It's easy to get caught up in the length of a season like this, even when things are going well,

and it's certainly going great for a Michigan team that extended its program record start to now 23 and 1.

But so many things are interconnected, so many lessons, areas of growth, areas of needed improvement.

You all come back to those throughout the course of a season.

Well, one showed itself on Wednesday night for the Wolverines at Northwestern in a spot that Michigan had not been in before. Michigan had its largest halftime deficit of 9.44. They faced several of their largest deficits overall as great as 16 in the second half. But something that Michigan could lean back on, a lesson that Dusty May himself had to take in from the Penn State game the

first time when Michigan barely won in state college. That game, LJ. Ksen had a career high

tying 14 points. All of those points came in the first half.

And Dusty alluded to it after the fact. He probably would have liked to have had LJ in there a little bit more.

Trusting the guy who helped get Michigan a big lead in the first half that they could not quite hold on to, at least as much as they would have liked, winning by two.

On Wednesday, in Evanston, Michigan was down, but LJ. Kaysen was playing well, and in this case,

the Wolverines stuck with him.

Elliot Kadoe was Michigan's offense early on on Wednesday night against the Wildcats,

but Kaysen was the guy, 15-15 to play. Kadoe exited. Kaysen came in,

and he was brilliant in those 15-plus minutes. Kaysen came up with 13 points, three of four shooting,

three assists to one turnover, and a perfect six of six from the free throw line. Several key players, several important stretches propelled the Wolverines to find a way to overcome that 16-point deficit.

But LJ. Kason was at the forefront.

And if not for that experience at Penn State, maybe it would have gone a little bit differently.

Neither the Penn State nor the Northwestern Road wins will be the first

thing talked about at the postseason banquet, or maybe a parade, if Michigan accomplishes all

of the big prizes that they want to. But that lesson helped the Wolverines maintain a critical

two-game lead on four teams in the loss column in the Big Ten championship hunts, and who knows

how it could have been different had the Wolverines not experienced the first when they

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