On Tuesday night, Fred Hoiberg’s Cornhuskers will travel to Ann Arbor for not just the biggest game of Nebraska’s season, but almost certainly, in program history. Yet, Vegas isn’t giving No. 5 Nebraska much of a shot at No. 3 Michigan.
Though the Wolverines hold the No. 3 spot in the AP Poll, they do have a blemish on their resume, falling to Wisconsin back on January 10. That’s proof that Dusty May’s team is beatable, and despite being favored by 10.5 points at home, Nebraska might be Michigan’s nightmare matchup, as much as any team can be against the betting favorites to win the national title.
There are a few reasons that Hoiberg’s Huskers figure to give May’s Wolverines problems on Tuesday night, and they go well beyond Nebraska’s unbeaten record.
Nebraska can erase one of Michigan’s biggest strengths
First, to beat Michigan, you have to keep the Wolverines off the boards. Wisconsin held them to just nine offensive rebounds and just nine second-chance points. Nebraska can replicate that performance. The Huskers, with Rienk Mast, Pryce Sandfort, Braden Frager, and Berke Buyuktuncel in the front court, have four players 6-foot-7 or taller to throw at Yaxel Lendeborg and Aday Mara.
Michigan, on the season, is 98th percentile in the country (according to CBBanalytics), averaging over 15 second-chance points a game, and does it with a 35.6 percent offensive rebounding rate. The Huskers, on the season, are 92nd percentile with a 72.9 percent defensive rebounding rate, and allow only 9.0 second chance points a game.
If Nebraska can keep Lendeborg, Mara, and Morez Johnson off the boards, one of Michigan’s easiest paths to offense, and while it’s rare, there’s a chance the Wolverines bog down on that end of the floor without it. That won’t be the only thing that decides the game, though.
It has to be bombs away from the outside in Ann Arbor
On the other end, Michigan’s size and physicality pose another huge challenge in the paint. Opponents just don’t score inside on this team. Michigan’s opponents are averaging 23.7 paint points per game (98th percentile), and only 34.5 percent of their scoring comes from the interior.
That’s a problem for every team, but it's considerably less of a problem for a Nebraska team that, offensively, relies so heavily on outside shooting. Only about 40 percent of Nebraska’s points come from the paint anyway (32nd percentile).
The Huskers shoot a high percentage from the paint, so if that drops, it’s not good, but it’s still a considerably smaller piece of the pie than for most teams. To offset that drop, as Wisconsin did, Nebraska needs to hit threes. The Badgers 15-33 from deep in their win, while Michigan shot 8-25. That’s a 21-point difference in a three-point win. Luckily for Huskers fans, that’s been their team’s specialty, hitting at over 35 percent.
Michigan is a nightmare for every matchup for every team in the country. So, there’s a good chance that the Wolverines hold serve at home on Saturday and hand Nebraska its first loss. But Nebraska is a uniquely difficult matchup for Michigan, and that adds even more intrigue to the biggest game of the season in the Big Ten so far.