For the 11th consecutive week, both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at the University of Michigan are ranked in the top-10 of the AP Poll after each squad beat Michigan State at the Breslin Center this past week. The men’s team is now back up to No. 2, while the women’s team rose one spot to No. 8.
The men’s team had as good of a week as you can have in college basketball, handing No. 5 Nebraska its first loss of the season before traveling to East Lansing and beating Tom Izzo’s No. 7 Spartans.
Two top-10 wins against teams that each have a real chance of winning the Big Ten title, with the second win coming on just two day’s rest, is impressive.
Michigan also earned it’s No. 1 spot in KenPom back, and is also ranked No. 3 in the NET with an 8-0 record in Quad 1 games. Other analytics sites — EvanMiya.com and Bart Torvik — also have Michigan rated as the No. 1 team in the country. Looking at all the projections across the country on Bracket Matrix, Michigan is expected to be a 1-seed come tournament time.
Compared to this past week, on paper, this week should be much easier for the Wolverines. Upsets are always possible, but Michigan plays two Big Ten teams in the next seven days, both of which it has already beaten by double digits. Michigan hosts Penn State (Thursday, Feb. 5, 6:30 p.m. on FS1) before heading to Columbus to take on the Buckeyes (Sunday, Feb. 8, 1 p.m. on CBS) in a game Ohio State pretty much has to win in order to make the tournament.
The women’s team also picked up two wins last week, beating Indiana in Bloomington before beating the Spartans in overtime in East Lansing. That MSU game was especially exciting, with sophomore point guard Mila Holloway scoring a career-high 26 points and the Wolverines playing excellent defense down the stretch. That win against MSU — which was ranked No. 13 at the time and is now ranked No. 12 — is Michigan’s third ranked win of the season and eighth Big Ten win in a row.
Ranked sixth in the NET, barring a large losing streak, the Wolverines are in a good spot to be a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament, meaning we’d get a Round of 64 game and potentially a Round of 32 game in Ann Arbor.
The ladies return home for two games this week, as Michigan takes on Nebraska on Wednesday, Feb. 4 (7 p.m. on B1G+), a potential trap game before No. 2 UCLA comes to town on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 8, 3 p.m. on FOX). A win against UCLA would almost certainly vault Michigan into a top-five ranking for the first time this season.
