John Niyo: Can No. 3 Michigan finish what Trey Burke started?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — This was Trey Burke’s night.

But at the end of it, after he’d watched Michigan beat one of its rivals Friday night at the Crisler Center, one of Michigan’s all-time greats figured he’d take one more shot.

Unfinished business, you could call it.

Moments after the Wolverines had put away Ohio State, Burke, the former national player of the year who led Michigan to the brink of a national title in 2013, joined the current team on the court for a celebratory group photo. And then Burke, who’d watched as his No. 3 jersey was raised to the rafters in an emotional halftime ceremony, took the microphone to address the sellout crowd again in Ann Arbor.

“I just told them ‘National championship or bust,’” Burke said, smiling, as the fans cheered. “And they’ve got the team to do it. But one game at a time, though. One game at a time.”

And on a night the No. 3-ranked Wolverines improved to 18-1 overall and 8-1 in Big Ten play, that certainly didn’t feel like a desperation heave. Not to the players on the court, anyway.

“I mean, that's definitely the motto for us,” said freshman guard Trey McKenney, who provided a big spark off the bench Friday as the Wolverines rallied from an early second-half deficit to beat the Buckeyes. “That's what we came in this summer thinking and working towards every day. So, I mean, I would definitely agree.”

They all would, if they’re being honest. But they’d all probably agree with their coach that this won’t do, either. The uneven play to start the game. The spate of unforced turnovers. The missed free throws. The defensive lulls.

“We just looked like we were out of sync,” coach Dusty May said. “We looked more like we did last year, at times.”

And that won’t be good enough if they want to win the Big Ten this year. Or make the kind of March Madness run that Burke and that young Michigan team made in 2013 under John Beilein.

He, too, was back in the building Friday night to honor the special talent who helped put Michigan basketball back on the map more than a decade ago. And though Beilein wasn’t about to call any shots himself, he does marvel at the roster May has assembled and what he’s seen from this group, which ranks fifth nationally in offensive efficiency and No. 1 defensively.

“This team is so elite,” Beilein said. “I'm just telling you: They’ve got a lot of go-to guys. And they can score in multiple ways.”

Not that you’d know it by the way they started Friday’s game, necessarily. Michigan had twice as many turnovers (six) as made field goals (three) in the first 6 minutes of this game, which took some of the life out of a crowd that was raring to go at the opening tip.

And to hear the players talk, maybe that was part of their problem: They were too eager out of the gate.

“Yeah, it was more than what I expected,” laughed Yaxel Lendeborg, who had three of those early turnovers Friday. “As soon as (Ohio State) came in, they were booing them. They were saying, ‘F--- Ohio.’ And it was like, ‘Man, this is crazy.’”

'We hate Michigan'

It didn’t help that Ohio State’s Colin White had thrown some gasoline on the Wolverines’ fire earlier in the week, saying, “We hate Michigan, so we’re coming out for blood. We’re going up there to win, and we’re going to have fun doing it.”

“Yeah, man, I feel like we were way too amped up before the game,” Lendeborg said. “You should have seen us in the locker room.”

Eventually, though, they settled down. And after missing 14 of their first 16 3-point attempts, they finally settled in midway through the second half. They started getting to the rim more, and ended up shooting 76% on 2s for the night. They dominated on the offensive glass, grabbing nearly half of their misses. They shut down Ohio State's leading scorer, holding Bruce Thornton to just 10 points on 11 shots, and used their depth to overwhelm the Buckeyes, outscoring them 23-4 off the bench.

And when Elliot Cadeau, another Michigan wearing that No. 3 jersey, ended his scoreless night by splashing a pair of 3-pointers to cap a 10-1 run with 6:31 left, the Wolverines had seized control of this one.

“They figured out a different way to win,” said May, whose team was so ridiculously good in nonconference play that four straight double-digit wins against Big Ten teams can somehow feel underwhelming.

Still, May viewed this victory as another positive step for his team, particularly the way Michigan clamped down defensively and handled a game that was played at Ohio State's pace. They'll have to do that more than once in this stretch run, he knows, and you can bet the Wolverines' coach will remind his players now really is not the time to talk about titles or banter about banners. Not with a huge game looming Tuesday at home against undefeated Nebraska (19-0) and then the first showdown with Michigan State to follow Friday in East Lansing, Mich. And then February. And March. And, well, you get the idea.

“Right now, it's on to the next thing,” May said. “I mean, we have a monster week coming up.”

So the bigger picture will just have to wait.

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