ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Michigan Wolverines will be the first to admit they haven’t been playing their best in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, though, they took a step in the right direction toward getting back to their previous form.

No. 3 Michigan kicked off a three-game homestand and a crucial stretch with four of five contests at home with a wire-to-wire 86-72 win over Indiana Tuesday at Crisler Center.

Elliot Cadeau scored 19, Yaxel Lendeborg had 15 points and seven rebounds, and Aday Mara had 13 points and seven boards for Michigan (17-1, 7-1 Big Ten), which led by double figures the entire second half.

After leading by as much as 17 in the first half and by 11 at the break, the Wolverines kept the Hoosiers at a distance, controlled the second half and widened the margin.

Mara forced a turnover that led to a 3-pointer by Nimari Burnett. On the next possession, Mara blocked a shot at the rim and Lendeborg followed with a deep ball. Burnett capped a 12-4 spurt with another 3 to make it 57-37 with 14:19 to play.

The Wolverines kept adding onto their lead and pulling away. Lendeborg capped a string of six unanswered points with an offensive rebound and putback. Michigan held Indiana without a basket for nearly four minutes as it extended the lead to 66-41.

Indiana struggled to put a serious dent in the deficit, even during a stretch where Michigan missed eight straight shots, didn’t make a basket for over seven minutes and had to rely on free throws as its source of offense.

The Hoosiers could only cut the deficit to 16 twice before Lendeborg ended the field-goal drought with an alley-oop slam in transition off a live-ball turnover for a 79-61 advantage with 3:56 left. Michigan’s lead never dipped below 12 the rest of the way.

Trey McKenney had 10 points off the bench for Michigan. The Wolverines shot 50.9% from the field and made 10 3-pointers to make up for 13 turnovers and 11 missed free throws.

Tucker DeVries scored 15, all coming in the second half, and Nick Dorn 14 for Indiana (12-7, 3-5), which has lost four straight.

The Hoosiers, who entered the game taking half of their shots from deep, finished 11 for 34 from 3-point range, shot 40.4% from the field and were outrebounded by a 41-25 margin.

With a quick turnaround coming off a two-game sweep of Washington and Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, Michigan showed no signs of jetlag or little rest at the start.

The Wolverines scored the first nine points and built a double-digit lead in less than eight minutes behind Cadeau, who scored 10 points in the first 6:42. They hounded Lamar Wilkerson and gave Indiana’s top scorer little room to breathe. They drew two fouls on DeVries, Indiana’s second-leading scorer, within the first two minutes.

After Indiana missed its first eight shots and went scoreless over the first five-plus minutes before it got on the board, Michigan ripped off another burst. Cadeau and McKenney each buried a 3-pointer. A blocked shot at the rim by Johnson preceded a driving layup by L.J. Cason during a string of 10 unanswered points. McKenney splashed another deep ball to cap a 13-1 spurt that made it 22-5 with 9:55 left in the first half.

Indiana missed its first 10 shots from 3-point range during a 1-for-15 shooting start where it struggled at times to even get a clean look. But after the Hoosiers snapped the long-range drought at the 9:40 mark, that sparked a stretch of six made shots. Four of those came from deep, as Indiana cut the deficit to 31-23.

Despite shooting 57.1% from the field and holding Indiana to 33.3% shooting in the first half, the Wolverines committed nine turnovers, went 1 for 8 on free throws and had to settle for a 40-29 halftime lead.

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