Guard Tim Hardaway played brilliantly to lead No. 5 Michigan Wolverines to beat Cleveland State Vikings 77-47 and helped his team to storm into the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off Tuesday night.
Lead scorer Hardaway added 17 points and grabbed six rebounds for the No. 5, Nik Stauskas scored 15 points and had six rebounds and Trey Burke contributed with 12 points, 7 assists and 3 rebounds.
At the end of the first half, the score was No. 5 Michigan at 42, Cleveland State at 14. In the second half, No. 5 Michigan scored 35 points against the Cleveland States' 33 and won the game.
''We're going to work four days of late-game situations,'' The Associated Press quoted No. 5 Michigan coach John Beilein as saying. ''Getting those in these early-season games are always beneficial. We haven't had any of those.''
The No. 5 Michigan shot 51 percent in the game, but they did not have good percentage of shooting from the 3-point arc and got 9 from 24 attempts. In the previous games they were really good at it and they had better percentage. On Tuesday, they shot 64 percent from the field in the first half.
Burke, Hardaway and Jordan Morgan played very well for them and the Wolverines took an 8-0 lead early in the game. Hardaway hit a 3-pointer with only 57 seconds left in the half.
''I've honestly never been to New York,'' Burke said. ''Just to be able to go there for the first time with this team, it means a lot. To go there, play against some of the competition that's going to be there, it's going to kind of test where we're at.''
Forward Anton Grady was the lead scorer for the Cleveland State. He scored 15 points and grabbed 3 rebounds. No one else could score in double digits for them.
Cleveland State have some good players and they had proved it in their victory over Bowling Green 79-73 on Monday, but today they could not create any problem for the Wolverines.
''I think there was some intimidation tonight coming into this building and playing Michigan. We really didn't play well in any facet of the game,'' Cleveland State coach Gary Waters said. ''This program has done a lot of great things - we went into Syracuse and won and we've gone into other places and won - so there wasn't an intimidation factor for our program, but this is a very young team. These kids haven't done this before.''
Michigan improved their winning record against Cleveland State and now the team record is Michigan - 9; Cleveland State - 0.
The last time Michigan won three straight games by at least 30 points, the Wolverines went on to win the national championship.
It's a bit early for that kind of talk this season, but Tim Hardaway Jr. and his team are off to quite a start.
The Wolverines beat Slippery Rock 100-62 in their opener then routed IUPUI 91-54. This is now their longest streak of 30-point wins, since they had five in a row in December 1988, according to STATS, LLC.
Michigan figures to face a tougher test in this tournament next week, when the Wolverines take on Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden in New York.
''At Michigan, you come to win championships, and this is one of the most prestigious preseason tournaments,'' coach John Beilein said. ''Many of the kids have not been to New York, they've not been to the Garden, and we wanted them to get there.''
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