ON COLLEGE BASKETBALLThe Michigan men's basketball team played its most complete game of the season Tuesday night.
It still wasn't enough to equal a much-needed win.
Michigan lost a heartbreaker 64-61 to Wisconsin to fall to a morose 5-14 overall and 1-6 in the Big Ten.
Back in December, my friend Tick said Michigan might manage just one or two Big Ten wins. I called him crazy. The Big Ten, after all, isn't the power conference it used to be. And Michigan plays bottom-dwellers Penn State and Northwestern twice.
But if the Wolverines continue to be on the receiving end of the type of bad breaks they were Tuesday, Tick might be a prophet.
Coaches like to say that teams create their own breaks. Sometimes, however, that just ain't true.
During the tight second half, there was Michigan's Manny Harris scoring on a baseline runner ... only to have it called off by a questionable charge call. The basket, at least, should have counted since Harris released the ball before he made contact with the defender.
Then with Michigan trailing by a point in the final minute, Harris lost the ball, which squirted away from a teammate before finally being corralled by a Badger, who called a timeout.
And finally, there was Wisconsin forward Marcus Landry connecting on a 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of Michigan's best defender, Ekpe Udoh, to give Wisconsin a four-point lead. Any other basket would have given the Wolverines a chance to tie the game, but not Landry's bomb.
It's hard not to feel sorry for the Wolverines after Tuesday's result. They came oh-so-close to beating the No. 11 team in the country, to getting that signature win they desperately need, and they couldn't get what coach John Beilein calls the "50-50" balls.
Michigan had several opportunities to take the lead throughout the game, but it never did. Not once. It tied it on a Udoh jumper, but Wisconsin quickly retook the advantage.
The Wolverines rightly took a lot of positives from the game. Harris, who was spectacular, scoring a career-high 26 points, said the team has turned a corner.
But this team still needs to learn how to win. Or, better put, it simply needs a postmark win however it can get it. Even if it comes due to a few fortuitous bounces and a 3-pointer by an unexpected source.
Then the Wolverines will turn the next corner, gaining loads of confidence in the process.
