updated: Michigan basketball team blows out Minnesota on Senior Day, 83-55

Michigan senior DeShawn Sims flips up a shot against Minnesota. It was Sims' last regular-season game at Crisler Arena and he finished with 23 points. (Photo: Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com)

He was dominant in his final regular-season game in Crisler, scoring 23 points over Gophers that often stand 6-foot-11, 6-foot-10 and 6-foot-7. He made jump shots on the left baseline.

He caught an alley-oop from junior guard Manny Harris. When he came out of the game with 2 minutes, 6 seconds remaining in the rout, he departed with a standing ovation - and with a win at home for the first time since January, three home losses ago.

“The game flowed so well and smooth for us, for the Wolverines today,” Sims said. “We did a great job of passing the ball to each other and hitting open shots and just getting everybody involved and it went so smooth.”

That might be an understatement.

Michigan (14-15 overall, 7-10 Big Ten) had its best shooting night since last year’s senior night, when the Wolverines shot 63 percent against Purdue. 

(Click here for the official box score from Tuesday).

This time wasn’t quite as good - Michigan was 60.4 percent from the field. The result was the same as last year’s game against the Boilermakers, although the stakes were much smaller for this year’s team than the game with NCAA tournament implications a year ago.

The Wolverines close out the regular season on the road Sunday against Michigan State (4 p.m., CBS), and await their seed in the Big Ten Tournament, which begins March 11.

After a brief hiccup to start the game, the Wolverines were dominant. Besides Sims’ performance, Harris had his most efficient outing perhaps of the season, scoring 22 points on 12 shots, making both of his three-point attempts and all four of his free throws.

Michigan had eight players score for the first time since a loss at Northwestern in February, and shot 42.1 percent from the three-point line.

The most jarring stat, though, might be the passing. Michigan had 21 assists and just four turnovers, a high assist-to-turnover ratio even by third-year coach John Beilein’s usually lofty standards.

“That’s unbelievable,” Beilein said. “Have you ever seen that one? I haven’t seen that one before, the 20’s with less than five, especially against a team that forces 13 a game.”

Usually this season, when Beilein has rhetorically asked if anyone has seen anything like it before, it has been due to Michigan’s poor shooting or making the same mistakes in February that Michigan made in December.

But for one night, senior night, all of that disappeared, along with Minnesota’s fading NCAA tournament hopes.

“We had a lot to play for, obviously,” Minnesota coach Tubby Smith said. “We didn’t come ready to play.”

Michigan did, even though it had little more to play for than pride and to try to make a last-ditch effort at a .500 record for the season.

It may not have started that way. The Wolverines opened the game 1 of 7 from the field and 1 of 5 from the three-point line, but they made 7 of their last 14 from the three-point line.

It allowed for a home finish Michigan wanted, even if its season hadn’t gone quite as the Wolverines’ planned.

“It was good to come in here and have a great game and our team have a great game and just play well,” senior forward Zack Gibson said. “It’s just great to have my last home game be like that. I enjoyed it.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.