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Saturday’s Western Michigan/Michigan game in Ann Arbor was not expected to be as close as it was.

The Wolverines came in with a 10-0 record and were 25-point favorites over the 5-4 Broncos.

WMU took the Maize and Blue to the wire, however, before coming up just short, 70-62, in their bid for an upset.

A big reason Western Michigan hung around for the entirety of the game was due to its offense — it made 45.7 percent of its shots, which was the second highest mark any team had shot on the Wolverines all year (South Carolina’s 51.6 percent last week was the highest).

Bronco head man Steve Hawkins explained afterward what led to his team’s downfall.

“Michigan is a heck of a basketball team,” he exclaimed. “It came down to turnovers, and staying away from live ball turnovers was our No. 1 key coming in.

“They got 20 points off of our 16 turnovers, and only had eight themselves. Turnovers keyed the [10-0] run they went on to end the first half. They’re a great defensive team, and were just a little too much for us.”

A huge component of Michigan’s defensive success this season has been the play of 7-1 junior center Jon Teske.

Foul trouble limited the veteran’s playing time in the first half, but he rebounded nicely to finish with six boards and a crucial block of WMU 7-footer Seth Dugan in the second half.

“Seth helped down low and is our version of Teske,” Hawkins noted. “I love that Teske kid — I didn’t like him today, but I love watching him.

“He’s so good in ball screen defense and is so tall. He doesn’t foul and [Michigan head coach John] Beilein does a great job of teaching his kids not to foul, which makes you earn every point you get against them.

“We got a little too handsy and put them on the foul line a lot.”

The Wolverines were not always able to capitalize from the charity stripe, however, only making 15 of their 25 attempts (60 percent).

Redshirt junior guard Charles Matthews shot over half of the team’s foul shots — 16 — and connected on 11 of them.

He was the spark plug for U-M all afternoon long, however, keying the 10-0 run right before halftime before converting a crucial three down the stretch.

Needless to say, Hawkins was impressed with the veteran guard.

“He was their key guy, and the ball seemed to find him,” the WMU head man said. “We had some good defensive possessions, but the ball just kept finding him, especially when he hit that huge three toward the end.

“Our matchup for him was Josh Davis, who was in foul trouble all game long.

“On top of that, [junior guard Zavier] Simpson decided to start hitting threes when we were playing off him. He hit that first one and we were like ‘it’s ok.’

“Then he made the second and we were told our guys to ‘just hang in there.’ Once he made the third, our guy guarding him said he probably should start getting on him tighter.

“Michigan hit big shots when they needed to. Their free throw problem got worked out and they started making them late, but that’s kind of what kept us in it early.”

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