It cannot be captured in a snapshot or confirmed by statistics. It is as fleeting as the fragrance of a fine perfume, yet, just like that scent, when it is there you know it.
It is there now at Michigan.
No longer are the Wolverines tentative and given to fits of chaotic play as they were in December. They operate now with a steady sense of purpose and that swaggering confidence all good teams possess.
They proved that Wednesday night in their upset of visiting No. 11 Michigan State and they proved it again Saturday at Crisler Arena with an 85-76 victory over No. 23 Wisconsin (15-5, 5-2 Big Ten).
“Our confidence has been building and we all know that’s a critical part of having a successful player or team,” coach Tommy Amaker said of his Wolverines (15-3, 5-2)..
“Our kids are feeling more and more confident and when you have the success we’re starting to enjoy right now, they should feel confident. Can we sustain that and continue to get better? We’ll see.”
Senior point guard Daniel Horton said he feels it as well.
“It has been slowly building,” Horton said. “It has been a gradual thing and when we’re confident, we’re pretty tough to handle. Guys like Courtney [Sims] and Dion [Harris], when their confidence is high . . . they’re pretty tough to handle.”
The Badgers certainly had no one who could handle either Sims or Harris, who were the catalysts Saturday. Sims, who has gone AWOL against other top teams, helped shut down Wisconsin big man Brian Butch (three points), went 8 of 10 from the field and finished with 18 points in just 15 foul-plagued minutes.
Harris, who had been struggling with his shot, rediscovered it to go 8 of 12, including 5 of 9 on his threes, on his way to 23 points.
But it was not just numbers that delivered the Wolverines’ victory that pushed them into a four-way tie for first place in the Big Ten and gave them back-to-back victories over ranked teams for the first time since 1994. It also was their manner, which declared they are here to stay in the conference race.
Horton is one Wolverine who manifested their new manner. He shot poorly from the field, missing all four of his three-point attempts while going just 2 of 10 overall. But he never forced shots as he choreographed his team steadily and went 8 of 8 from the line in the last 44.2 seconds.
Graham Brown, their 6-foot-9-inch senior forward, was another. He is the Wolverines’ heavy lifter and he neutralized 6-10 Badger Jason Chappell (four points), scored seven points, dove for every loose ball and grabbed six offensive rebounds on his way to a game-high 12.
The Wolverines also got 20 points from their bench, 14 more than the Badgers, and in the last two minutes, when Wisconsin was fouling in hopes of stealing the game, they were poised in going 13 of 14 from the line.
A week earlier, after his team’s dominating victory at Minnesota, Amaker had talked about the swagger he saw in Harris and Horton.
On Saturday, he said, “A lot of things about basketball can become contagious. It’s easy for it to spiral that way and sometimes you need a spark so you can ignite some things. Certainly our backcourt, Daniel and Dion, have given our guys a sense of confidence that we’ve needed.”
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