Previewing Michigan basketball’s next game against Wisconsin

Michigan (14-0) will host the Wisconsin Badgers (10-5) this Saturday at 1pm EST. Michigan is coming off their closest game in nearly two months with a narrow win at Penn State this past Tuesday where the Nittany Lions had a shot to win the game at the buzzer. They’ll need to play better against this Wisconsin team to come out with a win.

Wisconsin is 10-5 so far this year but they’re lost at BYU, at TCU, at Nebraska, Villanova in OT, and then recently Purdue. All of those squads look like good college basketball teams so far this year, with the common opponent between the Wolverines and Badgers being at TCU. Michigan beat TCU by 4 in a tight game on the road, where the Badgers lost by 11 on the road. Let’s dive more into the matchup between Wisconsin and Michigan below.

Wisconsin Badgers

Wisconsin is scoring 82.5 points on average, and allowing only 74.1. They typically play at a slower pace than Michigan does and will probably look to slow the game down quite a bit like PSU did to Michigan as well. In terms of shooting the ball, Wisconsin is shooting 45.1% from the field so far, and 32.6% from 3 point range. They’re not a particularly good shooting team so traveling on the road in a new arena might not be a great setup for the Badgers in this game.

Individually, they are led by a Senior in Nick Boyd who is averaging 19.5 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game so far this year. He spent his first three years in college at FAU, before spending last year at SDSU, and then transferring to Wisconsin prior to this season. Behind Boyd, they also have Junior John Blackwell who returned from last year’s Badger team averaging 17.4 points per game, and then Nolan Winter at 14.6 points per game. They’re a bit top heavy in terms of scoring as they only have one other player averaging over 7 points per game. Slowing down Body, Blackwell, and Winter will be the key to the game for Michigan’s defense.

Michigan Wolverines

So far this year, Michigan is averaging a blistering 95.1 points per game and allowing only 66.9 on defense. They’ve been nothing short of dominant so far this year but the most recent game against PSU should serve as a warning sign to this team and to Michigan fans that they are still mortal and could go down on any given night in the Big Ten. PSU did a really nice job of slowing the game down and limiting Michigan’s transition opportunities and that is likely the same game plan other Big Ten teams will try to take against Michigan until they prove they have found a way to combat that type of play style.

So far this year, Yaxel Lendeborg is leading them in scoring at 14.7, followed by Morez Johnson Jr. at 13.9, Trey McKenney at 10.9, Roddy Gayle Jr. at 10.2, and Aday Mara at 10.2. They also have Elliot Cadeau at 9.6, LJ Cason at 8.8, and Nimari Burnett at 8.5. Part of what makes them so dangerous as a team is that on any given night, almost any of their top 8 scorers could lead the team in scoring, which is exactly what happened in Michigan’s game against PSU. The Nittany Lions did a great job of limiting Michigan’s big guys but that allowed LJ Cason to come in off the bench and lead the team in scoring with 14 points.

Assuming Wisconsin will try to slow this game down like they typically do, Michigan will need to take better care of the basketball and do a better job at defensive rebounding if they hope to beat the Badgers. The game is at home though so Michigan should come out on top but how they look will be a big determining factor into how they might fare in the rest of Big Ten play.

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