went on a 20-5 run over the last 7:50 of the first half to take an eight-point lead into the break, methodically picking apart the Marquette defense while Smart’s squad struggled to keep up offensively. Michigan came out firing to start the second half, jumping out to a lead that got as high as 22 points. Marquette slowly came crawling back to make Michigan sweat and get the lead down to single digits multiple times, but optimal offensive execution down the stretch helped the Wolverines put this one away.

Here are the takeaways from the victory.

Starting off the second half hot

After a back-and-forth first half, the Wolverines stepped on the throat of the Golden Eagles out of the break. J.P. Estrella, Trey McKenney and Elliot Cadeau each hit a three, with Michigan making it’s first three attempts and jumping out to a 14-point lead before Marquette could blink.

Between this awesome start to the second half and the strong finish to the first half, Michigan…

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Publish date : 2026-11-12 02:07:00

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