Michigan to kick off 2024 with a victory over Minnesota.

After capping off a sub-.500 start to the season by ending 2023 on a sour note with a loss to McNeese, the Michigan men’s basketball team had a lot of material to draw on for potential New Year’s resolutions.

The Wolverines have an abundance of areas of improvement to focus on, from defense to effort to depth to cleaning up turnovers. Thursday’s matchup against Minnesota provides an opportunity for Michigan to see if the new year will bring a new look or more of the same.

“Preparation is so important,” Michigan coach Juwan Howard said Wednesday. “… I am going to do my homework and see what I can do best and better as a coach. … I felt like (McNeese’s) toughness, their grit, was so present and it was infused on us and I say we shied away from it. And is that possibly fatigue, where we felt they played harder and we couldn’t match their energy? Or is that based on the fact that we was not in great shape where we tried to play with the grit, nastiness, the toughness, being the most physical?”

Regardless of what you point to as the cause of the Wolverines’ poor start to the season, something significant needs to change for them to avoid a repeat of last year’s disappointing season. That starts with a defensive turnaround.

While the Golden Gophers sit a few spots below Michigan in the NET rankings, their offense is primed to challenge many of the Wolverines’ defensive issues. Minnesota has four players averaging double figures, and a fifth player — guard Elijah Hawkins — who leads the nation in assists per game. That leaves Michigan unable to key in on stopping only one player and instead forces it to guard everyone one-on-one, something the team has struggled with in recent outings.

“It was just one-on-one — break down, one-on-one — blow by, one-on-one — a guy ended up laying the ball in the rim and we react too late,” Howard said. “And that cannot happen. All that’s based on being alert and also bringing effort and that’s something that we had missing (against McNeese), was we did not bring the effort that we needed in order to compete at a high level.”

The Gophers also play with a deep bench, a foreign concept for the Wolverines. Minnesota’s bench scoring sits at 34th in the nation and first in the Big Ten at 26.69 points per game. Conversely, Michigan’s bench scoring sits at 276th in the nation with 17.38 points per game. With eight players averaging 18-plus minutes a game to the Wolverines’ five, the Gophers can substitute far more frequently without fear of a significant dropoff. That leaves Michigan vulnerable to seeing its players burned by fresher legs.

“Our bench, they’re going to be truly needed,” Howard said. “We know we have the conference games in the Big Ten. And we have great coaches, special, talented players. Coaches who do a great job of scouting and trying to take away some of your strengths. And so what we have to do is make sure that everyone with all hands on deck is ready.”

As the Wolverines leave non-conference play behind them, they have plenty to focus on fixing to start 2024 on the right foot. Because everyone knows it’s a new year. The only question is whether or not it will be the same Michigan.