Michigan Basketball: Could games be made up with back-to-backs?

A new report states the Big Ten is considering the possibility of playing back-to-back games which could give Michigan basketball a shot to make up some.

There are still a lot of things we don’t know about Michigan basketball and the Big Ten for that matter, such as how the conference champion will be determined.

However, it does appear as though the Big Ten will consider some back-to-back games in order to possibly make up some missed contests, according to a new article out by the Washington Post’s Emily Giambalvo.

The article looks at how the Big Ten conference is doing the best it can to play a full season of games, despite a number of games having to be moved or postponed, including four recently for Michigan basketball, which is currently on a two-week pause.

The Michigan State game for instance, has been postponed yet according to Giambalvo it’s possible the Spartans and Wolverines could still play twice, maybe even on back-to-back days.

"“Having two teams play games on back-to-back days is “one of those on-the-table contingencies” that the conference could employ if both schools agree. Adjusting to the extent that a team may twice play an opponent that it had previously been scheduled to play only once hasn’t been formally discussed, Kenny said, but it’s a possibility if the schools are comfortable with a change.”"

Both teams would have to agree but you would think that Michigan basketball and Michigan State would both agree to that game. We still don’t know how the conference champion will be determined if there isn’t the same number of games played by teams, so I’d guess Michigan would play as many as possible.

It’s going to be tough to get the complete schedule in without some creativity and playing back-to-back games against the same team could be the best way.

The Big Ten will either need to figure out how to get all teams the same number of games, at least those in the conference title race or decide if the champion is going to be decided by winning percentage.

Either way, a huge game is on tap Friday night as Iowa is taking on Illinois. The Wolverines have just one loss, while Iowa has two and Illinois has three, so if the Illini win, that lead in the loss column will double.