Slowly but surely, junior center Maceo Baston is making his way back from an Achilles tendon injury.
Baston injured the tendon in early November, and sat out both of Michigan's exhibition games and the regular-season opener against Ball State.
He saw his first action in last Saturday's victory at Cleveland State, scoring nine points and grabbing two boards in only 10 minutes of action.
Baston was a key for the Wolverines in Monday's 66-64 overtime win over Bradley.
He came off the bench and scored four points in 20 minutes of play. But it was his rebounding that was key, particularly in the overtime period.
With the score tied at 61, Baston grabbed a Michigan miss off the glass and was fouled by Bradley center Adebayo Akinkunle on the putback attempt.
The foul was Akinkunle's fifth, removing a major obstacle from the paint.
On the Wolverines' next trip down the floor, Baston again crashed the boards, hauling down another offensive rebound. In the tangled crowd under the basket, however, he tripped and was called for traveling.
Baston quickly got back down the floor and corralled another board, this time off a Braves' miss. Bradley forward Cameron Rigby fouled him, and Baston's free throw put Michigan up by a deuce.
Michigan coach Steve Fisher said Baston is gradually getting back into playing shape.
"His stamina, endurance and timing are not quite there," Fisher said. "I don't think we're doing anything to cause potential harm to the injury.
"It's just play him, and when he gets a little tired, take him out and play somebody else."
Foul foul shooting: One of the reasons the seventh-ranked Wolverines have had such close games against lesser opponents lately is poor performance at the charity stripe.
In Saturday's victory over Cleveland State, the Wolverines made 20 of 33 attempts from the free-throw line, a subpar 61 percent.
Maceo Baston, Louis Bullock and Brandun Hughes each missed a foul shot apiece in the final three minutes of the game.
Hughes' miss from the line would have given Michigan a four-point lead with under 40 seconds remaining.
Against Bradley on Monday night, the Wolverines improved slightly at the line, tossing in 18 of their 27 shots, just under 67 percent.
However, inaccuracy at the line made the game a little closer than it probably should have been.
Baston was unable to translate his rebounding success into similar results at the line, missing two of four free throws in overtime after picking up key boards.
Bullock, normally as close to automatic as a coach could wish for, missed the first of two shots with 12.4 seconds left in the extra stanza, and the Wolverines came out of his trip to the stripe with only a two-point lead.
Fisher took the blame upon himself for the Wolverines' lackluster performance.
"I'm the free-throw coach, so I'll take responsibility for that," he said. "When you've got your best free-throw shooter at the line in Louis Bullock, he's got to make every one he takes.
"We didn't shoot free throws well down the stretch at Cleveland State," Fisher said. "You win games by being able to get to the line - which we do. Our goal is to make more than the other guy takes."
On the rubber-bandwagon: During Michigan's first three games, observant fans may have noticed a little something on junior swingman Jerod Ward's right wrist. A rubber band, to be exact.
Ward said he was wearing it to give himself little reminders when things aren't going so well on the court.
"Sometimes if I don't feel like things are going the way I like, I give it a pop," Ward said. "Just to kind of wake up."
During Monday night's game, however, he had the band taken away from him by a referee.
"The ref took it from me," he said. "He said he wanted to look at it.
"He said he'd give it back, but he didn't."
High on Hughes: The Michigan coaches aren't the only people who think Hughes has a bright future ahead of him as a Wolverine.
Bradley coach Jim Molinari is also a big fan.
"The thing you have to understand about Brandun, he's won state championships (in high school) and he's a great player," Molinari said. "He'll get more and more confident, more and more assertive, and he'll be another real added weapon to Michigan.
"You can mark that down."