March 11--There's unlikely. There's impossible. And somewhere in between, there was this 72-69 stunner that might send Michigan to the NCAA tournament and definitely sends Indiana back down Route 37 to Bloomington.
Start with the fact the Hoosiers, top-seeded and rested, played before a mess of home fans at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Or that Michigan had to give a max effort Thursday to take down Northwestern in overtime.
Add the part about Duncan Robinson being left all alone for a tying corner 3-pointer with 46 seconds to play.
"I guess they fell asleep," Michigan's Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman said.
Indiana's Troy Williams could not disagree.
"It's not how we defend," Williams said. "It's not how we practice. We don't practice coming off shooters in the corner."
Robinson was 0-for-5 from 3-point range and the Wolverines were 0-for-10 in the second half, but Robinson drained this one.
Then Michigan forced a turnover, and point guard Derrick Walton, who finished with a Big Ten tournament-record 12 assists, whipped a pass to the corner. He thought he was firing to Aubrey Dawkins, the son of Duke great Johnny Dawkins who has nailed 45.3 percent (43 of 95) of his 3-pointers this season.
Nope. No. 24 (Dawkins) was actually No. 3, Kameron Chatman, who was 10th on the team in scoring (2.8 points per game) and had hit just 7 of 27 from 3-point range.
The 6-foot-8 Chatman received the ball in the corner with three seconds to go, hesitated, did something awkward with his feet and launched a left-handed jumper over a leaping Nick Zeisloft.
And he did it right in front of the Michigan bench, which mobbed him.
"He didn't make a reaction," Wolverines guard Andrew Dakich said. "He had no idea what the hell just happened. He's probably the funniest kid on the team too. To be so in the moment, it was funny in itself."
Said Chatman: "I couldn't breathe a little bit."
By the way, the player who forced the turnover to set up the winning shot? Also Chatman, who stripped Indiana's OG Anunoby. But his corner 3 will likely get more air time over the next 50 years.
"He has spent a lot of time sitting down on the bench with us," Michigan coach John Beilein said. "But he's 'yes, sir; no sir,' and working hard every day to grow his game. For him to be rewarded with that big shot, something he will be remembered for, it's worth it knowing how he has handled the adversity of not playing."
Chatman was in the game only because Abdur-Rahkman fouled out and because Beilein views him as "one of our better flow players on offense -- we can run (plays) through him."
From a bit player to a hero with one timely flick of the wrist. How March is that?
tgreenstein@tribpub.com
