No. 20 Michigan Scores School-Record 75 in Second Half, Routs William & Mary 123-79

For 20 minutes on Sunday, William & Mary looked like the kind of mid-major that ruins a ranked team's afternoon. The Tribe were hitting 3s, the bench was cooking, and the gap at Crisler Center was five points. Then No. 20 Michigan came out of the locker room and scored 75 points in one half, the most in school history, and the whole thing turned into a highlight reel.

The defending national champions beat William & Mary 123-79 in front of 10,838 in Ann Arbor, the first meeting ever between the programs. Michigan moved to 3-1, the Tribe fell to 2-2, and eight Wolverines finished in double figures for the first time in program history. Moustapha Thiam and Quinn Costello led with 16 apiece, J.P. Estrella added 15, and Elliot Cadeau ran the whole operation with 11 points and 11 assists.

The 44-point margin was Michigan's largest lead of the day, reached on Harrison Hochberg's three-point play with 27 seconds left. Nobody took a foot off anything.

A Fast Start, Then a Real Fight

Roddy Gayle Jr. made sure Michigan did not ease into this one. William & Mary grabbed its only lead at 2-1 on a Tre Blassingame drive, and Gayle answered with an and-one at 18:46. Two 3s followed, and Gayle had nine points before three minutes were gone. Thiam slammed home a Cadeau lob in between, and Michigan led 12-5.

The Tribe did not blink. John Roland scored on back-to-back layups and Gavin Ward buried a 3 to tie it 12-12 at 15:44, a 7-0 run that quieted the building. From there the first half became a trading session. Stas Sivka hit 3s at 13:27 and 11:57 to keep William & Mary within 23-21, and the Tribe made 7 of their 14 first-half attempts from deep.

Michigan answered with a 10-0 burst. Ricky Liburd scored on a layup, Kenny Noland drove for two, Gayle finished an alley-oop from Liburd, and Trey McKenney made two free throws. It was 31-21 at 10:23, and separation seemed to have arrived.

It had not. William & Mary went on a 9-2 run of its own, with ZZ Clark, Brian Carter Jr., Blassingame and Sivka all scoring, and it was 33-30 at 7:43. Carter, who entered leading the Tribe in points, assists and rebounds, made four free throws in the final two minutes. Will Feagles closed the half with two more freebies, and Michigan went into the break up only 48-43.

The strange part: William & Mary did all of that while committing 14 first-half turnovers. This is a team that turned it over three times in a five-point loss at Florida Atlantic on Wednesday. Shooting 15 of 31 covered for the sloppiness. Not forever.

The Second Half Was a Different Sport

McKenney opened the second half with an and-one and Estrella hit a 3, but Ethan Connery's layup still had it 54-47 at 18:50. What came next decided the game in less than two minutes.

Cadeau converted a driving layup and the free throw. Thiam scored inside off a McKenney feed, then made two at the line. Estrella capped it with a dunk at 16:59. That 9-0 run pushed the lead from seven to 16, and the Tribe never got closer than 12 again.

The Wolverines shot 27 of 53 after halftime, went 8 of 22 from 3 and made 13 of 15 free throws. More telling, they turned it over only three times in the second half after nine giveaways before the break. When Michigan stopped handing the ball back, William & Mary had no way to keep pace.

Estrella was the engine of that stretch. The big man had three points at halftime and scored 12 after it, with a 3, two dunks, a layup and an alley-oop from Gayle among them. Thiam did similar damage: four points in the first half, 12 in the second, and four blocked shots on the day.

Then the runs kept coming. A 7-0 spurt with Gayle, McKenney and a Noland 3 made it 83-60 at 10:33. Ward hit two 3s around a pair of Thiam free throws to briefly stop the bleeding, and Michigan answered with another 7-0 run, this time a Costello 3, two Costello free throws and a Liburd dunk, to go up 92-66. Costello's fourth 3 of the night made it 100-70 with 5:59 left.

Cadeau's Clinic and a Bench That Matched the Tribe's

Cadeau, the lone returning starter from last season's title team and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, did not need to score much. The point guard took nine shots, made four, and spent most of the afternoon setting up the bigs. Five of the 11 assists went to Thiam, several on lobs that turned Crisler into a dunk contest. Add three steals and four rebounds and it was a complete game in 26 minutes.

The numbers around Cadeau were absurd. Michigan assisted on 31 of its 43 field goals. It scored 28 fastbreak points to William & Mary's two, 58 points in the paint to 28, and 36 points off turnovers to 15. The Wolverines grabbed 22 offensive rebounds and turned them into 25 second-chance points. They won the glass 57-34.

William & Mary arrived ranked second in Division I in bench scoring, averaging 59.3 points per game from its reserves. The Tribe got 53 from the bench on Sunday, which would win most nights. Michigan's reserves scored 54.

Costello led that group with 16 points on 4-of-11 shooting from 3 and a perfect 4 of 4 at the line. Noland was efficient, 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting with three made 3s and nine of those points after halftime. Oscar Goodman scored 11 with eight rebounds in only 12 minutes. Jalen Reed added six points and seven rebounds in nine minutes, including two dunks during the late surge.

The Tribe's Problem: Possessions

There is a version of this game where William & Mary keeps it within 15. It is the version where the Tribe protect the ball. They finished with 24 turnovers on 89 possessions, and Michigan's 12 steals came with a lot of easy layups at the other end.

Sivka was the Tribe's best player, finishing with 13 points, six rebounds and three blocks off the bench while shooting 5 of 10 and 3 of 6 from deep. Clark added nine points, five rebounds and four assists. Ward went 3 of 5 from 3 for nine points, and Connery chipped in nine.

Carter scored 10, but eight came at the line. The junior entered averaging 16.3 points on 72.1 percent shooting and went 1 of 6 from the field against Michigan's length. Feagles, who came in 18 of 21 from 3 this season, went 2 of 7 from deep. When the two best scorers on the roster combine for 3 of 15 from the field, a 44-point loss starts to make sense.

The Tribe shot 11 of 36 in the second half, including 5 of 16 from 3. Early makes became misses, and Michigan ran off them.

What It Means

For Michigan, this was the cleanest look yet at what the roster can do with space. The Wolverines opened the season by beating Oakland 84-68 in Mike Boynton's debut (our recap), dropped a title-game rematch to UConn 85-77 in Boston (recap), and pulled away from Marquette 84-70 behind Estrella (recap). Sunday's 123 points were the program's most in a game since 1990, according to the team.

The frontcourt pairing is the story. Estrella and Thiam combined for 31 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks, and both were at their best when Cadeau was pushing the pace. McKenney, who entered as the team's leading scorer at 18.0 points per game, had 14 on only nine shots, going 7 of 7 at the line. Eight scorers in double figures says the offense does not need one player to carry it.

The caveat: William & Mary is not UConn, and the first half showed a good shooting team can hang when Michigan gets careless. The schedule gets real fast: Villanova in Philadelphia on Saturday, Nov. 21, then the Players Era event in Las Vegas starting with Creighton on Nov. 24.

William & Mary returns home to Kaplan Arena to face Bowling Green on Tuesday, Nov. 17. The Tribe matched the champs shot for shot for a half. They will also look hard at 24 turnovers.

The Takeaway

Halftime at Crisler felt like a game. The final felt like a scrimmage with a scoreboard. That swing came from Michigan cleaning up its own mistakes, punishing William & Mary's, and letting Cadeau orchestrate a record half the rest of the country should notice.

Sources: Michigan official box score (opens in a new tab), William & Mary official box score (opens in a new tab), CBS Sports box score (opens in a new tab), William & Mary game preview (opens in a new tab), Michigan Men's Basketball on X (opens in a new tab). More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Michigan Photography (file photo of J.P. Estrella vs. Marquette, Nov. 11, 2026).