In the waning minutes of Monday's game against Penn State, Michigan basketball was staring a bad loss right in the face.
The Nittany Lions had taken a 70-67 lead and pushed it to five with 2:08 left on the clock. Penn State came in ranked in the top 50 of the Kenpom rankings, but it still would have been a bad loss.
Yet, buckets from Roddy Gayle and Trey Donaldson trimmed the lead to one. Michigan basketball strung together some stops and with under a minute left, Donaldson buried a go-ahead 3-pointer.
Not long after, he clinched the game at the free throw line after another stop. Michigan basketball finished the game on a 9-0 run to win 76-72. The Wolverines are 15-5 on the season and 7-2 in the Big Ten.
Vlad Goldin scored just four points and grabbed three rebounds but wasn't himself. That was clear from the start and he was questionable before the game. Foul trouble stymied both bigs in the first half as Danny Wolf and Goldin played just 19 first-half minutes.
Wolf was one of three Wolverines in double figures with 11. He also had nine rebounds and an assist. Nimari Burnett added 10 pints and four assists, but Donaldson carried the day with 21 points. He made three shots from deep and had seven assists and zero turnovers.
Yes, zero turnovers. Michigan basketball had just nine as a team against one of the best defenses in college basketball at forcing turnovers. The Nittany Lions outrebounded Michigan by 11 in the first half but U-M nearly pulled even in the second and played just well enough defensively to avoid an upset as a nine-point favorite.
Here are the gut reactions.
Gut reactions from Michigan basketball win over Penn State
- 3-point shooting saved the day. The Wolverines took 45 percent of their shots from beyond the arc and made 43 percent. They don't win without that effort. Seven players hit treys and four guys (Rubin Jones, Wolf, Burnett, and Donaldson) had at least two.
- Michigan survived this game without Vlad Goldin. He attempted just four shots and the Wolverines lost to rebounding the battle to one of the worst rebounding teams in the Big Ten.
- 3-point shooting is one reason Michigan won. Protecting the ball (finally) was another.
- This isn't the first time Donaldson has taken over a game. He did the same thing against UCLA and he'll need to do it even more down the stretch.
- Not all wins are equal but this one was pretty important, as ugly as it was at times.
- Go BLUE!