Michigan junior guard Manny Harris (3) walks off the court after Ohio State beat Michigan, 69-68. (Photo: Associated Press)

Mad about the way Evan Turner’s buzzer-beating shot from 37 feet away stunned the Michigan basketball team. Mad about the way the Wolverines’ season stagnated in general.

“This has been a slap in our face,” he said.

Harsh words, but they summed up the whole mess pretty well.

After a foray into March Madness last year, the Wolverines were smacked back to mediocrity in 2010. Clutch shots. Defensive intensity. Offensive chemistry.

At various times this year, a team ranked No. 15 to start the season lacked all the traits that led to last season’s success.

When the year finally ended Friday with a 15-17 overall record, the Wolverines still didn’t know what went wrong.

“I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out,” sophomore guard Stu Douglass said. “Sometimes, maybe our heads weren’t into it all the way. The little things added up here and there. But I don’t think I’ll ever know.”

None of it mattered Friday.

The Wolverines shed the baggage of a season gone awry. Somehow, they patched all their holes and saved their best game of the season for the top-seeded Buckeyes.

They brought intensity from the start. They leaned on DeShawn Sims early. He scored the team’s first eight points.

They didn’t fold when they fell behind by 13 points, rallying for their second-biggest comeback effort of the season.

In previous games, their shooters might as well have hidden in the witness protection program when they needed clutch shots. On Friday, they provided them in bountiful supply.

Douglass, who has struggled from the field all season, hit three 3-pointers in a 1-minute, 31-second span early in the second half. When the Wolverines wavered, Harris willed them into contention.

He scored 20 of his 26 points in the final 10 minutes of the game. None of his baskets was more spectacular than the off-balance pull-up jumper he hit with 2.2 seconds remaining with three Ohio State defenders in his face, including 6-foot-8 center Dallas Lauderdale.

The basket complete Michigan’s improbable comeback and gave the team a 68-66 lead.

“He shot over a 7-foot-5 wingspan of Dallas,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. “That was a heck of a shot on his part.”

A team that lacked cohesion and heart all year put it on display everywhere Friday. For once, it all clicked.

Where had it been all this time?

“I wouldn’t want to point any fingers at anybody, but collectively as a team, you see Stu hit five 3s,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “… and there’s a lot of times that we have one or two guys have a good game, and a third guy didn’t just have an average game, but had just a very poor game.”

But the failure to even come close to a repeat NCAA Tournament trip can’t be pinned one shooter or one heart-wrenching loss or one Evan Turner miracle.

It was always about the fact the Wolverines never had much chemistry and never established an identity. Not until Friday, when it was too late.

Harris was a true believer. Through all the struggles, he believed the Wolverines would find a rhythm and a path back to the tournament.

“I always thought that there was just something minor wrong, and then we’d be right back on track,” he said of the season-long struggles.

The good news, Beilein said, was that it was nice Firday to see the team finally put together 40 complete and cohesive minutes, to finally find the missing pieces of the puzzle.

“We do have some of those bullets in our gun,” he said.

Too bad he didn’t discover that until the gunfight had already ended.