This season, Michigan has played quite a few bad halves of basketball.

The first half of Saturday's 62-44 loss to Wisconsin at Crisler Arena, however, was not one of them. The Michigan men's basketball team shot 60 percent from the field and made both of its 3-point attempts. It even played tough defense for the vast majority of the half.

The only problem for the Wolverines was that Wisconsin (8-3 Big Ten, 18-5 overall) couldn’t miss. The Badgers shot 68 percent from the field and 69 percent from 3-point land. Wisconsin guard Jason Bohannon even made a last-second heave from midcourt before halftime in the perfect cap to a near-perfect 20 minutes from the Badgers.

As a result, Michigan (4-7, 11-12) played one of its best halves of the season, but went into halftime trailing by 14, en route to a thrashing at home.

“They’re amazing,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “Usually, even teams at the bottom of the Big Ten, which I guess we are now, can stay with teams in the first half. We couldn’t even do that.”

Besides Wisconsin’s shooting, the stat that jumped off the boxscore in the first half was Michigan’s 3-pointers — just two the entire half. Certainly not the norm for a team that relies heavily on long-range jumpers.

The key, according to Beilein, was Wisconsin’s ability to fight through screens and stay in the faces of the Wolverines.

“They chase you off every screen and they took that part away from us,” Beilein said. “We were trying to get open ones, we just couldn’t get any.”

In the first half, Michigan's scoring from beyond the 3-point line was a luxury. In the second half, Michigan struggled mightily from the field, causing the long bombs to become a necessity.

And when they needed 3-pointers, as has been the case so often this season, they couldn’t get any. Michigan shot zero percent from long range in the second half, missing all nine of its attempts.

Wisconsin also cooled off significantly, but because of Michigan's struggles, it didn’t really matter. The Badgers shot just 36 percent from the field in the second, but that was all they needed to put the game away.

Senior DeShawn Sims, Michigan’s leading scorer with 18, said shot selection probably accounted for Michigan’s poor shooting in the second half on Saturday.

“We could have shot even better in the first half,” Sims said. “We missed some easy shots.”

But it wasn’t just the Badgers shooting extremely well that allowed them to beat Michigan so handily. In Madison, when the Wolverines lost an extremely close game, they out-rebounded Wisconsin.

On Saturday, Michigan was outrebounded by 10.

The rebounds especially hurt the Wolverines on the offensive glass. Since the Badgers are so good at making teams play defense for the entire 35-second shot clock, they often garner a gret deal of scoring chances. And when they grab an offensive rebound, more than likely the other team will be playing defense for around 65 seconds straight.

“That takes your heart away,” Beilein said. “Now you’ve guarded them for 69 seconds. That is really hard.”

As for where his team stands after the loss, Beilein conceded that the Wolverines’ collective attitude was not good. And before watching tape, it’s tough to find answers.

“I don’t know what to do right now,” Beilein said. “We have some days to work on our own game and see what we can do before we go to Minnesota.”