It’s championship week for Michigan basketball.
The No. 3 Wolverines (25-2, 15-1 Big Ten) have four games remaining in the regular season and it’s Minnesota (13-14, 6-10) on deck Tuesday, Feb. 24 (8:30 p.m., Big Ten Network) at Crisler Center. With a win, U-M will clinch at least a share of the Big Ten championship. With two wins in the final four games, coach Dusty May’s team will be outright Big Ten champions for the first time since the 2020-21 season.
“I don’t like talking about this stuff, because you have ball to play,” May said. “It’s not done. So we’re so consumed now and playing well against Minnesota, they’re gonna play desperate.”
The Gophers have no shot of reaching the NCAA Tournament, outside of going on an unparalleled run in the Big Ten Tournament. Still, they’re playing better these days, having won three of their past five games. Even their losses have been tight: three of the past four have come by five points or fewer.
Minnesota doesn’t have a ton of strengths, but they’re decent offensively, ranked No. 6 in Big Ten play on 2-point shots (56.4%), No. 7 in effective field goal percentage (53.8%) and No. 9 on 3-pointers (34.1%). May feels like the Gophers’ style is one that could potentially create some problems, particularly their Big Ten-best 70.9% assist rate on field goals.
“I don’t think it’s any secret teams that really shoot the ball well from deep can present problems for us at times,” May said. “They can spread us out. They can shoot it. They run great offense. Their cutting is probably as effective as any team in our league. They cut with great space, purpose.
“They set you up for the next thing, so just a well-coached team and it’s going to be a challenge.”
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The issue for Minnesota, however, is it’s running out of options. Former Detroit King guard Chansey Willis, a transfer from Western Michigan, was lost for the year with a broken foot in early December. Last week, forward Jaylen Crocker-Johnson, who averaged 13.6 points per game and had put up 20 points or more in four of the past eight games, was also lost indefinitely with a foot injury.
That has left first year coach Nico Medved shorthanded. In Minnesota’s 80-61 win over Rutgers, it was essentially a five-man rotation. Five players were on the court for 36 minutes or more with a sixth playing 13 minutes and two others just one minute each.
Despite a depleted rotation, May saw the same scheme that he feels has made the Gophers tough to contend with on their best nights that have given teams, like Michigan State, Indiana and Iowa trouble.
“It’s the speed. It’s the cutting. It’s the skill level. It’s the connectivity,” May said. “They’re all working in unison to create a good shot for the team. The speed, the spacing. It’s an offense that is was built to combat ball denial. … It’s something we don’t see much. You see pieces of it, but you don’t see it a lot, and so anytime you don’t have the reps going against it, it can present challenges.”
Minnesota still has Cade Tyson, its leading scorer at 19.5 points per game, while guards Langston Reynolds and Isaac Asuma are the other two healthy players scoring in double figures. Minnesota struggles with offensive rebounding (24.3%), gets blocked more than any other team (14.4%) and on defense is in the bottom third in 2-point defense.
This bodes well for U-M which is No. 1 in defensive block rate and No. 1 in 2-point defense.
Michigan vs Minnesota basketball prediction
A game against Minnesota doesn’t have quite the same juice as Purdue or Duke, but there’s still plenty to play for, with a share of the conference title (and, perhaps more importantly, a triple-bye in next month’s conference tourney) on the line. May made it clear the Wolverines won’t celebrate if they win − this group wants it outright − but expect U-M to be quite happy when the night’s over. The pick: U-M 87, Minnesota 62.
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball vs Minnesota prediction, keys to the game
Reporting by Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
