3. ESPN Analytics matchup predictor favors Michigan in all but five games this season
Maryland on the road next month is the first game that goes against the Wolverines. The other four include trips to Oregon, Purdue, Illinois, and February's duel with Duke in the nation's capital. ESPN predicts Michigan to sweep Sparty and the Buckeyes. Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com has Michigan, Purdue, and UCLA as the only three Big Ten hoop teams who can win 30-plus games in 2025-26.
Michigan's lone tournament entry comes in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving break and boy is it a doozy. There are potential March dream matches with Houston, Kansas, Alabama, Gonzaga and St. John's again. That will be a proper assumption of where this group belongs heading towards Big Ten ball and next year. Whomever outlasts the rest in this bracket should be considered as one of the heaviest favorites to be the last one standing in the spring.
First and foremost, we gotta see how this bunch handles adversity. It may not come for a while because of the schedule. They lost to Cincinnati in the preseason, but were without two guys who combined for 36 points in the opener. The early season loss to Wake Forest last year propelled them to winning their next seven games. While TCU dropped a gimme to the Privateers of New Orleans, which caught everyone off guard.