You’ve probably seen the words “moral victory” thrown around in response to the 68-53 loss the Michigan Wolverines suffered to the 25th-ranked Illini basketball squad. Despite the game ending with looking like a blowout, the Wolverines stuck around for 90% of the game. The defensive effort throughout kept Michigan in it, but the Illini proved to be just a bit too much. Without Hunter Dickinson or Brandon Johns Jr, the Wolverines were at a loss from the onset in how to address the elephant in the room that was guarding Kofi Cockburn. Despite some scrappy defense, many doubles against Cockburn, and a valiant effort, the Wolverines eventually saw the Illini grow in the last 5 minutes of the game, resulting in the 15 point loss, dropping to 7-7 on the year.

Devante Jones had one of his better games in a Wolverines uniform, adding 17 points as the only player for Michigan to reach double digits. Jones added a few steals and was the primary driver of any offensive threat throughout the contest. However, the outside shooting continues to be an issue for the Wolverines, only going 1-10 from deep. All in all, despite some encouraging performances, the game truly felt like two teams on two different playing fields. The Wolverines are a middle-of-the-road (at best) Big Ten team this year, and will have to continue to try to play spoiler and eek their way into the tournament. Unfortunately, even that seems to be a stretch, at this point.

Check out the highlights & analysis from this video and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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