The hoops at Crisler Arena may as well have been oceans on Thursday night.

In Michigan’s last men’s basketball game before Big Ten play, the Wolverines downed Bryant, 87-71, tying the program’s record for most 3-pointers in a game in the process. The Wolverines drained 16 triples — the same mark they set against Eastern Michigan on Dec. 13, 2008.

The Bulldogs weren’t far behind though, knocking down 13 of their own 3-pointers and finishing the game with a 52-percent field-goal percentage from behind the arc.

At some points, it seemed as though neither team could miss a shot.

With three minutes left in the game, sophomore point guard Darius Morris held the ball at the top of the key with the shot clock winding down. With no better options, he dribbled to his left and launched a shot from well beyond the arc as he faded away with a defender’s hand in his face — nothing but net.

“On that one, I just looked up and saw that there was minimal seconds left,” Morris said after the game. “I knew I didn’t have time to pass the ball, so I shot it. And I work on that sometimes after practice, like a kid in a playground, ‘three-two-one,’ and I was looking for it to go in today.”

Morris continued to prove he’s one of the nation’s elite point guards — he finished up with his fourth double-double of the season, tallying a career-high 26 points and 12 assists. And for the first time this year, the Los Angeles native didn’t turn the ball over.

“Now that’s a great game for him to hit four shots from the outside, 12 assists, he had no turnovers,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “It is very rare that a guy who has the ball in his hands that much can do that. The game is evolving for him both offensively, defensively and as an assist man, so I’m really proud of his performance.”

Michigan (10-2) finished with a 21-3 assist-to-turnover ratio — the most assists and the fewest turnovers Michigan has registered all year.

But Bryant was still able to keep pace for most of the night, due in large part to the shooting of 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Vlad Kondratyev, who went 5-for-6 from 3-point range and finished with 20 points. The Wolverines, who had prepared for battles with Kondratyev underneath the basket, were simply caught off guard with his ability to knock down 3-pointers.

“They had a five man that could really shoot,” junior guard Zack Novak said. “We hadn’t totally seen that yet. We didn’t have that game plan for him to knock down five or six threes. We know these guys are shooters, and we can’t give the shooters that extra time.”

Nonetheless, Michigan started to pull away from Bryant (1-10) late in the first half when the Wolverines went on a 9-0 run off 3-pointers from sophomore guard Matt Vogrich, freshman forward Evan Smotrycz and junior guard Stu Douglass.

And by the end of the game, Michigan’s proficient shooting was just too much for the Bulldogs to handle, as Morris, Smotrycz and freshman guard Tim Hardaway Jr. each finished with four triples.

With conference play on the horizon — Michigan squares off with Purdue on Tuesday — Beilein’s main concern is keeping up the hot shooting.

“You know, when you’re 1-for-9, (I think) the next one’s going to go in,” Beilein said. “But then when you go 6-for-9, you’re thinking — it’s the Irish part of me, I guess — where I’m always looking for that disaster around the corner.”