Michigan lost its eighth game of the season on Wednesday night in a 71-65 defeat at the hands of the Maryland Terrapins. The Wolverines squandered an early seven-point lead and after Maryland took the lead with 8:24 remaining in the first half, Michigan never held another lead.

Vlad Goldin recorded 20 points and 15 rebounds, while Danny Wolf had a solid night offensively with 20 points and eight boards.

However, Michigan was plagued, once again, by poor shooting, turnovers and subpar guard play. Tre Donaldson had 10 points — just his second double-figure showing in the last six contests — and Nimari Burnett finished with eight points, but no other Michigan guard scored more than two points.

Michigan turned the ball over 16 times — seven in the first half and nine in the second half. What hurt Michigan most was that the turnovers came at very inopportune times for the Wolverines.

Just when U-M was about to cut into the deficit or perhaps tie or take the lead, it would turn the ball over. Wolf was the biggest culprit, coughing it up four times in the second half.

Turnovers have been a season-long issue for Michigan, though, so it's not as if Wednesday night's performance was anything new from the Wolverines.

Something that was a new sight, though, was Michigan's respectable shooting performance. The Wolverines shot 27-of-62 (43.5 percent) from the field and 7-of-20 from beyond the arc in the loss.

Coming off a shooting skid in which the Wolverines shot worse than 25 percent from distance in four straight contests, Michigan actually found some success from long range in Wednesday's loss.

However, the performance still isn't what Wolf expects out of his team.

"It's just a confidence thing," Wolf said. "I have all the confidence in myself. I have all the confidence in my teammates and my coaches."

Despite the confidence, Wolf says that when a team is going through a slump like Michigan is, it's hard to break out of it.

"When the ball's not going in, and you have a few games back-to-back-to-back, that rim seems smaller and smaller, and you've just got to see a few go in. Confidence just comes from yourself and I have nothing but trust and confidence in my teammates."

Although Michigan has lost three of its last five and is playing as bad as it has this season at the most important time of the year, Wolf is confident his guys will be able to turn things around.

"Obviously, you could say it's the wrong time of the year [to be playing poorly]," Wolf said. "We were in the hunt for a Big Ten championship, and at this point, we need a few things to happen for that to happen. Eventually, we're due for a good shooting game, and I'm happy that it's going to come at some point in March. ... I know at some point the lid's going to fall off the rim for some of the guys. So, just excited for when that happens."

With Michigan's loss, it no longer controls its own destiny for the Big Ten title. Michigan State, without playing on Wednesday night, secured at least a share of the league crown with the outcome in Ann Arbor.

If the Spartans win in Iowa City on Thursday night, the league title will belong solely to them. However, if MSU loses, Michigan will still be playing for a share of the championship in East Lansing on Sunday afternoon.

Regardless of what happens in Iowa City on Thursday, though, Wolf says Michigan will treat the MSU game like it's the biggest game of the year.

"If Michigan State wins, we're still going to go into that game knowing that it has very big implications for seeding and whatnot. But I don't think we want to look too far in the future. I think we just want to go — no matter what happens [Thursday] night — just go to that Michigan State game knowing that, whether or not it has Big Ten regular season implications, it doesn't matter. We just have to go into it as if it's the biggest game of the year — because it is."

---

Discuss this article with our community on our premium message boards

Not a subscriber to Maize & Blue Review? Sign up today to gain access to all the latest Michigan intel M&BR has to offer

Follow our staff on Twitter: @JoshHenschke, @Berry_Seth14, @TrevorMcCue, @DennisFithian, @BrockHeilig, @JimScarcelli, @Jerry_Diorio

Subscribe to our podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify

Check out Maize & Blue Review's video content on YouTube

Follow Maize & Blue Review on social media: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and BlueSky