Michigan Basketball return could have to wait another week

While everyone was caught up in the excitement that took place for Michigan football on national signing day, there was some significant news on the Michigan basketball side of things too.

Chris Balas of The Wolverine reported that even though Michigan basketball is supposed to return from its two-week pause on Feb. 7, the Wolverines are not likely to play Illinois Feb. 11 and possibly not Wisconsin. Here’s a quote from Balas:

"“Several sources have told us U-M won’t play its Feb. 11 home game with Illinois, and the Wisconsin game Feb. 14 is up in the air. The first game back might be Feb. 18 vs. Rutgers.”"

Obviously, that’s not the kind of news you want to hear, but it does make sense. It’s not like the Wolverines have been practicing during this two-week pause. They haven’t been able to do any sort of basketball activity, at least not as a team.

I suppose its possible some players have been able to do some dribbling and shooting, but there is probably going to be some rust. This isn’t a two weeks of practicing and not playing. It two weeks of doing nothing and then playing.

Balas doesn’t specifically say that’s why Michigan basketball wouldn’t play Feb. 11 but that appears to be the reasoning.

What it could mean for the Big Ten race

That would push the total of missed games to five, although I’m sure some of those will be made up. However, it’s hard to see how all five games are played, which means the Big Ten is going to have to determine its regular-season champion by winning percentage, even if it hasn’t said so.

Michigan leads Illinois and Iowa in the loss column by two games, but if the champion is determined by winning percentage, things could get trickier. The Wolverines are still in a good spot and they just need to win as many games as possible down the stretch but this race could be wild.

At the very least, it could take some real-time calculating to determine who the Big Ten champion is, unless the league plays a bunch of back-to-back games.

Either way, if you were hoping to watch Michigan basketball, as we all were next Thursday, it’s probably not going to happen. That’s a good thing, keeping in the mind the team hasn’t practiced, but we also don’t know when we will see the Wolverines again.