Michigan Basketball: Breaking down Wolverines path in Big Ten tourney

Beginning on Friday Michigan basketball will tip off its journey towards a potential Big Ten tournament championship in Indianapolis.

Nearly one year after there was no 2020 Big Ten tournament thanks to the covid outbreak, the 2021 version will commence this Wednesday thru Sunday as March madness ramps up in full swing. All 14 teams will get their chance to dream about winning their way into the big dance, while realistically only about nine currently stand safely on the right side of the bubble as things get going.

First and foremost for Michigan basketball is the health of Eli Brooks. He is a key cog in how this unit works properly. Without him, the Wolverines lost two of their three games this year and that can’t sit well with this crew knowing he may be unable to give it a go starting on Friday.

There is no way around the fact that Michigan must be at full strength to be fully ready for a deep run into April.

For the maize and blue, they earned a double-bye thanks to a highly successful regular season run that brought them to the top of the fiercest conference in all of college.

They’ll get to face off with either Maryland or Michigan State for the third straight outing in eight days. Following what went down in East Lansing on Sunday Michigan basketball would like nothing more than to get their hands on the Spartans once again for some satisfying payback.

Michigan State is a group that has to be taken with caution this time of year with their resume under Tom Izzo in March.

Having just knocked off the Wolverines at the Breslin Center means Juwan Howard’s bunch has to have their heads on a swivel because they can surely pull off the same feat in Indianapolis if they are not given the proper respect.

Moving on to Saturday would be a potential showdown with Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota, or Northwestern.

It would be nice to see the Gophers play spoiler and make it to Saturday so the Wolverines can avenge that awful loss from January, but that seems doubtful at best.

Squaring off with Purdue or the Buckeyes is likely and would be an anticipated collision especially if it’s Ohio State that grinds its way to the semifinals.

Then on Sunday for all the marbles Michigan certainly would appreciate another opportunity against Illinois if they can last through those quarterfinal and semifinal tests.

The Wolverines beat everyone else on that side of the bracket, so dueling with the Illini is the most logical outcome if everything holds serve which is not far-fetched, but strange results can happen in such an intense competition.

Going into the tournament Illinois appears to be the favorite even though Michigan is the highest-ranked seed.

What they did to the Wolverines in Ann Arbor without Ayo Dosunmu just a week ago is the simple reason why and was a painful pill to swallow.

Perhaps Michigan will round back into the previous form and conquer the most-watched tournament on the planet, but they will have to go through the rigors of getting everyone’s best shot in an all-out do-or-die situation.