Michigan vs Minnesota Basketball Recap

Michigan 83, Minnesota 55

 
It's absurd, it doesn't make sense, and nobody on either side of this Big Ten rivalry will adequately be able to understand it, but the Michigan Wolverines aren't about to complain about their performance on Tuesday night against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. For whatever reason, the athletes from Ann Arbor always seem to find the magic touch when they face the men from Minneapolis.

It's one of the strangely engrossing yet inexplicable elements of sports: Just how is it that one team - a team that has shot the ball so poorly and performed far below its potential over the course of an entire season - suddenly transform itself into a juggernaut against a particular opponent? That's the dynamic which resurfaced at Crisler Arena, as the Michigan men blew out Minnesota and sent the Golden Gophers to the NIT. There will be no Dancing for coach Tubby Smith's squad in 2010, and that's because John Beilein's Wolverines appeared to slip into a mysterious comfort zone once again.

Do the players on the Michigan team like to look at Minnesota's jerseys? Do the Maize and Blue have a special desire to ruin Golden Gopher basketball seasons? Does John Beilein know something about Tubby Smith's defensive schemes that the rest of the Big Ten hasn't been able to figure out? Those questions are asked in jest, but then again, it's impossible to deny that Michigan - for all its struggles in a terribly disappointing 2010 campaign - represents a curious form of kryptonite for Minnesota. After this 28-point trouncing that took the Gophers off the NCAA bubble and landed them a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the upcoming NIT, it's worth noting a few things about Michigan, Minnesota, and shooting percentages.

The victorious Wolverines won this game going away because they shot the bejeezus out of the basketball. Michigan hit 60 percent of its shots and attained "the zone" for 40 minutes. While little went right for the visitors from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, practically nothing went wrong for Beilein's boys, who attained a 43-29 halftime lead and continued to score at a steady pace in the second stanza. The virtually perfect performance made it impossible to deny the strange juju the Wolverines own in this series.

Michigan has won the last three games played between these two teams, but there's more to the story than that fact alone. The Wolverines - a team known for chucking bad threes and shooting at a generally poor level - regularly sharpen up whenever the Gophers stare them down. Last March, Michigan got off the NCAA Tournament bubble and punched its ticket to the Big Dance by beating Minnesota, 67-64, in Minneapolis. The Wolverines' shooting percentage? A robust 49.

This season, the Wolverines have only improved against Team Tubby. On Feb. 11, Beilein's lineup went into Williams Arena and hit 50 percent of its shots in a 71-63 win that dealt a big-enough blow to the Gophers' NCAA aspirations. With Tuesday night's shooting-gallery-style showcase, Michigan has now converted - on average - 53 percent of its field goal attempts in its last three games against the Gophers.

How ludicrous is that stat? Consider the fact that Michigan's team field goal percentage entering this Tuesday tilt was 41.1 percent. For Michigan to shoot 19 percent better than its season average in this individual win, and to shoot 12 percent better than that same average in its last three games against Minnesota - with basically the same personnel it used last season (with a few minor exceptions) - shows that Wolverines-Gophers occupies a different planet. This specific Big Ten matchup is not governed by normal laws of basketball physics. Minnesota allows an average of 64.5 points a contest, but Michigan has now averaged 77 points in its twin trouncings of the Golden Gophers this season.

Well, at least there's one bit of good news for Minnesota players and fans: If the Gophers do meet Michigan again this season, it will mean that Tubby Smith's team will have advanced to the NIT semifinals or final in New York City. Now, a trip to the Big Apple is the best Minnesota can hope for in the 2010 college basketball postseason.

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