Michigan basketball’s fatal flaw that will cost it in Big Ten conference title race

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Michigan basketball’s fatal flaw that will cost it in Big Ten conference title race

Jaren Kawada, ClutchPoints · ClutchPoints

Thu, Feb 12, 2026 ·

5 min read

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One game aside, Michigan has been nearly flawless in the 2025-2026 college basketball season, putting them in position to enter the annual Big Ten Tournament as the No. 1 seed. Dusty May's lightning-quick program rehabilitation has seemingly already reached its peak, but the Wolverines ' job is not done yet.

Considering its body of work, Michigan has likely done enough to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, even if it loses in the Big Ten Tournament. But at this point in the season, given how dominant the Wolverines have been, ending the year without a conference title would feel like a disappointment.

Michigan's vast improvement can make it easy to forget that the Wolverines are actually the defending Big Ten Tournament champions. May's inaugural squad underwhelmed at times in the regular season, but the 49-year-old head coach has proven that he is made for March.

Regardless of how the regular season ends, Michigan is poised to enter the 2026 Big Ten Tournament as the odds-on favorite. It will not be a cakewalk, with Michigan State , Nebraska and Illinois posing significant challenges, but May will be favored to begin his tenure with consecutive conference titles.

It will take a near-Herculean effort to halt Michigan's momentum in the Big Ten Tournament, but the Wolverines are far from invincible. Their only loss, a 91-88 back-and-forth battle against Wisconsin at home, laid the blueprint for how teams can beat the Big Ten frontrunners in the postseason tournament.

Dusty May has built the most well-rounded team

Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Michigan is arguably the most well-rounded team on paper, leading to its No. 1 overall rating on KenPom. The Wolverines have the fifth-best offensive rating on the prestigious college basketball site and the best defensive rating in Division I.

Dusty May's offense is a well-oiled machine, relying on no singular player to lead the team on either end of the court. Michigan is the deepest team in the country by a wide margin, with six players averaging over nine points per game and eight of its nine rotational players posting at least 7.7 points per game. Their top four bench players would be key starters on almost any other top-25 program.

Yaxel Lendeborg leads the Wolverines with 14.3 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, but almost all of his points come from within the offensive flow and rarely from isolation. On any given night, Lendeborg can look like the best player in college basketball, but Michigan is equally likely to be led by Elliot Cadeau , Aday Mara , Morez Johnson Jr. , Trey McKenney , Nimari Burnett , Roddy Gayle Jr. or L.J. Cason .

On the other end, Michigan's lockdown defense prides itself on making life difficult inside with its elite frontcourt lineup. Lendeborg and Mara are the two highest-rated defenders in college basketball, according to EvanMiya. Johnson is also seventh, giving them three of the 10 best defenders in the game, each of whom excels at protecting the paint.

The lack of a dominant isolation scorer could hurt Michigan down the stretch, but it has managed its way through tough games without that element. Instead, the Wolverines' biggest issue comes on defense.

Teams can beat Michigan from deep

Michigan has no defensive weaknesses, per se, but whenever teams hurt it, that pain comes from behind the arc. While the Wolverines' three-point defense is still elite, allowing opponents to hit just 29.3 percent of their long-range attempts, they allow many shots from distance. Teams attempt 27.3 three-pointers against them per game, 342nd nationally.

Teams will get threes off against Michigan, but they struggle to convert. However, if they find a rhythm, that threat can trouble the Wolverines, who allowed Wisconsin to hit 15 three-pointers in their only loss of the year to date.

Wisconsin's top two scorers, Nick Boyd and John Blackwell, guided the upset, but the Badgers would not have left Ann Arbor with a milestone upset without Aleksas Bieliauskas . The freshman forward averages just 4.5 points per game but went off for a career-high 17 points against the best team in the country, including an absurd 5-for-10 from deep. Bieliauskas has reached double figures in just two other games this season.

Bieliauskas had the game of his life and gave Michigan center Aday Mara fits in pick-and-pop sets. Mara, while an elite defender in the paint, struggled to get outside, giving Bieliauskas many wide-open looks.

If another team is going to bull off the same feat, it will need another semi-lucky performance from an unheralded star.

Wisconsin had the perfect game against Michigan, yet still only left with a three-point victory. The next team to beat the Wolverines will have to create a similar perfect storm centered on getting hot from three-point range.

While not necessarily a fatal flaw, if another Big Ten team beats Michigan in the 2025-2026 college basketball season, it will stem from their long-range success.

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