No. 16 Michigan men fall 85-77 to No. 4 UConn in the Boston rematch

ANN ARBOR — No. 16 Michigan lost to No. 4 UConn 85-77 on Friday night at TD Garden, seven months after the Wolverines beat the Huskies for the national championship.

The Michigan athletics recap said the Wolverines trailed by as many as 18 and got within eight in the closing seconds. Halftime was 43-30 UConn. Michigan outscored the Huskies 47-42 after the break and shot 47.1 percent in the second half. The box score lists attendance at 18,053, with Tony Henderson, Brian Dorsey, and John Gaffney officiating.

Trey McKenney led Michigan with a career-high 22 points, all of them after halftime, and he made four of the team’s seven three-pointers. J.P. Estrella added 19 points on 6-for-7 shooting and nine rebounds. Roddy Gayle Jr. scored 18 and made all six of his free throws. Michigan is 1-1. UConn is 2-0.

How the lead got away

The recap says Moustapha Thiam opened the scoring with an alley-oop from Estrella, and Elliot Cadeau tied the game at 7. UConn then closed the half on a 9-0 run over the final 2:12, including a last-possession three, after Michigan went scoreless for the last 4:30 of the half. In the second half an 8-0 Huskies run made it an 18-point game with 16:23 left. McKenney’s threes brought Michigan within nine and forced a timeout with 8:09 left. He scored 13 of his points in the final eight minutes. Estrella dunked and Gayle scored a layup in the last 35 seconds. It was not enough.

What the rematch was

Michigan’s notes, written before tip, said the programs were meeting for the sixth time and the second time in seven months, after Michigan’s 69-63 win in the 2026 NCAA championship. The recap says this was the 11th meeting since 1996 of the previous season’s title-game teams. The last one involving Michigan was Nov. 14, 2018, when Michigan beat Villanova 73-46 after losing the 2018 final. Those notes also said defending champions had won six of the previous 10 such rematches. Friday went to the team that had lost the final.

The pregame notes, which this story uses only for the April game and not for Friday’s box, said Elliot Cadeau scored 19 in the championship and was the Final Four’s most outstanding player, and that McKenney hit a late three and two free throws in that 69-63 win. Friday’s rematch did not replay those lines. McKenney’s career high came in a loss, and the series lead the notes listed, 3-2 Michigan before tip, is now even at 3-3 if that pregame count was right. The recap itself did not reprint the all-time series after the game, so the 3-3 is this story’s arithmetic on the notes, not a line in the recap.

The photograph is Crisler Center. Friday’s game was not played there. Michigan’s next home game is Wednesday, Nov. 11, against Marquette at 7 p.m. on FS1, the first of a two-game homestand, the recap said.

Sources:
University of Michigan athletics, “Michigan Falls Short in Championship Game Rematch with No. 4 UConn,” Nov. 6, 2026, https://mgoblue.com/news/2026/11/6/mens-basketball-wolverines-fall-short-in-championship-game-rematch-with-no-4-uconn
Michigan box score, Michigan vs. UConn, Nov. 6, 2026 (attendance, referees, halves), https://mgoblue.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2026-27/uconn/boxscore/30819
Photo: Dwight Burdette, “Crisler Center at Night, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.JPG”, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACrisler_Center_at_Night%2C_University_of_Michigan%2C_Ann_Arbor%2C_Michigan.JPG

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Tags: Ann Arbor · Michigan basketball · UConn · Trey McKenney · Crisler Center