Gayle's return cost Liburd the start. Noland kept his minutes
Roddy Gayle Jr. started the last exhibition, an 83-66 loss to 10th-ranked Houston, and played 30 minutes while Ricky Liburd went to the bench. Kenny Noland played 19, the most of any reserve, and out-minuted Liburd in all three exhibitions before Monday's opener against Oakland.
Michigan opens against Oakland at Crisler Center on Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern, on Big Ten Network. The exhibitions are over. Michigan played three of them, 600 team minutes in all, and the last one settled the question the first two left open: who takes the fifth starting spot.
Roddy Gayle Jr. took it. Against 10th-ranked Houston in Grand Rapids last Sunday, in his first appearance since being cleared for a fifth season, he started alongside Elliot Cadeau, Trey McKenney, J.P. Estrella and Moustapha Thiam. He played 30 minutes, more than anyone else on the team, and led Michigan with 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, two of them threes. Michigan lost 83-66.
Where the minutes came from#
Ricky Liburd started the first two exhibitions, against Eastern Michigan on October 11 and Oregon State on October 16. Against Houston he came off the bench and played 14 minutes, missed both his shots and was charged with three fouls.
Kenny Noland played 19. That was the most of any Michigan reserve, ahead of Liburd, Quinn Costello and Oscar Goodman, the three names Mike Boynton Jr. gave as his next group behind the starters at media day on October 22. Noland was not on that list. Boynton described him then as stability "if Elliot's in foul trouble."
Cadeau was in foul trouble again. He fouled out against Houston after 22 minutes. Against Oregon State, McKenney fouled out and Cadeau finished with four, so two of the three exhibitions ended with a starting guard short of the floor. Noland went 0-for-3 from the floor and had three assists, and two of them were the Costello threes that cut Houston's lead to 68-59 with 5:57 left, per Michigan's game release. Houston pushed it back to double digits and Michigan never got closer.
Here is how the 600 minutes went, from Michigan's official box scores:
| Player | Eastern Michigan, Oct. 11 | Oregon State, Oct. 16 | Houston, Oct. 25 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moustapha Thiam | 25 | 31 | 25 | 81 |
| Trey McKenney | 25 | 26 | 28 | 79 |
| Elliot Cadeau | 27 | 26 | 22 | 75 |
| J.P. Estrella | 21 | 24 | 25 | 70 |
| Quinn Costello | 24 | 23 | 13 | 60 |
| Kenny Noland | 14 | 25 | 19 | 58 |
| Ricky Liburd | 11 | 15 | 14 | 40 |
| Jalen Reed | 12 | 15 | 11 | 38 |
| Oscar Goodman | 15 | 4 | 13 | 32 |
| Roddy Gayle Jr. | 0 | 0 | 30 | 30 |
| Joseph Hartman | 18 | 7 | 0 | 25 |
| Malachi Brown | 8 | 4 | 0 | 12 |
Liburd started two of the three games and played 40 minutes. Noland started none and played 58. In each of the three games, Noland played more minutes than Liburd: by three, by ten and by five.
Three exhibitions is a small sample, and nothing in them counts. The pattern held in all three anyway, including the one where the starting five changed.
What Houston showed about the rest of it#
Michigan took 50 shots against Houston and 33 of them were threes. It made nine. Houston outrebounded Michigan 42-30 and outscored it 26-14 in the paint, per the release. Thiam had eight rebounds and went 10-for-10 at the line. Michigan made 23 of 29 free throws and still lost by 17.
Hartman did not play. Boynton said on October 22 that he would miss "probably a couple of weeks" with a shoulder injury. Two weeks from media day is November 5. Reed played 11 minutes, his third straight game between 11 and 15.
The four days that start Monday#
Oakland on Monday. UConn on Friday, November 6. Those are the first two games that count, four days apart, and the second one is against the team Michigan beat 69-63 for the national title in April. The Big Ten schedule does not start until December 9 at Rutgers.
For Monday the starting five looks settled, and the question is the order behind it. Liburd has the coach's word from media day. Noland has the minutes from all three exhibitions and the one job Boynton named for him, which came up twice in three games. Gayle's 30 minutes came out of the backcourt both of them were sharing. An Oakland game that gets away early would spread the minutes the way Eastern Michigan did, and it would say less about the order than a close one.
Called shot: Kenny Noland plays 15 or more minutes in each of Michigan's first two games, Oakland on November 2 and UConn on November 6, as listed on Michigan's official box scores. The case for it is three exhibitions in which he outplayed Liburd's minutes every time, including the one Gayle started, and a backcourt that ran into foul trouble in two of the three. The case against is the Eastern Michigan game, a 25-point win in which he played 14, and a media-day rotation that did not include him. Oakland at Crisler may look more like Eastern Michigan than like Houston.
Sources: mgoblue.com official box scores, Michigan 87, Eastern Michigan 62, October 11, 2026; Michigan 98, Oregon State 93, October 16, 2026; and Houston 83, Michigan 66, October 25, 2026; mgoblue.com, "Michigan Falls to No. 10 Houston in Exhibition Finale," October 25; mgoblue.com 2026-27 schedule and roster; Zach Shaw, 247Sports, "Everything Mike Boynton Jr. said at Michigan basketball's media day," October 22.
