The nausea set in a week ago, debilitating him during practice in Salt Lake City and rendering Zack Novak useless the rest of Michigan’s trip to Utah.

He couldn’t keep food down. He had to stay in bed. Going to the Huntsman Center to play or even watch the Michigan basketball team play against the Utes was not an option.

“This guy was so sick,” freshman guard Josh Bartelstein chimed in while Novak was talking to the media Saturday. “You have no idea.”

So the sophomore guard was left behind, bedridden in the Marriott as the rest of the Wolverines looked like they were playing sick against the Utes in a 68-52 loss. And in a night where nothing was going well for Michigan on the court, its biggest fan had problems even listening to the game.

Forget about watching it, with last Wednesday’s game banished to the television abyss that is CBS College Sports, he just wanted a consistent feed to tell him what was going on.

“I tried to listen to it on my phone,” Novak said. “They didn’t have it on TV. They had an iPhone application, Utah basketball had one, so I’m listening to it on there. People are calling me in the middle so it keeps on cutting out every time someone calls me. And it’s the Utah announcer, so I can’t understand what we’re doing, but I had a great picture of what Utah did during the game.

“What we did, I don’t know.”

Novak couldn’t cheer too hard. He wasn’t jumping up-and-down on the bed like Lou Brown at the end of "Major League II." Any unnecessary movement was not happening.

“There was no jumping,” Novak said. “I was dead.”

By Sunday, he said he was better, healthy but weak. And he already guaranteed one thing for Saturday (noon, ESPN) against No. 1 Kansas.

“I have a week before the Kansas game now,” Novak said Sunday. “So I’ll be full go.”

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.