Ann Arbor — Sunday was supposed to be a celebratory day for Michigan.

Illinois didn’t get the memo and spoiled Senior Day at Crisler Center in a rout.

The Fighting Illini dominated the offensive glass from start to finish and handed the No. 15 Wolverines a 93-73 loss that put them a game back in the Big Ten race with the finish line in sight.

Vlad Goldin had 22 points and seven rebounds for Michigan (22-7, 14-4 Big Ten) but didn’t get much help on either end.

On offense, the Wolverines struggled to make shots around the rim and from deep. On defense, they couldn't finish possessions and gave up 19 offensive boards. The combination led to a lopsided result.

“It's hard because we played at home, we played in front of our crowd, and showing that kind of basketball to our fans, it stinks,” Goldin said. “I feel terrible. We’ve got to do better.”

With Michigan State beating Wisconsin earlier in the day , Michigan needed to hold serve to remain in a tie for first place in the conference standings. That never came close to happening. The Wolverines trailed much of the way and by double digits over the final 10 minutes.

Michigan took the lead twice early in the second half — the last coming on a coast-to-coast layup by Goldin that made it 39-38 at the 16:59 mark — before the game began to slip away.

The Wolverines fell behind as Illinois — just like it did in the first half — continued to aggressively crash the offensive boards and corral many of its missed shots, primarily from 3-point range.

Kylan Boswell scored on a putback to end a possession where the Illini missed two 3-pointers but grabbed both rebounds to kick-start an 8-0 run. During one sequence, Illinois (19-11, 11-8) grabbed an offensive board that led to a second-chance 3-pointer and caught an airballed 3-pointer for a layup on back-to-back possessions.

“That's what they do best,” Goldin said of Illinois, the top offensive rebounding team in the Big Ten. “They send everybody on the glass, they fight. It's hard because it takes discipline. And if we were disciplined enough, we would take away that.

“Their guards did, unfortunately, a great job on taking the extra possessions, and that's what happens when you lose that kind of battle.”

Things continued to get worse for Michigan. Illinois, one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the nation, started to make long-range shots on the first try. Nobody outside of Goldin could get going offensively. The deficit ballooned.

The Illini knocked down five deep balls over a five-minute stretch to blow the game open. The last came when Kasparas Jakucionis buried a 3-pointer after Illinois grabbed an offensive rebound on a missed free throw to make it 75-55 with 6:20 go.

“They felt great about their shots, in my opinion, because the ball was coming from the paint. They knew if I miss it again, we're going to get it again and get it again.”

The Wolverines couldn’t mount any semblance of a comeback. Illinois led by as much as 21 points down the stretch and never let the lead dip below 16 points en route its ninth consecutive victory in the series against Michigan.

Tre White scored 19 and Boswell and Jakucionis added 17 apiece for Illinois. The Fighting Illini attempted 12 more shots, went 11-for-23 from deep during a 62-point second half and won the rebounding battle by a 43-32 margin.

The most glaring stat: 30 second-chance points on 19 offensive rebounds. Four different Illinois players grabbed multiple offensive boards. None of them were Morez Johnson Jr., the team's best rebounder who has been sidelined with a broken wrist.

“We were on our heels. Our communication wasn't great. We were broken down because we were late on our switches,” May said of the defensive rebounding issues. “They're big, strong, physical guys, and in a jump ball contest 15 feet to 18 feet, they won, it seemed like, all of them. Even the ones we did block out, they were able to get them back.

“The thing that I was most disappointed with is when they did get a rebound, we dropped our heads. We didn't dig in and fight harder.”

Michigan honored four players — Ian Burns, Jace Howard, Rubin Jones and Goldin — during a pregame ceremony. The program chose to not hold Senior Day at Wednesday’s home finale to better accommodate travel schedules for players’ families.

That included Goldin’s parents, who flew into town Friday from Russia to reunite with their son for the first time in five years, and former head coach Juwan Howard, an assistant on a Brooklyn Nets team that lost to the Pistons in Detroit on Saturday .

There wasn’t much to celebrate once the game tipped off. Illinois missed its first five attempts from beyond the arc but grabbed six offensive boards during a 2-for-12 start. Michigan missed six of its first eight shots. The Illini and Wolverines combined for 10 points during the opening five minutes.

Neither team gained much separation until Illinois ripped off an 8-0 burst in under a minute. During the spurt, Michigan gave up an easy dunk then had back-to-back turnovers that led to back-to-back 3-pointers and a 20-13 deficit with 10:25 left in the first half.

Michigan continued to sputter along, mainly with misses and blocked shots at the rim, and made just two baskets over a six-minute stretch. Illinois continued to come away with one offensive rebound after another on misfired 3-pointers but couldn’t extend the margin past seven.

The Wolverines entered halftime down, 31-30, before they were knocked down — but not out — in the conference race. Despite the setback, Michigan can still capture at least a share of the regular-season title if it wins its final two games, starting Wednesday against Maryland.

"We have two ways we can go right now," Goldin said. "One way is fall apart and be bad teammates. And another way is to get even closer together, fight for each other and play for the right thing. I’m sure this team is going to respond the right way."

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