Somehow (and even he’s unsure as to how it happened) junior guard Zack Novak is leading the Michigan men’s basketball team in blocks.

“I’m gonna enjoy it while I can,” Novak joked after Michigan's 69-50 win over Bowling Green Thursday night. “It probably won’t last very long.”

They aren’t the kind of blocks that greet fans in the front row or the ones that ricochet off the backboard. Rather, they’re simple blocks on hustle plays. But they’re the type of plays that have the ability to turn a game around.

The Wolverines allowed the Falcons (1-2) to keep the game close going into the half. Novak had one little block that stopped the Falcons from taking the lead.

His save allowed the Wolverines (2-0) to push the tempo and hit sophomore Matt Vogrich in the corner for a three, sparking a 22-5 run for Michigan.

In the final three minutes of the first half, the Wolverines went from a modest one-point lead to a more comfortable 39-31 lead on the coattails of two Evan Smotrycz 3-pointers.

Halftime didn’t slow the Wolverines, as they jumped out to an 11-1 run in the first five minutes and never looked back en route to their first-round win in the Legends Classic.

The first half featured the hot shooting of Smotrycz as he scored 12 of his team-high 14 points off 4-of-6 shooting from the field. On the game, Michigan shot 47.1 percent from behind the arc, due in large part to the ball movement and distribution from sophomore point guard Darius Morris. He finished the game with a career-high 11 assists.

“That’s always my focus, ‘How can I get my teammates open? What can I do to make them better?’ " Morris said. “I just try to do the simple thing. … When I keep it simple, that’s when I’m at my best. That’s when the team is at their best.”

On the other end, Michigan contained the Falcons' 6-foot-10 center Cameron Black, allowing him only two rebounds and keeping him off of the scorers' list in the first half. The Wolverines had a harder time with reserve A’uston Calhoun, a Southfield, Mich. native. Calhoun had a game-high 14 first-half points, but in the second half, the defense held Calhoun to just two points.

With the clock running down, the Falcons moved into a 1-2-2 extended press in an attempt to cut the lead, but Michigan responded well and converted the overextended pressure into a couple of easy layups and a few wide-open threes.

“In the last couple of days we could really see things gelling a little bit in practice as far as the speed of our defense, the speed of our fast break, the confidence in it,” Michigan coach John Beilein said.

With the increased speed of the offense and fast break, the Wolverines accounted for 13 turnovers.

Beilein remains optimistic that his team “is starting to understand a little bit about college basketball and all the things you need to do to be competitive.”

Michigan's next chance to prove that will be Sunday when it faces Gardner-Webb at 2 p.m. in the second game of the Legends Classic. Gardner-Webb is coming off a 25-point loss to Florida State. But the Runnin’ Bulldogs feature a talented scorer in senior Jon Moore, who had 21 points in the loss to the Seminoles.