SMU hands struggling Michigan fourth consecutive loss

Michigan basketball has many problems.

Saturday's attempt at solving them all came beyond the three-point line, where there was no magic remedy.

The Wolverines' latest loss – No. 4 in a row – came to SMU, which dispatched U-M, 62-51 this afternoon at Crisler Center.

Shooting a season-low 31.5% from the field and just 22% from three point range (8 of 36), trying to stay with anyone was a challenge.

Zak Irvin led the Wolverines with 17 points, but only had five in the second half.

From Irvin's three-pointer with 9½ minutes to play until Mark Donnal's three with 45 seconds remaining, the Wolverines (6-5) hit one shot from the field.

That allowed the Mustangs (8-3) to race past them. Michigan was left for dead just five minutes into the second half.

SMU had pushed its lead to 10 points, 39-39, the Wolverines were 4-of-21 from three-point range and had just missed a layup.

Essentially, they looked like the same team that couldn't score in the previous three weeks.

Suddenly, though, they found life.

Using a 9-0 run over less than two minutes, keyed by two big basket from center Mark Donnal, the Wolverines got within a point.

With a three-pointer from Derrick Walton Jr., they actually took the lead at 41-40, for the first time since leading 2-0.

It got up to 48-45 before SMU woke up and tore off a 15-0 run to regain control and put the game away.

With Caris LeVert hampered by a brace on this right hand and scoring only four points with one field goal, U-M needed offense from somewhere and the only unexpected place was Donnal, who had a career high 13 points coming off the bench.

The first half looked a lot like Michigan's recent games with the nonexistent offense.

Though Zak Irvin heated up after a slow start, scoring 12 points of 5-of-10 shooting, the rest of the team shot just 25% from the field and no one else made more than one shot.

With SMU's big men getting in the paint and on the glass, the Wolverines needed outside shooting to stay in the game and at 4-of-16, that wasn't happening.

Mark Snyder writes for the Detroit Free Press, a Gannett company.