The No. 1 Michigan Wolverines did well in their first top-10 matchup of the week on Tuesday in a 91-8o win at Purdue, but they must move on quickly prior to taking on No. 3 Duke in Washington D.C. on Saturday (6:30 p.m. on ESPN).
Following the win at Purdue, head coach Dusty May told the media this upcoming game against the Blue Devils is an “NCAA Tournament type of game” that they are preparing for.
“We’re going to treat it like an NCAA format, where this is a Sweet Sixteen, or hopefully a Final Four
opponent,” May said. “You have a couple days to learn things about a team you’re typically unfamiliar with. It’s an opportunity for us to take a reset mentally from Big Ten play, learn something new and prepare like we would for an NCAA tournament type of game.”
Michigan is in the thick of the Big Ten regular season title race — sitting atop the conference with a 15-1 record in league play — but a midseason matchup with Duke is hard to turn down. May wanted to play Duke because he believes matchups of this caliber are beneficial for college basketball.
“It’s good for the sport, these non-conference games,” May said. “I remember being a young kid glued to the TV to watch a cross-country matchup between two historic programs. The ratings show these games are well-received by fans. If you go look at tickets on the secondary market, that shows this game is going to be good for the game and for the sport.”
Ahead of this matchup, May spoke with Illinois head coach Brad Underwood about scheduling a marquee non-conference opponent at this point in the season. The Fighting Illini faced Duke last February and lost, 110-67, but Underwood told May it was a great experience and provided a learning opportunity for his team heading into the NCAA Tournament.
“They had a tough showing (against Duke) last year … Underwood said that he would have still played it 100 out of 100 times,” May said. “I’ve said this before, I think he’s one of the forward-thinkers in our game.”
Following the win at Purdue, Michigan has an opportunity to pick up a fourth win over a top-10 opponent this season against Duke. The winner will be No. 1 in the AP Poll next week, as the Wolverines can hang onto the No. 1 slot, or Duke will vault to the top of the rankings.
“We need to get back, regroup and start preparing for Duke,” May said. “We’re going into the game with short prep. We don’t know them very well. Can we get our guys to execute a game plan, and if we do it well, then it’ll be an awesome win. If we don’t, then it’ll be a great learning experience for us moving into the next month.”
Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg also said the Wolverines are prepared for whatever Duke has to offer.
“We’ve been in this predicament before, earlier on in the year, with a lot of hype going around the Gonzaga game and nobody (on our team) got too excited about it,” Lendeborg said. “We know that this is what we all signed up for, so we’re just going to continue to stay within our circle and continue to be confident in our group and play within ourselves.”
No matter the outcome, the matchup vs Duke is very beneficial for the Wolverines with the NCAA Tournament just a month away. Michigan will be able to familiarize itself with an opponent it could eventually face again in the postseason, and the neutral-site setting will have a tournament feel to it that could help the Wolverines go on a March Madness run.
