{"id":613879,"date":"2026-02-20T15:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613879\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T15:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:12:16","slug":"michigan-basketball-ready-for-ncaa-tournament-type-of-game-vs-duke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613879\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Basketball ready for \u2018NCAA Tournament type of game\u2019 vs Duke"},"content":{"rendered":"

The No. 1 Michigan Wolverines<\/a> 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).<\/p>\n

Following the win at Purdue, head coach Dusty May told the media this upcoming game against the Blue Devils is an \u201cNCAA Tournament type of game\u201d that they are preparing for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to treat it like an NCAA format, where this is a Sweet Sixteen, or hopefully a Final Four opponent,\u201d May said. \u201cYou have a couple days to learn things about a team you\u2019re typically unfamiliar with. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan is in the thick of the Big Ten regular season title race \u2014 sitting atop the conference with a 15-1 record in league play \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good for the sport, these non-conference games,\u201d May said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a tough showing (against Duke) last year \u2026 Underwood said that he would have still played it 100 out of 100 times,\u201d May said. \u201cI\u2019ve said this before, I think he\u2019s one of the forward-thinkers in our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the win at Purdue<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get back, regroup and start preparing for Duke,\u201d May said. \u201cWe\u2019re going into the game with short prep. We don\u2019t know them very well. Can we get our guys to execute a game plan, and if we do it well, then it\u2019ll be an awesome win. If we don\u2019t, then it\u2019ll be a great learning experience for us moving into the next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg also said the Wolverines are prepared for whatever Duke has to offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve 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,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cWe know that this is what we all signed up for, so we\u2019re just going to continue to stay within our circle and continue to be confident in our group and play within ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No. 1 Michigan Wolverines did well in their first top-10 matchup of the week on Tuesday in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,1161,5669,1162,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-613879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-michigan-mens-basketball","11":"tag-michigan-mens-basketball-analysis","12":"tag-michigan-mens-basketball-news","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116103606663996695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}