Michigan Basketball: 3 keys and a prediction for Wolverines against Iowa

Beat em up inside

One reason the Wolverines were able to win in Iowa was an outlier performance from Moussa Diabate who made 12-of-15 field goals and scored 28 points.

Iowa ranks eighth in the Big Ten in 2-point defense. They also surrender a lot of 3-point attempts. Michigan struggled from deep in the first matchup but it didn’t matter because Diabate dominated down low and benefited from the attention paid to Hunter Dickinson.

It will be interesting to see how Iowa changes things up defensively but you would think they would try to force Dickinson to beat them away from the bucket as much as possible or force him to get rid of the ball.

Of course, when he’s doing that, the Wolverines are also very dangerous, so it’s kind of like pick your poison. I sort of think Iowa tries to make Diabate can prove he can do it again so it’s going to be important for the Wolverines to win the battle in the paint.

It doesn’t have to be as dominating as last time, but Dickinson and Diabate probably both need to score in double figures tonight for Michigan basketball to win.