Michigan Basketball: Hard to know what pause means for Wolverines

Michigan basketball has to pause for the next two weeks as does the entire U-M athletic department, but what will that mean for the Wolverines?

At this point, it’s really hard to say other than we know the Michigan basketball team won’t be able to play another game until Feb. 7.

According to Chris Balas of The Wolverine, the pause will start Jan. 24 in accordance with the state health department. For Michigan that would mean missing out on four games: Indiana, Northwestern, Penn State and Michigan State. The pause is also happening despite the fact there are no positive tests according to David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press.

Balas also reported that it wasn’t know when or if those games would be made up. Yet, looking at the schedule, it’s going to be tough.

The Wolverines next game after the pause would be Feb. 11. If the pause was over Feb. 8, the Wolverines would have a small window to possibly play a game then.

There are two other windows when there are 5-6 days between a game, but getting all four games in seems nearly impossible.

That adds a lot of other questions specific to Michigan which is 13-1 overall, 8-1 in the Big Ten, projected as a No. 1 seed by bracketology and leading the conference.

Obviously, as hard as it’s going to be to not have Michigan basketball, player safety is the top concern and really the safety of all. It’s still a huge bummer as the Wolverines have been playing as well as any team in the country.

Beyond the rust factor, what will this mean for the conference race? Will it be decided by winning percentage if teams don’t end up playing the same number of games?

You also wonder how this could impact Michigan’s seeding, although U-M shouldn’t be punished for something it can’t control. As you could imagine, Michigan players reacted on Twitter and they weren’t happy.

https://twitter.com/isaiah__02/status/1353177612009537536

While it stinks for Michigan fans who were probably using this run to help them through this terrible pandemic, the good news for those wondering, the Wolverines have already played enough games (13) to be eligible for the NCAA tournament.

So this isn’t going to have an impact on Michigan’s ability to play in the postseason. The biggest question is what it could mean for the Big Ten championship, especially if some or all the games aren’t able to be rescheduled.

At the end of the day, we should still feel fortunate that we’ve had this season and that we’ve gotten to enjoy the Wolverines play so well. The ride will continue, but for now, we wait.