If Michigan's NCAA tournament hopes were iffy at best at full strength this season, then the Wolverines are even more of a long shot now that they're without their best player.

Sunday's news that Caris LeVert suffered a season-ending foot injury the previous day makes it difficult to envision Michigan winning enough Big Ten games to make up for its poor non-league performance.

Finishing in the upper echelon of the Big Ten became imperative for the Wolverines after they underachieved in November and December, dropping six non-league games including a pair of stunners at the hands of NJIT and Eastern Michigan. Solid wins against Oregon and Syracuse helped somewhat, but Michigan is still 102nd in the KenPom rankings and 89th in RPI even after improving to 11-7 overall with a 4-2 start in Big Ten play.

Taking LeVert out of the Michigan roster is a huge blow to the Wolverines' chances of making up ground over the final two months of the season.

LeVert leads Michigan in nearly every major statistical category, from scoring (14.9 ppg), to rebounding (4.9 rpg), to assists (3.7 apg), to steals (1.8 spg). Before injuring himself in the final seconds of Michigan's victory over Northwestern on Saturday night, LeVert accounted for 14 of the Wolverines' 20 field goals, scoring seven himself and assisting on seven others.

"Caris has been working so hard this season and for this to happen is very unfortunate," Michigan coach John Beilein said in a statement. "If we know anything about Caris, he will do everything it takes to not only get better, but to help his teammates during this time. He is a tremendous young man who I will really miss coaching the remainder of the season."

The absence of LeVert will increase the responsibilities for starting point guard Derrick Walton and lightly recruited freshman wing Aubrey Dawkins, among others. Walton will surely be asked to create more frequently in late-clock situations, while Dawkins figures to play much more and and must shoulder a bigger portion of the scoring load at wing.

Nonetheless, while Walton is a capable distributor at point guard and Dawkins has shown glimpses of potential as a scorer, neither will be able to duplicate the all-around brilliance of LeVert.

The silver lining for Michigan is LeVert might be more likely to return to school for his senior season rather than turn pro coming off an injury. The downside to that is his absence for the remainder of this season probably dooms this year's Wolverines to the NIT or worse.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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