I've referenced Dusty May's conversation with this year's Michigan men's basketball team

about last year's teams win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament championship game,

showing them the box score and not a single individual line when you looked at it in a vacuum

looked like it was that big of a deal, a huge impact on a game.

Yep, that game is remembered so fondly by all those in the 24-25

season because it clinched Michigan a championship, a Big Ten tournament title in Indianapolis.

Well, Michigan knocked off UCLA 86-56 on Saturday afternoon, and there won't be a whole lot of

remembering about exact box scores

from anybody. But what will be etched in the mind, most certainly of a die Mara and probably

of many, many others, was the way that a die not only had his alleyup over his shoulder looking

away from the basket jam that was the exclamation point of a 30-point

win of a 28-point advantage in the second half, 46 to 18. But the way that a die went down to the

other end of the floor, skipping, smiling, he may as well have been floating because he knew he got a

win that mattered a lot to him.

He said all the right things in the pregame.

He said it was just like any other game.

But there's only so much you can do to shoo away the emotions.

There's also some joy in it, a dimension seeing old friends, old assistant coaches that

he enjoyed, old support staff members from that UCLA program

that he was able to say hello to and then compete against.

But that will be the memory, not a dies 9.8 rebound, 3 assists, 3 block, 23-minute performance.

Those all valuable, all important in a game that was a lot closer for the

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