The Michigan Wolverines raised a banner after sweeping State on Sunday and have already locked up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The trip to Chicago is more for pride than anything, but the Wolverines are here to make it back-to-back Big Ten Tournament championships and to be just the second team in the last 11 years to win the regular season outright title as well as the conference tournament.
Doing so requires three wins in three days, with the latter two likely coming against top-25 teams.
The same is not the case on Friday afternoon, though, as the Quarterfinals bring a third game against the Ohio State Buckeyes, who likely have earned their spot in the tournament field already, but would love the opportunity to leave no doubt by pulling off the upset over their arch rival.
BTT Quarterfinals: No. 1 Michigan (29-2, 19-1) vs. No. 8 Ohio State (21-11, 12-8)
Date & Time: Friday, March 13, noon ET
Location: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
TV/Streaming: BTN
For the first time since 2003-04, Michigan won two regular season games over Ohio State. I do not believe the Wolverines have ever gone 3-0 in a single season, and indeed the Big Ten Tournament has not gone well in this rivalry, with the Buckeyes somehow winning seven of the eight contests. The gap in quality between these squads is notable, though, as evidenced by the prior two meetings.
Two Stats to Watch
Ohio State Shooting: 56.5% eFG rate (3rd B1G)
Kenpom has the Ohio State offense top-20 nationally and top-5 in conference play, mostly due to solid shooting. Indeed, many contests have seen this offense shooting extremely well, especially the last four games, but it does not take much thought to guess which two games resulted in the worst offensive production this season.
Those battles against Michigan saw the Buckeyes struggle their way to 0.95 PPP and a 47.5% eFG rate in Columbus, then 0.92 PPP and a 42.7% eFG rate in Ann Arbor. This is just a really tough matchup for an Ohio State unit that wants to draw fouls and wants to shoot inside, often hoping to beat defenses one-on-one as opposed to excellent ball movement or intricate sets.
The Wolverines are just too good defensively for this to work. Dusty May mastered the switches last month in the teams’ second matchup of the season, and Bruce Thornton only averaged 13 points in these games with his two lowest ORtgs of the year. Michigan is still elite in the paint and fully capable on the perimeter, setting up another tough situation for the Ohio State offense.
Michigan 2PT Shooting: 60.2% (2nd B1G)
Michigan is still elite from two, second to only Indiana in Big Ten play and second to St. Thomas (?) nationally. In Columbus it was a clinic, as the visitors hit 22-of-29 shots inside the arc for a 75.9% clip, the second-highest mark all year. The rematch was oddly the opposite, with a lowly 47.9% two-point percentage coming thanks to some inexplicable misses down low.
Of course, the first contest was actually the closer of the two, though neither ended even within single digits. The Wolverines have cooled from their absurd two-point shooting to start the year and have looked more good than great from this range over the past month, but obviously the skill set and shot selection still allow for this to be one of the team’s cornerstones.
I would like to see Michigan continue to attack the rim on Friday. Ohio State is about average in conference play defending twos and has put up a bunch of really poor defensive showings. All three bigs put up double figures in both games, and each contest featured offensive rebounding rates north of 40%. This is a clear advantage for the better seed and should be enough to move on to Saturday.
