Michigan 68, Oregon 69: End of the line

After 20 minutes, Michigan trailed by two -- but it felt like it should have been much more. 

After 40 minutes, Michigan lost by one -- but it felt like it should have been much less, another outcome, a different narrative track. 

Michigan led 68-65 with 2:04 left in the game when Oregon's Dylan Ennis stepped up to the line for the front end of a one-and-one. He missed, but Jordan Bell (16 points, 13 rebounds), who helped Oregon dominate the interior all game, grabbed the offensive rebound and scored to cut Michigan's lead to one. 

If Michigan grabs the rebound there, maybe the game selects a different path down the Plinko-esque road to the finish. 

Tyler Dorsey (7-for-15, 20 points) scored what proved to be the winning bucket with 1:09 to play. DJ Wilson's three-point attempt fell off the mark on the next possession, and, on the final play, senior Derrick Walton took the last shot of his Michigan career, one he's taken, and made, many times before. 

Between the legs, hesitation, stepback. Start, stop, go go go. The Walton waltz is a familiar dance, one that lulls defenders to sleep with its suddenness and precision, both horizontally and vertically. 

His final shot looked like so many others in his Michigan career, which was four years long but felt like 10. The seconds ticked off, one by one. He made his move and fired, the same way he had so many times before. 

Only this time, it fell just short, hitting the front of the rim and falling toward the floor as the final tenths of a second of his Michigan career ticked away. His hands went up around his temples, up to the source of quickly rushing memories, estuaries feeding into a sea of emotion. 

Michigan's run had come to an end. 

The seniors, Walton and Zak Irvin, came to play in their final game. Walton finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and five assists, a remarkably unsurprising stat line from him during his two-month run through opposing defenses. Irvin scored 19 points, 14 of them in the second half. 

The first 20 minutes were mostly notable for how poorly Michigan played without getting blown out. 

Despite a typically strong do-it-all half from Walton -- who scored eight points and assisted seven of his teammates' nine field goals in the opening 20 minutes -- the Wolverines shot just 39.3 percent from the field. Luckily for them, Oregon wasn't much better (41.4 percent), and struggles from the free-throw line also hurt the Ducks. 

While the seniors stood tall, Michigan's sophomores showed their inexperience. 

Days after notching a career high in points against Louisville, Moritz Wagner (3-for-10, seven points) seemed lost. He struggled on the block defensively, and never found his rhythm on the offensive end in a half that featured several bad misses from beyond the arc. Similarly, although Wilson hit back-to-back treys in the opening three minutes, he scored just six more points the rest of the way. He attempted just two shots inside the arc all game (he missed both, including a crucial one late on a bunny that probably should have been a dunk). 

Add an underwhelming performance from Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman to the mix (1-for-6, two points, three turnovers), and it's a wonder Michigan was able to keep it so close. 

Despite scoring at a measly rate of 0.89 points per possession in the first half, Michigan trailed by just two at the break, 35-33. On top of that, the Wolverines limited the Ducks' transition game and strong defense from Zak Irvin helped keep Oregon's Dillon Brooks mostly in check (2-for-6, four points in the first half). 

The second half didn't go much better, but given the nature of the game, Oregon's 50-44 lead with 12 minutes left felt insurmountable. Of course, it wasn't. 

Michigan answered with a 7-0 run, but Oregon scored the next five to lead 56-51. A bucket from Irvin cut the deficit to three. Not long after, Walton followed a fadeaway two with a triple to give Michigan a 61-60 lead with 4:15 left in the game. 

Seemingly everything was going wrong for Michigan, but Walton and Irvin kept their team afloat. Even in defeat, the senior from Fishers, Ind., and his teammate from Detroit gave their careers a worthy coda. 

A Michigan free-throw boxout could have been the difference in this one. Or, it could have been Wilson's biffed layup. Or, it could have been any number of other things, big and small. 

In reality, it's not all that complicated. In a close game, Oregon made one more play at the end than did Michigan. End of story. 

The story of this team, however, is so much more than this game. It started with a roar in New York with blowouts against Marquette and SMU, then took a shaky turn at the start of conference play. At one point, making the NCAA Tournament was no certainty. Many fans expressed disappointment in the team's, especially that of Irvin and Walton, whose play was not matching their recruiting rankings or seniority. 

Gradually, Irvin found his level, and Walton picked his up, fast. Michigan went screaming through the home stretch, only bested twice, both in difficult circumstances at Northwestern (miracle buzzer-beater) and at Minnesota (overtime). 

Then, the airplane, the run in Indianapolis, the Sweet 16. You know the story. You'll never forget it. 

While any loss is disappointing, know this: this team took what was becoming a disastrous season and turned into a major success. Four wins in four days gave the Wolverines their first Big Ten Tournament title since 1998. On the petty side, Michigan somewhat avenged its 2013 national title game loss against Rick Pitino's Louisville to advance to tonight's matchup against Oregon. 

All in all, the memories, not to mention the championship banner that will go up in Crisler Center, greatly outweigh the disappointment of tonight's loss. 

Oregon won, by the slimmest of margins, but Michigan had its shot at the very end. For all its struggles throughout the game, Michigan went out on a note of self-determination: its best player with the ball in his hands and a chance to stay on the ride. 

Exactly the way it should be. 

Michigan 73, Louisville 69: The rematch

Almost half the time Louisville missed a shot today, a Louisville player grabbed an offensive rebound for a second-chance opportunity. Against most teams, that kind of an overwhelming advantage on the boards would have been enough to win.

But it was not enough today against No. 7 seed Michigan, which marches on after a 73-69 victory Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis.

In almost every respect, Michigan played the quintessential John Beilein game today against No. 2 seed Louisville, all the way from the precision of its tactics to the Super Soaker-wielding coach in the locker room after the game. Say hello to my little friend, he says, waving to opposing defenders who know not whether to help on shooters, double down or posts or, in a fit of frustration, find themselves lost on the vast, floor-spaced plains, covering no one, doing nothing.

Michigan shot "just" 35 percent from three today and was out-attempted from beyond the arc by the Cardinals (17 attempts to Louisville's 20). But, outside of that, Michigan's victory this afternoon in Indianapolis came from a familiar storybook.

The Wolverines out-executed the larger, more physically imposing Cardinals, who trotted out a 7-foot Cairene from its bench when a member of its starting forest of frontcourters was felled by fouls. Also, see if this sounds familiar: Michigan turned it over just six times against an aggressive Louisville defense (see also: VCU, 2013).

Michigan also did something Beilein has done numerous times now in his Ann Arbor tenure (both in games and long term): adjusted.

Long known as a perimeter-oriented roster, Michigan has seen its focus shift subtly in the other direction this season. Yes, Derrick Walton is still the heart and soul of this team, and was every bit of that Friday afternoon against Oklahoma State. But just like Beilein's offenses shifted away from being relatively ball screen-averse, the offense has evolved far beyond what Michigan was doing, even as of January. With two skilled bigs, capable of hitting the outside shot and flummoxing bigs with above-average handles, Michigan can play position-less basketball.

Want to leave them open? They'll bury a three in your eye. Want to play tight man-to-man? They'll cut and find ways to finish at the rim. Want to guard them in the post one-one-one? Well, Moritz Wagner showed what he does to that defense today.

The versatility of Michigan's frontcourt options paid off again, just like it did twice against Purdue. Wagner tallied a career-high 26 points (11-for-14 from the field), many of them coming on easy spins against Deng Adel et al in the post or blow-bys from the perimeter.

Wagner's shot chart is ... good. 

With the win, Michigan moves on to its third Sweet 16 in five seasons. Either Oregon or Rhode Island awaits.

But there were moments when the game appeared ready to escape Michigan in predictable fashion, snowed under by a barrage of Louisville offensive rebounds and a disjointed offense at the other end.

Michigan tied things up late in the first half, but an 8-0 Louisville run in the final minute sent it into the half not feeling great about itself. It was a first-half finish reminiscent of the 2013 title game, in which Luke Hancock erased Spike Albrecht's transcendent performance with several big shots of his own.

Louisville's Mangok Mathiang put his team up nine with 16:10 to play. Not long after, Quentin Snider lined up a triple for a chance to give Louisville a 12-point lead -- it wouldn't have been insurmountable, but there are points in games where things either keep going in one direction, or, they reverse course.

Luckily for Michigan, Snider was off all afternoon, finishing 0-for-9 from the field (0-for-7 from beyond the arc).

The Wolverines slowly chipped away, tying the game at 51-51 after a pair of Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman free throws with just over nine minutes remaining. Abdur-Rahkman put Michigan ahead with a layup not long after, and Michigan never trailed again the rest of the way.

D.J. Wilson added a jumper, Wagner buried a triple and Walton, who struggled with his shot all game, buried his second triple of the contest to put Michigan up 61-57 with 5:55 left.

Although Walton struggled from the field, he contributed when it counted, first with the aforementioned three and again with 30 seconds remaining on a layup to put the Wolverines up 69-65. As has typically been the case with the senior point guard, even when his shot isn't falling, he's found ways to leave his mark on a game -- in addition to 11 points, he tallied seven rebounds, six assists and zero turnovers.

Louisville grabbed 15 offensive rebounds, good for a 45 percent offensive rebounding percentage. Despite that, and the fact that the Cardinals out-attempted the Wolverines from three, Michigan punched back with the Wilson-Wagner one-two, for which Pitino had no answer. Seemingly content to afford the skilled Michigan bigs one-on-one opportunities and trade two-point baskets, that strategy burned the Cardinals.

After scoring 28 points in the first half, Michigan dropped 45 in the second. The Wolverines adjusted and proceeded to exploit the mismatches they were provided.

The result? A career day for Wagner, a 17-point day for Wilson and another Beilein team advancing past the opening weekend of the tournament.

At this point, forget about the seeds: Michigan is a good team that picked it up at the right time. Whether you want to credit Maverick Morgan, a pair of sophomores progressing rapidly or a senior igniting a team, the Wolverines have hit their stride over the last two months.

Whichever team Michigan has to face next will have its hands full. It doesn't seem like this Michigan team has any intention of seeing its season end anytime soon.

Notre Dame 70, Michigan 63: End of the road

You can't say this hasn't been an exciting ride.

From the back-to-back nonconference thumpings against Xavier and UConn forever ago to the upset home wins against Maryland and Purdue to the Big Ten Tournament thriller against Indiana, this season rolled up and down like the contours of the North Campus wave field.

And tonight, despite leading 41-29 at the half, the Wolverines' ride came to an end, with a 70-63 loss against sixth-seeded Notre Dame in Brooklyn.

As you already know (and heard several times tonight), these two teams won't meet on the gridiron anytime soon, but this game had all of the makings of a classic football contest in Ann Arbor or South Bend, in a Barclays Center packed with alumni of both schools. Runs, punches and counter-punches, raucous roars, and coaches' calculations. Errors, triumphs and a result, yielding elation and deflation.

Unfortunately for Michigan, the song was much the same, following the same tune that has been a through line buzzing at the season's musical heart.

Zak Irvin and Derrick Walton shot a combined 8-for-29 from the field, with Irvin starting 1-for-10 from the field, his shot looking as discombobulated as ever. Given his past success, you'd think the fix would be akin to restarting your computer and hoping whatever ailed it went away, but it hasn't been so simple for the junior from Fishers, Ind.

But for the first 20 minutes, Michigan looked as good as it's looked all season. The defense was swarming, and the Wolverines held a +8 turnover margin (ND-10, UM-2) going into the break.

ND's Zach Auguste turned the ball over, a steal by Irvin, who dished to Aubrey Dawkins for a layup, giving Michigan a 26-13 lead just before the 8-minute media timeout. That would prove to be the apex of Michigan's lead.

The collapse, however, didn't happen until the second half. Notre Dame cut the Michigan lead to five, but Michigan closed the half with a 7-0 run, capped by a Moritz Wagner layup that took a round-trip flight to Berlin around before coming back to JFK and falling in as time expired.

But, this is tournament basketball. After 20: reset.

Unfortunately for John Beilein and Co., Michigan didn't and Notre Dame did. The Fighting Irish bested the Wolverines in the second half, 41-22.

One storyline I've already seen on Twitter tonight is Beilein's decision to keep Wagner out for too long late (he picked up his third foul 4:15 into the second half and his fourth with 5:38 remaining), playing Ricky Doyle late in a key portion of the game. As one who is loath to criticize Beilein, I can't argue with that point.

After another season of Michigan basketball, the referendum is in: Mark Donnal, Ricky Doyle and DJ Wilson (who did not play at all tonight) are not the answer to Michigan's frontcourt woes.

Wagner is.

He was a spark in the Indiana win, scoring nine points and grabbing two offensive rebounds in 16 minutes. He was a spark tonight, too, with six points on 3-for-3 shooting from the field. Of course, he's not perfect, and he's certainly not Mitch McGary -- but he is clearly Michigan's best option in the frontcourt.

In retrospect, Wagner's nearly complete disappearance during conference play will go down as one of the most puzzling parts of this season. At the very least, it was a missed opportunity to prepare Wagner for what will assuredly be a central role in the rotation next season.

In the end, Michigan didn't make the plays that teams need to make come tournament time. I don't know how many finishes Donnal et al didn't convert at the rim, but it was too many (and I hate to criticize guys like that, but it is what it is). A missed attempt at the rim by Donnal with just over two minutes to go and Michigan down 64-61 stands out among the rest.

The game was still in reach late, with Michigan down 66-63 and possessing the ball after a Wagner rebound with 44 seconds left.

The possession ended with a familiar shot: an inadvisable three by Irvin, launched from Uniondale.

I get it, though. Late in the game, players like Irvin want that shot, no matter how many they've missed before that particular shot. But it wasn't even about the player taking the shot, but the circumstances of it. Michigan could have taken a two and forced ND to make its free throws. It could have even called a timeout and figured something out (although a player on the floor would have had to call it) -- and, as we know, there aren't too many people better than Beilein at drawing something up in the sand out of a timeout.

But neither of those things happened, and Irvin's long-range attempt fell off the mark.

Really, there was no other way for this to end.

Michigan's offense, predicated almost entirely on the success of its three-point shot, took this rusty bucket of bolts just about as far it could. Losing is never fun, but when looking back at this season, and factoring in the injuries to Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht, it seems to me that the Wolverines squeezed out just about as many wins as they had a right to.

It's easy to think "what if." What if Michigan wins tonight and then gets a matchup against Stephen F. Austin, who looked fearsome tonight but perhaps plays into Michigan's hands (see 2013 VCU game)?

What if?

Well, the tournament isn't about what-ifs. Results are all there is. The cold bracket cares not for injuries, team history, feel-good stories, justice.

A Friday night in Brooklyn is the only thing that matters, in a building hosting more fans than the average game for the NBA team that happens to play there.

---
There are thoughts to add and little observations to wrap up in a bow, but now's not the time for that.

But, Michigan basketball is at a crossroads. Beilein has taken Michigan to the next level, but the success of recent years has set a bar that is not consistently attainable for most college basketball programs, let alone Michigan's, which has had its successes over the decades but is otherwise not among the elites.

So where do we go from here?

Michigan brings in point guard Xavier Simpson, two bigs standing at 6-10 and 6-11, and 6-4 SG Ibi Watson. Everyone from this team returns, save LeVert, of course, and most likely Albrecht, despite occasional rumblings that he could come back for another go.

I won't pretend to know how I think the aforementioned current high schoolers will perform as freshmen, but expecting anything of note is not a good idea.

For the most part, this team will, at its core, be what it was this season. The only difference will be whether or not certain players can: a) take a jump (e.g. Wagner) or b) get back to previous levels of play (e.g. Irvin).

For now, there's not much use speculating. Beilein will be back, and Michigan will, for once, have a fairly experienced college basketball team, led by juniors and seniors. Every rotation player of note currently on the team will be a junior or senior (Wilson will be a redshirt sophomore).

As topsy-turvy as this season was, it wasn't without joy. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman gradually proved himself -- he might not ever be an elite player, but he plays fearlessly. And unlike the prototypical Beilein player, his offensive game is more playground than Princeton -- take the ball to the hole and make a play. That's something every basketball fan can respect, even in a day dominated by the three-point shot.

Michigan has work to do, that much is clear. The program is in a strange place -- two down years following two transcendent ones, led by a coach who has exceeded inherent expectations everywhere he's been and is widely considered one of the best tacticians in the game.

But what happens when success breeds augmented expectations? What happens when making the tournament is seen as a given rather than a luxury? What happens when fans start wondering why the program doesn't reel in the most talented players rather than lauding the coach for identifying and developing the diamond in the rough?

We'll find out next season, I suppose.

For now, we say goodbye to a 2015-16 season that was simultaneously disappointing yet seemingly perfectly fit to reasonable expectations.

One team moves on. Another doesn't, beginning its offseason: the season of questions.