UPDATED: 12/5/10 9:05 P.M. Tommy Amaker’s team did everything it could to earn its coach a victory in his return to Ann Arbor. But in the second half of Saturday’s contest, Harvard (5-2) got cold right as Michigan (5-2) got hot, and the Crimson was narrowly defeated in its attempt to win the school’s first road game against a Big Ten opponent since 1949.

The contest turned on a 19-1 second-half run by the Wolverines–who Amaker coached for six years before arriving in Cambridge–that quickly erased a 12-point Harvard advantage. The Crimson was unable to make up the deficit late, falling, 65-62, in front of nearly 10,000 fans at Crisler Arena.

“I thought it was a game we let slip away from us,” sophomore wing Christian Webster said. “We had the game in our grasp the whole first half.”

After entering the second up seven at 32-25, Harvard got a three-point play from junior co-captain Keith Wright and a floater from sophomore Brandyn Curry to open up its biggest lead of the game at 12.

But the momentum quickly swung in Michigan’s favor. Junior guard Stu Douglass drilled a long three, and on the next Crimson possession, Webster got caught in mid-air and threw the ball away, leading to an easy fast break dunk by Wolverine Darius Morris.

A clearly flustered Harvard squad then began to run its offense through Wright, consistently feeding the center inside, but Wright began to try to force shots, to no avail.

The junior’s turnover on Harvard’s next possession led to a Douglass layup at the other end, and after Wright hit one of two free throws the next time down, Douglass hit a fade-away jumper over Crimson junior co-captain Oliver McNally’s outstretched arm to cut it to 38-34.

Harvard then went right back inside to Wright, who missed a close-range shot, and four straight points by Wolverine Blake McLimans tied the game.

“We let them get going from the three-point line,” McNally said. “They started hitting some shots, and we started getting stagnant on offense, just waiting for Keith to do things.”

Douglass subsequently drilled back-to-back long threes on Michigan’s next two possessions, and the Wolverines were up six with 12:53 remaining.

“I think that’s kind of where the game got out of hand,” Webster said. “[Douglass] started making shots. I think we lost him a couple times on defense, and once you let a shooter get going like that it’s hard to stop him.”

But freshman guard Laurent Rivard matched Douglass with a long three of his own—as he would multiple times on the afternoon—to slow Michigan’s momentum. A Wright jumper and Webster three put the Crimson back ahead by two with 9:55 left, but that would be Harvard’s last lead of the contest.

The teams went back and forth for the next few minutes, but after two Webster free throws cut Michigan’s advantage to one, the Crimson left Matt Vogrich wide open for a triple to put the Wolverines up, 54-50.

Curry then picked up his fourth foul, forcing Amaker to replace him with freshman Ernest Rouse, who had not appeared in the game up to that point and air-balled a corner three with 3:38 remaining. Amaker quickly went back to Curry, but Novak beat Rivard backdoor for a reverse layup on the next Wolverine possession to give Michigan a six-point advantage.

After a Wright hook-layup, Douglass got open after some Crimson defensive miscommunication and drilled another long three to put the Wolverines up seven.