LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - While the Michigan basketball team struggled through the second half, being careless with the ball and missing a bunch of shots, one player kept the Wolverines in their Old Spice Classic opener.

And it’s not who one would expect.

Sophomore Laval Lucas-Perry, a transfer from Arizona, made 3 three-pointers, including two from NBA range, and scored 12 of Michigan’s 14 points midway through the second half to keep the Wolverines in the game.

“My teammates were spotting me,” Lucas-Perry said. “And I hit the open shot and was just trying to create to get this team going.”

Lucas-Perry finished with a season-high 18 points, one short of his career high set against Minnesota last season. He also tied his career best in three-pointers made with 4 - previously set against Oakland.

It reached a point where Michigan’s players actively looked for Lucas-Perry, who was hot while the rest of the Wolverines were off.

“I was just trying to let the game come to me,” Lucas-Perry said. “Manny (Harris) drove the lane, I got open and he kicked it out to me and I hit the open shot.”

Lucas-Perry only scored in double-digits nine times in his Michigan career and it was his first double-digit game since the career high against Minnesota. He reached 18 points one other time, against Indiana on Jan. 7, 2009.

Open To Playing Creighton

Michigan coach John Beilein said he’d be fairly open to playing a potential home-and-home with Creighton in the future.

While he wouldn’t commit to it for sure after the game, he said it is an intriguing non-BCS conference home-and-home option because of the Blue Jays’ fan base and the
program’s history.

He said all week that, along with Gonzaga and Butler, Creighton is one of the class so-called mid-major programs in the nation.

“Because of how good they are and it is a huge, huge quality road win that could be a possibility,” Beilein said. “Those are the type of teams, if you’re going to go home-and-home with somebody not in the BCS conferences, it’s the Creightons, the Butlers, the Gonzagas, things like that would be appealing.

“But we’ll have to check our alumni base in Omaha.”

So Much For Substitutions

Before he arrived in Florida, Beilein said he’d like to watch the minutes of Harris, senior forward DeShawn Sims and sophomore guard Zack Novak.

Playing three games in four days can take a toll on the legs and he ideally didn’t want to push them too many minutes now, with two more games and then the ACC/Big Ten Challenge game against Boston College on Wednesday.

That didn’t work out quite as planned. Harris played a shade under 45 minutes and both Sims and Novak played 38 minutes each. Lucas-Perry also logged a lot of minutes - a season-high 33 of them, one shy of his career high.

“Didn’t do it very well today, did I,” Beilein said. “We tried to make sure they both got rest and used our timeouts. In fact, I probably carried too many timeouts into it. I probably should have used a couple just to get (Harris) a rest.

“We got down by five there, there was no taking him out after that. We couldn’t afford a lapse at all although Anthony (Wright) gave us five good points when he was in there.”

Beilein said the six guys who logged major minutes - Harris, Sims, Novak, Lucas-Perry, Darius Morris and Stu Douglass - were all in an ice bath after the game to try and expedite the healing process for the legs.

This and that

Michigan was scheduled to have Thanksgiving dinner around 4 p.m. on Thursday. … Freshman Matt Vogrich, who played five minutes in the first half, didn’t play in the second half. … Walk-on Corey Person didn’t travel with the team to Florida, although a team spokesperson said that was not unusual.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.