Friday was a reminder of just how fragile March can be. Michigan handled Ohio State in two

regular season meetings, really from the early stages of the second half in the first matchup in

Ann Arbor, all the way through the entirety of the second game in Columbus, the Wolverines

dominated the Buckeyes. It always felt like Michigan had not just the talent advantage, but also

the matchup advantage.

What Michigan does and how Michigan does it seems to fit well and be really difficult to counter for Ohio State.

Then Michigan, on Friday, surged out in front, pushing the lead as great as 11 with still plenty of time to go in the first half.

They never got any further than that.

In fact, the Buckeyes kept creeping closer and closer.

They even seized the lead, albeit briefly, a couple of times.

It felt anything but easy, anything like the regular season down the stretch,

but Michigan did indeed nudge back in front and held off Ohio State for a four-point win.

In these types of environments, with a championship on the line and or your season on the line, which will start next week,

nothing truly feels secure until the final buzzer sounds, at least rarely.

There is value in that experience in this event with a championship on the line, but not the do-or-die feeling of the NCAA tournament.

The other reminder from Friday's win, more of a Michigan-specific one, that this team can find a way in so many ways.

Yaxel Lendeborg down the stretch of the regular season was such a force emphatically securing the

Big Ten's Player of the Year award with some incredible individual performances. Lendaborg posted

the third lowest point per game total among Big Ten players of the year all time. Yet there really

wasn't any drama because he was that good. But on Friday, it wasn't Yax's best performance.

There wasn't that level of engagement, of impact, of pure talent, especially offensively,

that we saw so many times during the course of the regular season.

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