The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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"I don't know that the season was ever going to go in a different di- rection, but there are certain games that propel you to a championship," Dakich said. "Beating Michigan State like they did, twice, would be it." FINISHING THE JOB They did it by coming back from a significant deficit each time, some- thing they accomplished all year. The Wolverines were down by eight points in the first game at MSU, an 80-75 win in January, and by as many as 11 in the first half during the re- match. They trailed by 10 at Ohio State in a 70-60 win, by 19 in West Lafayette and even by 10 at home to Indiana in the season finale. Each time they found a way, usu- ally with their offense. Defense wins championships, the saying goes, but Michigan won on the other end while getting occasional timely stops. The Wolverines entered the Big Ten Tournament as the league's worst team in opponent field goal percent- age (44.2) and the best in team field goal percentage (48.0). "We've never had a team percent- age of 45 like we gave up this year," Beilein said. "We gave up 55 and 59 percent a couple games and won. The whole country, the percentages are probably up offensively. We have gotten better, but obviously not good enough to shut people down enough, so we'd better play well offensively or we're going to have a tough time winning." Regardless of how the team fared in either the Big Ten or NCAA tour- naments, the regular-season title would always be part of the 2013-14 squad's legacy. They cut down the nets in celebration after dispatching the Hoosiers on senior day. "The whole season we started off