The No. 16 Michigan men's basketball team won its season opener against Oakland on Monday, but lost the rebounding battle. The Golden Grizzlies (44) out-rebounded the Wolverines (42), with Michigan giving up 21 offensive boards. The victory was never really in doubt, but giving Oakland so many second chances prevented the game from being more of a blowout.
After the win, first-year head coach Mike Boynton Jr. made sure to remind Michigan that a team with just one player in the rotation above 6-foot-8 grabbed nearly two dozen offensive rebounds against the defending champs.
"Yeah, we heard about it," forward JP Estrella said after Monday's win. "Honestly we just got to do a better job rebounding defensively. I feel like our (offensive) rebounds were great, but defensively, it's definitely something we got to get better at, I feel like we got to do a better job getting a hit and getting the ball. … It's definitely something we're going to correct."
To be fair to the Wolverines, they were without starting center Moustapha Thiam, who was out with the flu. Estrella (6-foot-11) did his part in the win with 12 rebounds before fouling out in 21 minutes. But Boynton echoed a sentiment you've likely heard from college basketball coaches before — everyone on the floor has to rebound.
"It's certainly not something that can continue," Boynton said on Oakland's 21 offensive rebounds. "Moustapha will help, no question, but our guards will have to rebound better. Roddy had one defensive rebound, that's not good enough; Trey had four. We need both of those guys in the 5-6 rebound range. Particularly as you look ahead — UConn has always been one of the best rebounding teams. That's who we got next and they got the film, and they understand that that's not something that we've been as good at so far, and so we have to address it to give ourselves a chance."
The Wolverines were a very good rebounding team last season, and having the No. 1 defense on KenPom certainly helped with that. As talented as Estrella and Thiam are, this isn't the same front court featuring three lottery players in the starting lineup. Everyone has to step up so this isn't a recurring problem.
To say UConn has been an elite rebounding team under Dan Hurley would be an understatement. From 2020-26, the Huskies always ranked in the top-30 in KenPom's offensive rebounding rate, including marks in the top-five from 2021-23. UConn will crash the glass, and Michigan needs to box everyone out to avoid taking their first loss of the season.
"Sometimes you just assume, guys assume that the big guys will get rebounds," Boynton said. "I think that's where we are now. We have two really good rebounding bigs and our guards haven't really understood yet how important it is that they get in the fight with those guys, particularly in those high-stakes, physical battles. Na'Jai Hines and JP Estrella are going to be wrestling for rebounds on Friday, and so between their guards and our guards, the guys that get in there the most will probably give their team the edge. Tonight, (Oakland's) guards rebounded better than their guards, so we got to address that. It's always a concern rebounding, it's one of the big factors of basketball, everybody knows it."
Michigan fans should be excited to see Estrella and UConn's 6-foot-11, 265-pound center go at it. Estrella is certainly excited for it, partially because he'll be playing close to his hometown. The big man is working on getting "a lot" of tickets for family and friends hoping to attend the game. He said his mother has been bugging him to secure tickets twice a day ahead of the primetime matchup.
"I think it's going to be a great test," Estrella said. "I'm just honestly excited to go to my area where I live, I'm (Portugese) from Fall Rivers, so I'm super excited to be back over there, play against a great team. I'm just really pumped to play another really good team, honestly, play another game, that's the thing I'm excited about. It's going to be a great matchup. It's going to be a great test for us, and we're just going to keep building off of every game."
Depending on how he feels the next few days, Estrella could be joined by Thiam in the starting front court in time for the National Championship rematch.
"I want to try as best I can not to play doctor when I'm in here, but I do believe based off of what we know, Moustapha's just got something, it's a 48-hour bug," Boynton said. "He practiced Saturday, wasn't able to practice Sunday, had a bit of a (high) temperature so we thought it would be best to let him rest. He was in the building for a while getting treatment. … Hopefully he's going to practice Wednesday/Thursday before we head out."
