Big Ten Basketball: Ranking each team’s league schedule for 2021-22 season

13. Michigan Wolverines

Home & Away – Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers
Home Only – Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern
Away Only – Indiana, Penn State, Wisconsin

When you are the regular-season champions of a power conference and then advance to the Elite Eight, people are going to be interested. A by-product of having people interested in you is that they will want to watch you and in turn, national sports networks will want to televise your games as you play other teams people are interested in. The result of this convoluted slippery slope is the Michigan Wolverines having a difficult schedule.

This is in no way saying it will affect their record, or to insinuate they do not want these teams on their resume in order to improve their NET Ranking, If it was not for the Wolverines’ ability to benefit from their opponent breakdown, it could have been the unluckiest schedule. The most glaring obstacle is that the only projected top-four team Coach Howard and the Wolverines do not play twice, is themselves, which has a touch of irony for they might be the only ones that can beat them.

Aside from playing three of the top four teams twice, they get in-state rivals Michigan State twice, which always has heightened importance. In addition, the Spartans’ newly transferred starting point guard is Tyson Walker, an All-CAA Defense selection, which will match up nicely with the Wolverines’  new point guard DeVante Jones.

Their Breslin Center advantage will be wasted on easy victories over Northwestern and Minnesota. A home date versus Indiana would have been more beneficial as taking on the Hoosiers at  Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall will be more difficult this season than it was in 2020-21 when the Hoosiers captured four of their seven conference victories.