Coming into Thursday night's match up with Tarleton State, a team that will almost certainly finish as the worst ranked team,

according to Ken Palm that Michigan encounters during the regular season,

it was tough to really know what we could learn about Michigan beyond the one category that fans have talked about the entirety of this season.

That's the Michigan turnovers.

And it's not just in the vacuum of Michigan men's basketball commentary, but also what Tarleton

State does well under Billy Gillespie, the now fifth-year head coach of the Texans.

This team, in four full seasons, has been in the top 40 nationally and defensive turnover rate and in a small

sample size in a season where tarleton is not knocked off a division one foe yet they still came in

the top 100 in that category and if you followed along with the game you know they tried to muck

things up make things difficult, grind away possessions.

And Michigan certainly had some issues in that category. But for the Wolverines to only cough it up 11 times in this one, by far their lowest number

of the season, that was a positive step forward.

And again, the one category you knew you could take something from this game in.

Beyond that, it was really tough to note coming into the matchup,

and then you watched the 40 minutes, and it was still kind of confusing.

It was an odd game.

There were sequences and bursts of energy by Michigan

where it felt like they could turn this into a mega blowout

against a team that back on Sunday lost to Baylor 104 to 41.

Now, credit Tarleton State, they were not deterred, they played hard, they battled

some foul trouble, and they never made it a game where Michigan fans were nervous about the win-loss

outcome, but it certainly wasn't the blowout that anybody expected, whether it were fans or

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