For 20 minutes of action on Sunday at Ohio State, Michigan showed the type of fight we've seen at times this season, most notably last Sunday against one of the top teams in the country, Purdue.

Michigan never had much of a lead, but they were battling. They were scratching, clawing, under man, trying to pull off an upset.

Wolverines never led in that first 20 minutes of action here in Columbus,

but they were only down five at the break. The second half, it was in a lot of ways a carbon

copy of the entire 40 minutes that Michigan experienced on Thursday in Piscataway and that blowout

loss to Rutgers. The energy wasn't there, the effort wasn't there, the execution wasn't

there, and as a result, the results weren't there. Michigan was outscored 52 to 34. Ohio State had

runs of 10 and 14 straight points going from back and forth, even though it wasn't in margin,

but certainly in momentum first half,

into a runaway 23-point Ohio State win. There's no denying that Michigan from a roster standpoint is playing from behind. There is a reason why they will be the 14 seed

come Minneapolis in about a week and a half. But Michigan needs to put up 40 minutes of effort and energy like they did

for 20 minutes on Sunday in order to have a puncher's chance. And that didn't happen. It snowballed

pretty quickly on them in a pretty hostile environment and they could never catch up.

That's the margin of error for this team right now. Without Olivier Kamwa, no Jalen Wellen again for a second

consecutive game. Michigan just does not have the type of depth and the type of talent to try to be

able to go on the road and pick up a win when it's not all out for 40 minutes. That's the narrow

margin that Michigan possesses. And when you look at the overall

numbers, it certainly looks ugly in all of it, it seems like, came from that second half. 18

turnovers, which John Howard will belabor here in a little while. That was the thing that went to

the top of his mind in frustration. Those 18 turnovers for Michigan led to 27 Ohio State points. Talk about depth.

40 bench points for Ohio State. Michigan had just 10. And in that second half before some of

the walk-ons came on for Ohio State, the Buckeyes were 15 of 18 from the floor. Overall, 71% in the

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