Embrace it — that’s what Michigan coach John Beilein said to his team after the No. 12 Wisconsin men’s basketball team came from behind to beat the Wolverines, 53-52.

Junior Stu Douglass sat on the baseline, his hands covering his face, his body collapsing to the floor as shock rushed through his body. As he relived a nightmare.

Embrace it.

Freshman Tim Hardaway Jr. — mouthguard nearly falling out of his mouth, jaw stuck open, arms wilted at the side of his body — stared without expression as the Badgers dog-piled freshman John Gasser, whose 3-point bank shot spelled refuge for Wisconsin.

Embrace it.

Gasser, the freshman, the kid who averages six points per game (he had five against the Wolverines), the guard that shoots 28 percent from 3-point range, ascending valiantly from the floor who would later say, “When it left my hand, I thought it was going to bank in, and it actually did.

“So that’s pretty funny.”

Embrace it.

“Don’t like it, but you gotta use it,” Beilein said after the game. “You’ve gotta use it right now. They’re all going to think back in the next day, ‘Geez, if I would’ve done this, if I would’ve done that,’ Well those are probably all things we can do, that as a young team has to do. Don’t use this as a crutch right now.”

Last year at the Big Ten Tournament, when Michigan was fighting for a spot in any kind of postseason play, Ohio State junior Evan Turner hit a long 3-pointer over the outstretched arms of Douglass to beat the Wolverines, 69-68.

That shot ended the careers of DeShawn Sims and Manny Harris. It ended the season for everyone else.

So what’s to embrace?

Embrace the fact that this team plays well against good teams. Michigan has yet to beat a ranked opponent, it’s 0-6 in that category. But it’ll get there.

The Wolverines held Wisconsin to 17 points under its season average in scoring, nearly 10 percent under its shooting percentage and only allowed the Badgers to get to the line three times, when normally they get there 13 times.

Embrace the fact that the 12th-ranked team in the country needed a blessing from God and the glass to beat a team that was expected to finish at the bottom of the Big Ten, but clawed its way to the middle of the conference.

The undersized and less experienced Michigan post contingent outscored Wisconsin in the paint. Redshirt freshman Jordan Morgan dunked twice.

Embrace the fact that two leading scorers — Morgan and Hardaway Jr. — are first-year players under Beilein. And that sophomore point guard Darius Morris held his own against junior point guard Jordan Taylor, who's the nation’s best floor general, statistically.

Beilein has said all year that this team wants to learn, wants to get better. They are nothing, if not resilient.

Embrace the fact that all is not lost. The two remaining games in the regular season feature two squads with top-50 RPI’s. Two teams that should be scared to face a team that will be more hungry than discouraged after that loss.

After the game, the locker room was dead silent. Answers were succinct. Eyes were glazed.

For Minnesota and Michigan State, this could very well be the quiet before the storm.

Because that 3-point shot, a Hail Mary over the flailing body of Douglass, ended the Wolverines’ season last year.

Michigan won’t let it be the one that ends this year.

— Jennings can be reached at chanjen@umich.edu