ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The defending national champion University of Michigan men’s basketball team will make its 2026-27 Crisler Center debut on Sunday (Oct. 11), hosting Eastern Michigan in the first of three preseason exhibitions. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m., with the game streaming live on B1G+ with Michigan’s StudentU broadcast team.<\/p>\n
Notes<\/p>\n
\u2022 Michigan returns to Crisler Center for the first time since capturing the 2026 national championship. The Wolverines closed their historic 37-3 season with a 69-63 victory over UConn in the NCAA championship game, completing a season that also included Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Eastern Michigan opens a three-game exhibition slate for the Wolverines. Michigan will host Oregon State on Friday (Oct. 16) before facing Houston in The Battleground 2k26 at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids on Sunday (Oct. 25). The regular season begins Monday (Nov. 2) against Oakland at Crisler Center.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Sunday will mark Mike Boynton Jr.<\/a>‘s first game at Crisler Center as the David and Meredith Kaplan Men’s Basketball Head Coach. Boynton was elevated to lead the program after spending the last two seasons on the Michigan staff. During that span, U-M went 64-13 and won two Big Ten Tournament titles, the 2026 Big Ten regular-season championship and the NCAA national title.<\/p>\n \u2022 Separated by less than 10 miles, Michigan and Eastern Michigan renew their local matchup. The programs last met during the 2023-24 season, when the Wolverines posted an 83-66 victory at Crisler Center.<\/p>\n \u2022 Eastern Michigan first-year head coach Billy Donlon returns to Crisler Center, where he spent the 2016-17 season as an assistant on John Beilein’s staff. He was named Eastern Michigan’s 31st head coach in March 2026 and returns to Washtenaw County with nine seasons of head coaching experience.<\/p>\n \u2022 Known for his defensive background, Donlon helped Michigan to a 26-12 record, the 2017 Big Ten Tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 in his lone season in Ann Arbor. He left Michigan following the season to join Northwestern’s staff.<\/p>\n \u2022 While Michigan returns several pieces from its championship roster, the Wolverines will look to replace three 2026 NBA lottery selections — Morez Johnson Jr.<\/a> (No. 9), Yaxel Lendeborg<\/a> (No. 11) and Aday Mara<\/a> (No. 12). Senior Elliot Cadeau<\/a> and sophomore Trey McKenney<\/a> headline the returning group after both were selected to the Preseason All-Big Ten team.<\/p>\n \u2022 After earning Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors, Cadeau returns to direct the Wolverines. Starting all 40 games last season, Cadeau averaged 10.5 points and a team-best 5.9 assists, finishing with 234 assists — his second straight 200-assist season. He scored in double figures in seven of nine postseason games and matched his career high with 19 points in the national championship victory over UConn.<\/p>\n \u2022 McKenney looks to build on an impressive first season in Ann Arbor that earned him Big Ten All-Freshman Team honors. Coming off the bench in all 40 games, McKenney averaged 9.9 points and 2.8 rebounds while leading Michigan with 68 three-pointers. He scored in double figures 26 times, shot 39.1 percent from long range and 89.5 percent at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n \u2022 Michigan got an early start on developing its new-look roster with a nine-day summer tour through Lithuania and Croatia. The Wolverines played three international exhibitions, closing the trip with an 84-81 comeback win over Serbian professional club Mega Superbet. McKenney scored 25 points and Cadeau added 15 as the duo combined for 19 of Michigan’s 22 fourth-quarter points.<\/p>\n \u2022 The Wolverines added three experienced pieces through the transfer portal in J.P. Estrella<\/a> (Tennessee), Moustapha Thiam<\/a> (Cincinnati) and Jalen Reed<\/a> (LSU). The trio brings a combined 205 career games of college experience, with Estrella helping Tennessee reach three straight NCAA Elite Eights and Thiam earning All-Big 12 honorable mention last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The defending national champion University of Michigan men’s basketball team will make its 2026-27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-922150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}