ATLANTA >> This is nothing new to the Wolverines.

When they lost four of their last six regular-season games and entered the postseason on a three-game skid, plenty were counting them out and were ready to put a fork in them.

It’s been a similar story with each passing game since, from the Big Ten tournament to the NCAA Tournament, where No. 5 seed Michigan will be an underdog in today’s Sweet 16 matchup against top-seeded Auburn at State Farm Arena.

“I feel like that’s the whole season,” guard Rubin Jones said of being doubted. “We embrace it at this point. We don’t expect nobody to think we’re going to win. We don’t expect nobody to be on our side.

“I think that’s the beauty in it, and we can always pull out wins regardless of what everybody says. At the end of day, we’ve got to go on the court and make it happen.”

That’s what Michigan has done throughout the postseason. The Wolverines handled Purdue, edged Maryland in a thriller and topped Wisconsin in a rock fight in consecutive days during their run to the conference tournament title.

In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, No. 12 seed UC San Diego was viewed as the trendy upset pick in March Madness brackets, with the Tritons’ ability to force turnovers and the Wolverines’ struggles to take care of the ball. It didn’t happen. Michigan survived and advanced.

Then in the second round, No. 4 seed Texas A&M was favored and viewed as another team that was going to exploit another one of Michigan’s weaknesses. The Aggies were the best offensive rebounding team in the nation and the Wolverines were vulnerable on the defensive glass in several of their Big Ten losses. Michigan outrebounded Texas A&M and reached the second week of the Big Dance.

“We don’t have no pressure,” guard Roddy Gayle Jr. said. “We don’t feel like we’ve got to go out there and do something that we’re not supposed to. I feel like we’ve been doubted these past eight games or so, even before the Big Ten tournament. People didn’t expect us to do the things that we do.

“I think that’s why we’ve been successful, because I feel like we have that ability to prove everybody wrong. That’s the brand of basketball we’re playing, especially when our guards have been confident in what their abilities are.”

Michigan will need to keep that going against Auburn, the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament that’s approximately 100 miles down the road from Atlanta and likely will have a strong fan presence in the stands.

The Wolverines have some familiarity with the Tigers. Guard Tre Donaldson spent the first two seasons of his college career there before he transferring to Michigan and has passed along tips of players’ tendencies to his teammates. Director of basketball operations KT Harrell played under Auburn coach Bruce Pearl for a season and spent two years at his alma mater as a graduate assistant from 2020-22.

Big man Danny Wolf also faced Auburn last season in the NCAA Tournament, when his former Yale team upset the Tigers in the opening round. Several key pieces, including player of the year candidate Johni Broome, are still on Auburn’s roster.

“This is the fun part. Being a kid that entered the portal and getting to play your old team, old teammates, that’s something you look forward to,” said Donaldson, who noted he has nothing but love and no bitterness toward Auburn.

“I know how it operates, I know how everything runs. When you’re around people for so long, you catch on to what they do, for sure. I definitely have tried to help as much as I can with that aspect, just to give us our best chance to win.”

According to Wolf, Michigan is entering the matchup with a similar mentality that Yale did a year ago. And it’s one that the Wolverines have been carrying with them since the overhauled roster and new coaching staff came together in the summer.

Given the miserable campaign Michigan had last year, expectations weren’t high heading into the season. Nobody expected the Wolverines to be a serious contender in the Big Ten in Year 1 under coach Dusty May.

“We were in the race for a Big Ten title, then that slipped out of our fingers. From a public standpoint, our team kind of — everyone thought that we lost track,” Wolf said. “We knew what we were capable of. We never lost faith in each other or trust in each other.

“We were looked at as underdogs in the Big Ten tournament given what happened the previous games. Even in this tournament, everyone thought UCSD was going to win, and a lot of people thought Texas A&M was going to win. We just try to block out the outside noise and realize that people who have those opinions don’t have trust in us or have impact on us.”

May said his team naturally has an edge because of where everyone came from. The roster isn’t flush with players who took part in the McDonald’s All-American game. His staff isn’t filled with coaches who were listed as up-and-comers in the profession.

Along the way, May said his team might’ve lost that chip on its shoulder due to its position in the Big Ten standings, before a rough finish to the regular season helped the Wolverines regain it.

After being written off repeatedly in recent weeks, they’ll look to write their name into the next round of the NCAA Tournament.

“It definitely fuels us,” guard Nimari Burnett said. “We look forward to each and every opponent we play, the different challenges they bring, and how we can get the best of them and play our best basketball. And that’s what we’re doing — playing the best basketball we’ve been playing throughout the season.

“We plan to do that against Auburn and take down a team that, once again, was picked above us.”