The 1-3-1 trap defense that John Beilein built a career on had been reserved primarily for 10-minute stretches of practice time this season.

With a young lineup still learning the system - one that has been playing solid man-to-man defense, also - Beilein said his Wolverines “played it so little, I haven’t given it time to struggle.”

That changed in a 67-60 overtime loss to No. 3-ranked Kansas, when the Michigan basketball team played zone more than in its first 15 games combined.

“Actually, we had success with it when we played (at Kansas last season), so we wanted to throw it at them and keep them off balance,” sophomore guard Darius Morris said. “The couple times we did in the first half, they seemed to slow down. So we stuck with it in the second half, and we were getting stops.”

The Jayhawks came to Crisler Arena with a nation-best .537 shooting percentage and with the sixth-best scoring average at 85.6 points.

On Sunday, Kansas had season-low totals in points (67), points in a half (25), field goals (20), 3-point field goals (4), field goal percentage (35.7 percent) and 3-point field goal percentage (16.7 percent).

“We’ve been working on it, we just haven’t been using it,” Beilein said. “Sometimes you just sort of get a mix of guys out there that really work together in it and just give them enough trouble to change the tempo of the game.”

Despite Michigan not playing much 1-3-1 this season, Kansas coach Bill Self said his team practiced for it after it gave his team some trouble in a 75-64 win over the Wolverines last season.

“We meant to do some different things and then we kind of reverted back and didn’t attack,” Self said. “Of course, it doesn’t help when you don’t make shots, but certainly that’s about as bad as you can play against the zone, I think.”

The zone was particularly effective late in the second half, when Michigan outscored Kansas 13-4 over the final five minutes to force overtime.

“I can’t tell you why sometimes it’s successful and sometimes it’s not. But it takes people out of rhythm,” Beilein said. “We did want to change defenses on them over and over again just because of their sheer talent. You’ve got to keep giving them different looks.”

While Michigan’s defense - both man-to-man and zone - limited Kansas to its worst offensive performance of the season, the Jayhawks provided their own challenges. Michigan had scored just 10 points with three minutes left in the first half, shot .333 from the floor and made just four of 28 shots from 3-point range.

“They guarded the heck out of us in the first half, and we did not get many good looks,” Beilein said. “They’re so long and athletic and that challenges us right now.”

What resulted was an offensively ineffective game that compensated with some down-the-stretch excitement.

“Neither team made shots tonight. That was a miserable display of shooting, but probably a pretty good display of both teams guarding,” Self said.

Rich Rezler covers sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at richardrezler@annarbor.com