AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Having lost his balance after getting bumped by a defender, freshman point guard Trey Burke went hurtling to the ground underneath Oakland’s basket, chucking the ball in desperation toward the left corner.
But Burke’s pass managed to find a wide-open Tim Hardaway Jr. And his shot found the net.
Hardaway Jr.’s 3-pointer with 3:40 left in the game extended the Michigan men’s basketball team’s lead back to double digits, and an emphatic fast-break dunk by senior guard Stu Douglass after a Golden Grizzly turnover on the next possession effectively iced it. The Wolverines rode it out the rest of the way en route to a 90-80 win over Oakland (6-4) at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
“(Douglass) has pretty good lift, (and) I think he’s had a couple (dunks) in his career here, but just score the two points,” joked Michigan coach John Beilein. “I’m just happy we scored the two points.”
Douglass came alive in the game’s final minutes. Shooting just 27.8 percent from long range coming into Saturday, the co-captain followed his breakaway jam with a 3-pointer a couple plays later (one of two he hit on the day) to put Michigan (7-3) up 82-69, removing any doubt about the final outcome. Oakland did outscore the Wolverines 5-0 in the final minute in a late push, but by then it was too late.
Though Michigan did manage to pull away, for most of the second half, the Golden Grizzlies refused to be left in the dust. The Wolverines came out firing after halftime — as they did in the first half — and plenty of times, it appeared that a big 3-pointer would give the team the momentum it needed to make a game-clinching run.
Oakland, though, had an answer almost every time, usually from guard Reggie Hamilton, who finished with 28 points to lead all scorers. The game was tied until the 11:53 mark, as Michigan was forced to adapt to the Grizzlies’ high-powered offense and its up-and-down style.
But the Wolverines began to chip away at the Grizzlies, building a small lead until finally breaking through in the final minutes. The late run capped by Douglass’s dunk was part of an 11-4 Michigan run. The team shot 57.4 percent from the field in the second half, including a scorching 15-for-28 performance on 3-pointers.
Going in, the Wolverines knew that they would have opportunities from long range.
“We saw their tendencies (on film),” Beilein said. “We knew we weren’t going to get to the rim (and) get some backdoors. We knew it was, particularly, the two corner shots were going to be open, so we practiced them, but we practice them all the time. We needed that.”
Early on, it appeared the Wolverines were going to run the Golden Grizzlies right out of the Palace. After a slightly shaky start on offense, Michigan’s shooters got hot. On the other end, Oakland struggled to score despite getting open looks.
With 10 points by the 9:31 mark, sophomore forward Evan Smotrycz almost topped the Grizzlies’ output himself for a while, and the Wolverines led 25-11 at one point. Smotrycz finished with 20 points and nine rebounds, leading Beilein to say it was “probably his best game since he’s been here.” With Hardaway Jr. finishing with 21 points and Burke with 20, Michigan had three players top 20 points for the first time since 2002.
But the refs were forced to stop the action with 6:49 left in the half for several minutes, as the scoreboards above each basket ceased to work — the main scoreboard hadn’t been working since the beginning of the game, so none in the arena were functioning at that point.
After that, Michigan’s offense, too, suddenly had a power outage. The Wolverines got careless with the ball, turning it over seemingly almost every other possession. They finished with 10 turnovers for the half, allowing Oakland to creep back into it.
“Both teams had to deal with (the scoreboard),” said senior guard Zack Novak. “I will say it was strange, I’ve never really experienced anything like that before. … (But) really, the difference was we just got shaky with the ball. That was really it.
“You just can’t do that.”
Travis Bader’s game-tying 3-pointer as the half ended knotted it up for the first time since it was 2-2 in the opening minute.
The Grizzlies carried that momentum into the back-and-forth second half, until Michigan eventually took control late in the affair.
“We took the same approach to this game that we did to the Memphis game,” Novak said. “We wanted to win about 70-60. That wasn’t the case at all, but good teams find a way to win no matter what kind of game you’re in. It’s encouraging.”