GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The scoreboard won’t count. The record books won’t care. But nobody in Van Andel Arena on Sunday will be treating this as a scrimmage.

On one side: Houston, the program that doesn’t rebuild, only reloads. On the other hand, Michigan, the reigning national champion, which went 37-3 last season and now arrives with a first-year head coach and a roster that looks almost nothing like the one that cut down the nets. Call it the final exam before the semester starts. Noon CDT.

The new faces

Start with how much Michigan lost. Senior guard Elliot Cadeau is the Wolverines’ leading returnee, and he averaged 10.5 points. The leading returning rebounder is sophomore guard Trey McKenney, at 2.8 a night. That’s what a title team looks like after the talent leaves for the pros and the portal. Mike Boynton Jr. inherits a banner and a blank page.

Boynton knows this opponent, and not fondly. He is 1-3 against Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, a record he built at Oklahoma State, where he went 119-109 from 2017 to 2024. Now he gets Sampson again, this time with a national title to defend and no film on how his new team handles Houston’s pressure.

The old standard

Houston is the other kind of program: the one with a standard instead of a roster. The Cougars sit No. 10 in the AP preseason poll and No. 8 in the coaches poll. It’s the seventh straight year they’ve been ranked in both, and the fifth straight in the top 10 of both.

The streaks are absurd. Houston owns the nation’s longest active run in the AP poll at 127 consecutive weeks, the 13th longest in NCAA history. It has been in the AP top 10 for 32 straight weeks, behind only Duke’s 38. As the No. 10 team in the AP poll, the Cougars are 10-2 and have won seven in a row.

Sampson, in his 13th season, got a first look at this year’s team on Oct. 15, a 110-53 rout of Montana Tech at Fertitta Center. Sophomore forward Chase McCarty hit five of six from three and led everyone with 19 points. Fifth-year forward Delrecco Gillespie scored 13 on a perfect 5-for-5. Sophomore point guard Kordel Jefferson added 12, freshmen Ikenna Alozie and Arafan Diané debuted with 11 apiece, and senior forward Joseph Tugler had 10 points and nine rebounds.

That was Montana Tech. Sunday is a different test. It’s the first real measure of what the newcomers, Alozie and Diané among them, look like against a team with a pulse.

A homecoming for Reek

Gillespie has a story worth watching. He’s from Benton Harbor, Mich., about 80 miles from Grand Rapids. He spent four years at Kent State, made the All-MAC First Team and All-MAC Defensive Team as a senior, and earned his degree in integrated studies in 2026. Now he plays the biggest game of his young Houston career in front of family and friends, against the champions from his home state.

The history is thin, and it hurts

Houston and Michigan have met four times, and the Wolverines lead 3-1. The first was a 90-89 Michigan win in four overtimes at the 1962 Holiday Classic in Houston. The most recent was March 17, 2018, in Wichita, Kan., where No. 7 Michigan beat the Cougars 64-63 in the NCAA Tournament’s second round. It was the kind of loss that stays with a program for years.

Sunday is the first meeting since. It won’t be an NCAA Tournament game, but the Cougars are certainly aware of the date.

What to watch

  • Michigan’s identity. With so little returning production, how quickly does Boynton’s group find its rhythm against a Houston defense that makes everyone uncomfortable?

  • Houston’s newcomers. Alozie, Diané and Gillespie are all new to Houston, and Sunday shows how they handle a high-level opponent.

  • McCarty’s shooting. The five threes were encouraging, but he’ll be guarded now.

On Deck

The real season opens quickly. Houston hosts La Salle on Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. at Fertitta Center (CBS Sports Network), then heads to Lake Tahoe to face California on Nov. 8 (7:30 p.m. CT, CW).

For one Sunday in Grand Rapids, though, the exhibition label is just a label. The champion has a new look. The contender has a standard to hold. And somebody gets a head start on answers.