In a week where three of the top-five men’s college basketball teams lost, the Michigan Wolverines beat Penn State and Ohio State to stay at No. 2 in the latest edition of the AP Poll. Meanwhile, the women’s team split their two matchups of the week — defeating Nebraska on Wednesday before dropping another close ranked matchup on Sunday to No. 2 UCLA — and actually moved up to No. 7.
The men had a dominating week coming off of two top-10 wins over the Cornhuskers and the Spartans the week before.
The Wolverines took down the Nittany Lions at home, 110-69, before going on the road to stomp on the Buckeyes, 82-61.
What was most impressive about each of the wins was the production Michigan received from different players. From Nimari Burnett’s 31-point performance on Thursday, to Aday Mara’s career-high 24 points on Sunday, the Wolverines showed that it will take shutting down every player that checks into the game to have a shot at taking them down.
Just like last week, the men stayed at the No. 1 spot on KenPom, but it jumped back up to the No. 1 spot in the NET with an 8-0 record in Quad 1 games. Other analytics sites — EvanMiya.com and Bart Torvik — also have Michigan at No. 1 team. Michigan continues to sit in a perfect spot to be a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament and currently holds the top spot in the Big Ten.
The Wolverines travel to Evanston on Wednesday to face Northwestern (6:30 p.m. on BTN), before finishing the week playing UCLA at Crisler Center on Saturday (12:45 p.m. on CBS).
Meanwhile, it was a strong, but disappointing week for the women’s team. The Wolverines hosted Nebraska on Wednesday, where they handled the Huskers with ease, 88-76. However, Sunday was a different story. After trailing by 13 points to the Bruins entering the fourth quarter, the Wolverines made it a three-point game with the ball with about 10 seconds remaining. However, Syla Swords’ final shot did not fall, and Michigan lost its fourth game of the season, 69-66.
What bodes well for the Wolverines is that three of their four losses have been to top-10 opponents, losing to No. 1 UConn by three points in November, No. 7 Vanderbilt by three points in January and No. 2 UCLA by three points in February. These close quality losses have kept Michigan from falling too far down the rankings, and the Wolverines are still projected to be a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament, coming in at No. 6 in the NET rankings for the week.
The road doesn’t get easier, however, as the Wolverines will look to turn it around against Northwestern (Thursday, Feb. 12, 9 p.m. on Peacock) and Michigan State (Sunday, Feb. 15, 4 p.m. on FS1).
