Michigan smothers Oregon, bounces back after consecutive losses

The Michigan women’s basketball team (15-7 Overall, 6-5 Big Ten) got back in the win column in convincing fashion on Sunday, handing Oregon its biggest loss of the year, 80-48. But in the pair of games prior, the Wolverines dropped two contests that they felt were in their grasp.

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The Wolverines had two tough losses in the last two games, one to then-No. 20 Michigan State and one to Wisconsin. Similar to Michigan’s loss to then-No. 9 Ohio State, the Wolverines had a win against a ranked rival within their reach. But a series of second-half mistakes snowballed into an insurmountable deficit. On Jan. 25, Michigan held a four-point halftime lead. In the end, they lost by 30 points, a sobering wake-up call that reminded the Wolverines how quickly a game can slip away.

That loss was a learning opportunity, but the results weren’t immediately shown. Michigan faced the Badgers on their home court. Neck and neck for most of the matchup and tied heading into the fourth quarter, the Wolverines couldn’t come away with a much-needed bounce-back win. That wouldn’t come until Sunday.

“The last couple of games, we’ve kind of been exposed,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said Sunday. “We’ve really been trying to lock in. We got our attention. We’ve given up a lot of threes. We haven’t been able to contain people one-on-one. So it’s something that we focus on and something that we want to get better at. Holding (Oregon) to seven (points) in the fourth quarter was something that we talked about. We’ve had some pretty bad fourth quarters, whether that’s Michigan State or Wisconsin, or we can go down the line. So really trying to finish games in the fourth quarter, and when we do, we’ve been successful.”