Previewing the Michigan basketball game against La Salle

Michigan (10-0) will take on the La Salle Explorers (4-8) tomorrow at 4PM on Peacock. The Wolverines are heavily favored in this matchup, with ESPN's matchup predictor giving Michigan a 99% chance of winning this game. So far this year, La Salle has not been a very good college basketball team, and Michigan is one of the top teams in the country.

As a team, La Salle is averaging 67.7 points per game, and is giving up 69 points per game on average. They're also only shooting 43% from the field as a team so far. Those numbers are all quite pedestrian from a team perspective, and Michigan on the other hand is averaging 94.7 points per game, surrendering only 67.7 points per game, and shooting 53% from the field so far this year.

Despite what the stat sheet will say about this matchup, Michigan still has work to do if they want to accomplish all their lofty team goals for the rest of the season and this game will be a test of focus for the Wolverines. Will they come out and dominate and inferior opponent? Or will they come out flat and let La Salle hang in this game longer than they should? That will likely be Michigan's biggest test of the game in my opinion given the lack of a high quality opponent. Let's dive into the other things to look out for in this game if you're a Michigan basketball fan below.

Yaxel Lendeborg's Quest for National Player of the Year

So far through his first 10 games as a Wolverine, Yaxel Lendeborg has truly been one of the best players in the whole sport of college basketball. He's averaging 16.4 points per game on 59.6% shooting from the field, 86.4% from the free throw line, and 40.8% from 3-point range. For good measure, he's also averaging 7.2 rebounds per game, 3.7 assists per game, 1.4 blocks per game, and 1.6 steals per game. Those numbers are truly spectacular when you stack them all up against players across the country, with possibly only Duke's Cameron Boozer putting up similar statistics as a whole.

Yaxel has been Michigan's best player through 10 games and it'll be interesting to see if he can keep up this pace for the whole season. If he can, he'll have a good chance to take home some hardware at the end of this year's college basketball season.

Team Turnover Numbers

As has been the case for much of Dusty May's tenure as Michigan's basketball coach, the Wolverines like to push the pace as much as possible which can often lead to high turnover numbers. So far this year, Michigan is averaging 12.8 turnovers per game. That's only slightly down from the 12.9 it averaged last year, and it ended up being a big problem for Michigan down the stretch in Big Ten Conference play and in the NCAA Tournament. Michigan will hope to improve upon that number as the season goes on and if they keep their turnover numbers down in any given game, they'll likely have a good chance to beat anybody they play the rest of the year.

Michigan's Defensive Dominance

Michigan's defense has been one of the best in college basketball this year. They're holding opponents to 35.8% shooting from the field, which is #2 in the country behind only the Duke Blue Devils. They're also 6th in the country in blocks per game as a team, as Michigan makes it really tough on opponents to score near the rim with all their length in the front court. La Salle isn't exactly an offensive juggernaut as a team but it'll be interesting to see if Michigan can dominate another opponent on defense like it has for most of the year.

If Michigan plays like it's capable of against the La Salle Explorers, they'll have no problems crusing to an 11-0 start to their season. The scale and manner in which they beat La Salle though will help give Michigan fans further context to just how good this team can be later on in this season.

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