The No. 4-ranked University of Michigan men's basketball team earned a 74-61 victory over UNLV on Friday night (Nov.19) in the Wolverines' opening contest of the Roman Main Event at T-Mobile Arena.

Graduate student Eli Brooks led the Wolverines (3-1) with his sixth career game with 20-or-more points, scoring 22 points on the night with four three-pointers and going 6-for-6 from the charity stripe. Freshman Moussa Diabate came off the bench for 12 minutes and scored 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting, while adding seven rebounds, two blocks and one steal to his stat line. Sophomore Hunter Dickinson rounded out the trio of double-digit scorers with 13 points and tied a team-best seven rebounds with three assists, two steals and one block.

Graduate student DeVante' Jones manned the floor for Michigan, dishing out eight assists to go with nine points and seven rebounds, while freshman Caleb Houstan had five points, four rebounds and four assists. As a team, the Wolverines scored 13 points off of 11 UNLV (3-1) turnovers and scored 30 points in the paint.

After a slow offensive start, Michigan hit five straight shots capped off with a monster dunk from Diabate in transition to take a 15-11 lead over UNLV with just over 12 minutes left in the first half. Coming out of the second media break, U-M put the Runnin' Rebels on ice for over two minutes as Diabate made his next two shots and freshman Kobe Bufkin followed with a pair of free throws that gave Michigan a 21-15 advantage with nine minutes remaining in the opening stanza.

Brooks made back-to-back shots for the Wolverines, including his second three-pointer of the night, to put Michigan up by 10 and force a UNLV timeout with 3:33 on the clock in the half. The timeout was not in vain as the Rebels came out of the break and finished the half on a 9-0 run that cut the Wolverine advantage to three, 35-32, heading into the halftime break.

The Wolverines and Rebels exchanged baskets to start the second half before the Maize and Blue forced three turnovers and went on a 7-0 run to take a 54-45 advantage with 12 minutes left to play.

Following a big defensive block from Diabate, Michigan pushed its lead to 11, 58-47, behind two free throws from Terrance Williams II with 9:29 remaining in the contest.

UNLV came within six with three minutes left in the game, but the Wolverines quickly worked their lead back to double-digits with four points from Dickinson and a pair of free throws from Brooks, taking a 70-59 advantage with one minute on the game clock.

U-M kept UNLV to just one layup in the closing three minutes of play and earned the 74-61 victory at T-Mobile Arena.

Michigan will play Arizona in its final game of the Roman Main Event on Sunday (Nov. 21). The contest is slated for a 9 p.m. PST tip and will be featured on ESPN/2.