By james art 
LAS VEGAS — No one really expected the Michigan women’s basketball team to face No. 1 South Carolina. Fresh off an undefeated 38-0 season in which their average margin of victory was over 28 points despite some roster turnover, the top-ranked Gamecocks were expected to take the field against an unranked team that was starting three freshmen.
But the Wolverines stayed in South Carolina all night. After three minutes they led 7-0. They still led 21-18 after the first quarter. Michigan led by one point at halftime.
And with 22 seconds left, despite trailing by eight points at just the 36, the Wolverines got back within two.
While Michigan didn’t end up pulling off the improbable, it did put the basketball world on notice with the 68-62 loss. That six-point margin matches the Gamecocks’ smallest margin of victory in the regular season since last season.
“I’m sure all of you in this room didn’t think it was going to go down to the wire like this,” senior guard Jordan Hobbs said after the game. “And we knew coming in that pretty much the whole country wasn’t betting on us, but it kind of gave us the freedom to play and took all the pressure off us.”
As 21-point underdogs, the Wolverines entered the game playing fast and loose, pushing the ball in transition and attacking the paint early to catch the defending champions off guard. Michigan’s small and fast style of play was effective from the start, helping it to that early lead.
“I thought they just put us back on our heels,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “I thought they had all the 50-50 balls. I thought they were just playing harder, like they just attacked us. They imposed their will on us and were in attack mode for most of the night.
Every time South Carolina got close in the first half, Michigan seemed to have an answer. Freshman guard Cilla Swords relentlessly penetrated the paint, finishing slick layup after slick layup and consistently getting to the free throw line, racking up 16 first-half points.
The Wolverines just never gave up, fighting back throughout the contest. They executed their game plan and played their brand of basketball, running in transition and taking advantage of their speed and athleticism.
“Part of the reason people decide to come to the University of Michigan is the chance to compete against the best,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said Oct. 27. “So when South Carolina came into our schedule, I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ as a coach, but our players are like, ‘Let’s go, Coach, give it,’ like, ‘We want a chance to test ourselves.’ We want a measuring stick. We want to see where we are, what we need to get better at.”
Against that measure, the Wolverines were dead even with the best team in the country for most of 40 minutes. While it didn’t play a perfect game — turning the ball over 15 times and missing a third of its free throws — Michigan did well enough to hang with power, showing promising signs for both the program and the season.
“(Barnes Arico) made his team play like it’s practically a new team and they look like they’ve been together a long time,” Staley said.
Starting with three freshmen, the Wolverines are an incredibly young team. Hobbs is the only returning player to average more than 10 minutes per game. There’s an inherent unknown to every season that’s compounded by Michigan’s new roster. But staying with the defending champs shows that as the Wolverines’ roster continues to grow, they can become a contender.
Playing under bright lights, in front of WNBA stars, a ninety percent maroon and black crowd and a national television audience, the Wolverines’ young players kept their composure. With Swords leading the way with a 27-point, 12-rebound double-double, Michigan’s age didn’t slow him down — rather, it spurred the Wolverines on.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows at times because of a lack of experience, but their commitment to be great and their commitment to put in the time and put in the work is there,” Barnes Arico said after the game. “So I think it was a good test for us early on. We’re never happy with a loss, but I think it gave our team an opportunity to see that we can compete at the highest level.”
As Barnes Arico admitted, simplistically, this game is just a score in the loss column. But with so much uncertainty surrounding the Wolverines entering the season, their performance against the Gamecocks is tangible proof that they can compete with top teams.