No. 3 UVa (5-0, ACC) at Michigan (5-1, B1G)

9:30 p.m., ESPN

The Wahoos will play their first true road game of the season when they take on the Wolverines as part of the ACC/B1G Challenge this evening. UVa’s trip to Ann Arbor marks its first road contest as part of the Challenge since a blowout loss at Purdue in December 2019.

Despite playing away from home, Virginia goes into tonight’s game the favorite to win. Michigan started off the season ranked 22nd in the AP Top 25 following a trip to the Sweet 16 in March. Juwan Howard’s group have been up and down to begin the season, though they still have five wins in their first six contests. But it’s how those games have played out that makes it easier to wonder how good the Wolverines are early in the season.

Michigan had to rally to hold off a 1-5 Eastern Michigan team 88-83 after trailing by as many as eight in the second half. The Wolverines destroyed Pitt 91-60 and then lost to a decent-but-not-elite Arizona State team 87-62 on a neutral floor. They then needed overtime to hold off a 2-3 Ohio team at home before beating another sub-300 KenPom team, Jackson State, by 10.

Tonight’s game will tell us plenty more about both teams. UVa is looking to keep its hot start rolling as November turns to December while Michigan is attempting to show that it’s more like the team we thought the Wolverines would be before the season began than what they’ve been in the first six games of the season.

Michigan ranks 57th in KenPom heading into the game after starting the season ranked 26th and going as high as 22nd before falling off from there. The Wolverines have been a stronger offensive team than a defensive one under Howard, and that seems to be the case once again.

They rank 30th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency per KenPom. They have done a decent job around the rim making 53.7 percent of their two-point tries (74th nationally), but their outside shooting hasn’t caught up: Michigan is making just 31.8 percent of its 3-point attempts tries, and these guys shoot a lot of them. The Wolverines have taken at least 20 in every game and have been closer to 30 attempts in about half of their games. Nearly 42 percent of their shots are from long range, which is 84th-most nationally.

Michigan’s greatest strength on the offensive end has been taking care of the basketball. The Wolverines rank 8th nationally in turnover rate, and second in dead-ball turnovers allowed.

On defense, Michigan is 88th in pace-adjusted efficiency. The Wolverines have done a nice job defending the rim, ranking 23rd in block rate, and have done a decent job not allowing opponents to have too many second-chance attempts through offensive rebounds. Opponents are making 46.4 percent of their two-point attempts, and just 30.9 percent of their 3s. And while they have done such a good job taking care of the basketball when they have it, they haven’t been as great at taking the ball away from their opponents. The Wolverines rank 303rd nationally in turnovers forced per possession, and rank 285th nationally in steal rate.

While the Wolverines have had a bit of an up-and-down start to the season, they certainly aren’t short on talent.

In this game, Virginia will have to square off with one of the nation’s top forwards in junior Hunter Dickinson. The Alexandria native is leading the team in scoring at 18.5 points per game after scoring 18.6 a year ago. Dickinson put up 31 in the comeback win over Eastern Michigan and 24 in the overtime win over Ohio. He is also the team’s leading rebounder at 9.5 points per game, and if he continues to play the rest of the way as he has to this point and as he did last year, Dickinson will be an All-American candidate. He is joined in the frontcourt by another DMV native and former UVa recruiting target, 6-foot-7 junior Terrance Williams. Williams has seen a rather significant increase in usage, playing 35 percent of Michigan’s minutes last year and now up to 73 percent of minutes as a junior. He has a pair of double-digit scoring efforts this season, including 18 against EMU, and is averaging 8.5 points and 6.8 boards per game this year.

In the backcourt, Michigan has a blend of talent and experience. Freshman wing Jett Howard, the son of his head coach, has made an immediate impact in Ann Arbor. Howard is second to Dickinson in scoring ay 15.2 points per game, putting up double figures in all but one of Michigan’s contests. He has been a good distributor too, with 2.5 assists per game. Howard has shot the ball well from deep, making nearly 44 percent of his 3s and taking nearly seven per game. At 6-foot-8, he will be a difficult cover that can stretch out a defense or outmatch a smaller guard one-on-one.

Also in the backcourt, sophomore Kobe Bufkin is averaging 9.2 points per contest and leads the team in assists with three per game. Princeton transfer Jaelin Llewellyn, who played his high school basketball in Virginia and was once recruited by the Hoos too, has made a nice impact at Michigan as well. Llewellyn is averaging 7.7 points per contest, not asked to do nearly as much on offense as he did at Princeton when he averaged 15+ points per game each of the previous two seasons. Duke transfer Joey Baker is contributing too, averaging 5.3 points per game, and making 47.4 percent of his 3s.

Virginia will rightly be favored heading into this game but Michigan is dangerous. The Wolverines haven’t been at their best yet, but they feel like a team that will eventually round into form and move closer to what everyone expected them to be before the season began. The Wahoos will also have to deal with a true road environment for the first time this season, which certainly makes the game a bit more open than it may appear if it was in Charlottesville.

If Michigan can ride the home crowd and knock down a bunch of outside shots, it could be a tough game for the Cavaliers. But they are pretty well designed to slow down the Wolverines, too. The pack-line defense can clog the lane and should make things a bit more difficult for Dickinson. They also can throw a few different players at Howard, and freshmen tend to struggle against UVa’s defense more than they thrive.

We’ll go with the Hoos in this one as they have simply been more consistently efficient than Michigan to this point, but this is clearly a game that could go the other way, if the Wolverines play closer to their ceiling and the Cavaliers struggle to hit shots.