At some point during the second half of the Michigan men’s basketball team’s 65-62 win over Harvard on Saturday, the “Let’s go blue” chants started to sound more like, “Let’s go Stu.”

For one of the first times all season, the fans at Crisler Arena seemed to really get behind the Wolverines (5-2) and after Michigan headed into the half down seven, the arena was waiting for a second-half charge to give the season-high 9,559 fans something to cheer about.

That’s when Douglass caught fire.

After scoring just three points in the first half, Douglass had a monster second stanza, scoring 16 of the Wolverines’ 40 points. On the game, he shot 5-for-7 from behind the arc, hitting half of the Michigan’s 3-pointers.

“It’s kind of just another game, because I’ve had games like this before and then I’ll come out the next day and not hit a single shot,” Douglass said after the game. “But now I know, in my junior year, I just have to provide whatever I can whether it’s defense, shooting, whatever the team needs at that time.”

Douglass's surge — he tallied a season-high 19 points — proved indispensable for the Wolverines against Harvard (5-2) as they fought through seven lead changes and clawed their way back from a 12-point deficit in the second half while other scorers struggled.

Freshmen Tim Hardaway Jr. and Evan Smotrycz, two of the team’s top four scorers so far this season, shot a combined 1-for-12 from the field, accounting for less than 5 percent of the team’s scoring output. Up until this game, the duo had contributed to nearly one third of the team’s offensive production.

“We’re talking about leaving the baggage behind and moving on to the next play,” Smotrycz said after the game. “Coach was just talking to us, and he crumpled up the stat sheet and said, ‘On to the next one.’ ”

The game provided an interesting opponent for both Douglass and Michigan coach John Beilein. Harvard coach Tommy Amaker coached the Wolverines from 2001 until 2007, when he was replaced by Beilein. Upon arriving at Harvard, Amaker heavily recruited Douglass but ultimately lost him to Beilein.

In the second half, Amaker attacked the Wolverines by putting four shooters on the perimeter and leaving just Keith Wright in the middle for the Crimson. This move sent players like Smotrycz and redshirt freshman Blake McLimans to the bench, allowing for quicker guard defenders, and moved junior Zack Novak back to a post-like position. But the change opened space in the lane and allowed Novak to collect a team-high and season-high 11 rebounds, all of which were defensive boards. He also scored 12 points, giving him his first career double-double.

“I don’t think we’re that type of team where you say, ‘We’re going to get the ball to these guys and we’re going to play off of them,’ ” Beilein said of Douglass and Novak’s step-up performance in the Harvard game. “I think we’re playing off the way people play us. … There are all these things we look at. We couldn’t run our regular stuff. Tommy (Amaker) just took us out of everything.”

Amaker knew what it would take to defeat his old program. Three years ago, the Crimson triumphed over Michigan in Boston, 62-51, in a similar back-and-forth game in which the Wolverines were unable to keep their momentum. But even in the last year, Michigan has made strides in working to keep its momentum together in tight games, shown both by the Wolverines’ win on Saturday and the road win at Clemson.

“Sometimes, last year, things started to not go our way and it kind of just crumbled,” Douglass said of the Wolverines' play in tight games. “But today, we came together and fought for 40 minutes.”

Michigan looks to defend their homecourt for the next seven games — they won’t have to play on any opposing team’s floor until Jan. 5 when they face Wisconsin in Madison. Next on the list is Concordia College, an NAIA school located in Ann Arbor.