No. 20 Michigan had a road meeting with a Minnesota team that entered Thursday winless in the Big Ten Conference. The Wolverines had a sloppy start to the game mostly due to star forward Danny Wolf. The former Yale big man had three turnovers right away and coach Dusty May sat Wolf on the bench in favor of Will Tschetter who had a big first half. With Tschetter knocking down 11 first-half points, Michigan led 40-31 at the half.

But Michigan would see its lead start to dwindle and a long drought would allow Minnesota to get back into the game. Wolf would hit a 3 with 29 seconds to go up two, but the Gophers would tie the game to go into overtime. Minnesota’s Dawson Garcia would go on to hit a half-court 3 to give Minnesota its first conference win after an 84-81 win over Michigan.

Here are some takeaways.

This Michigan team is fun and can score at a high rate, but the Wolverines are now 17 games into the season and not much is changing on the turnover front. Michigan gave the ball away 13 times against Minnesota where the Gophers turned it over only six times. Star forward Danny Wolf turned it over six times alone and Michigan will continue to stumble with its turnover woes.

But it wasn’t just turnovers. Free show shooting was not Michigan’s friend against Minnesota. The Wolverines shot 70% from the line and missed several key attempts late into the game. If the Wolverines just make a couple more in crunch time, they probably sneak away with a win.

Center Vlad Goldin went 7-for-10 at the line, but he also missed two late free throw attempts that could’ve helped seal a win for Michigan.

It was another rough start for Danny Wolf. For the third game in a row, Wolf struggled to score in the first half and also found himself turning the ball over at an alarming rate. Wolf had four first-half turnovers and coach Dusty May benched him in favor of Will Tschetter in the first half.

Wolf also had two turnovers in the second half, but the Yale transfer turned it on for Michigan. He scored 20 total points between the second half and overtime after scoring just three in the first half. Wolf hit a couple of clutch shots and that’s what the Wolverines wanted to see from their key player.

Wolf ended up leading Michigan in scoring after a slow start. He also had 10 rebounds and seven assists. Shockingly, Michigan didn’t have many players hit alongside Wolf in this game. Vlad Goldin had 18 points but shot just 5-of-15 from the field.

It goes it show how difficult it can be in the Big Ten Conference. We knew adding UCLA and Oregon was going to make the B10 more challenging — USC and Washington have had their years as well. But even a winless Minnesota team (in Big Ten play) can put up a fight on any given night. Michigan was at the top of the conference entering the night and on paper, the Wolverines should’ve won by double digits, but that’s not how it worked on Thursday night.

The Gophers were physical against the Michigan bigs and, honestly, played harder with less talent. Michigan might’ve been looking past the Gophers — Dusty May would never say that — but when you’re on a roll and you play the worst team in the conference, that can happen.

This was probably a good wake-up call for Michigan, though. Any game in the Big Ten could be won or lost depending on the effort you give.

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