Wolverines, Buckeyes Set for Tuesday Night Clash on ESPN
2/15/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2016
• TV: ESPN | | Live Audio | WatchESPN
• Complete Game Notes 
| Broadcast Information
• Caris LeVert Media Roundtable 
The University of Michigan men's basketball team (19-7, 9-4 B1G) will hit the road for the next two games. The Wolverines will head to Columbus, Ohio, to take on Ohio State (16-10, 8-5 B1G) for the teams' only regular-season meeting of the season as well as U-M's third ESPN "Super Tuesday" matchup. Tuesday night's (Feb. 16) game at Value City Arena will tip off at 7 p.m. and air on ESPN.
THE COACHING MATCHUP
• Michigan: John Beilein (185-117 in ninth season at U-M | 736-345 in 38th season)
• Ohio State: Thad Matta (315-104 in 12th season at OSU | 417-135 in 16th season)
A LITTLE ABOUT OHIO STATE
• Ohio State hosts Michigan with a 16-10 record and an 8-5 B1G mark. The Buckeyes are coming off a 79-69 win at Rutgers on Saturday and have won two straight.
• OSU is 12-4 at Value City Arena with a 5-1 B1G home record. The lone conference loss was a 66-61 decision against Maryland (Jan. 31).
• The Buckeyes average 70.9 points and 38.7 rebounds per game. They are shooting 44.4 percent from the floor and 34.3 percent from long range. Overall, OSU is 14th in the league shooting just 65.7 percent on free throws.
• Ohio State is led by three players scoring in double figures and nearly 5.0 rebounds per game each. Junior Marc Loving leads the team with 12.5 points and is averaging 5.2 boards per game, while sophomore Keita Bates-Diop averages 12.1 points and a team-best 6.6 rebounds and sophomore Jae-Sean Tate is posting 11.5 points and 6.3 rebounds.
• Redshirt sophomore Kam Williams is OSU's sixth man, having played in all 26 games. He averages 8.0 points and has made a team-best 40 three-pointers.
• Freshman JaQuan Lyle is just outside double figures, scoring 9.9 points and 4.0 rebounds. Sophomore center Trevor Thompson is shooting a team-best 54.8 percent from the floor while averaging 6.8 points and 5.3 rebounds.
THE SERIES WITH OHIO STATE
• Tuesday's game will be the 178th all-time meeting between Michigan and Ohio State.
• Tuesday's game is the only meeting of the regular season.
• Tuesday's game is the first meeting of unranked U-M and OSU teams in just over seven years. The last unranked meeting was a 72-54 U-M loss in Columbus on Jan. 28, 2009.
• U-M trails, 77-100, in the all-time series; however, the Wolverines have won four of the last five meetings. U-M is 28-57 all-time in games played in Columbus.
• Last season, U-M and OSU split the series with each team winning on its home court. First, the Buckeyes snapped a four-game losing streak to the Wolverines, 71-52, at Value City Arena (Jan. 13). The Maize and Blue responded at Crisler Center with a 64-57 upset win over the 24th-ranked Buckeyes in Ann Arbor (Feb. 22).
DID YOU KNOW?
• Zak Irvin has scored a season-best 22 points twice. Both games were upset victories over nationally ranked foes. First was against 3/3 Maryland (Jan. 12) and then a month later against 18/16 Purdue (Feb. 13).
• Zak Irvin needs just 14 points to become the 50th Wolverine to reach 1,000 career points. He would become the second Wolverine this season to reach the prestigious mark. Caris LeVert reached his 1,000th career point against Northern Kentucky (Dec. 15) and has 1,070 career points.
• Duncan Robinson has gone a perfect 20-for-20 from the free throw line in B1G play. He has missed just one free throw the entire season, going 27-for-28 (96.4 percent).
• Derrick Walton Jr. leads U-M with four double-doubles -- all of which have come via points and rebounds. He recorded the program's fifth triple-double with 10 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists against Youngstown State (Dec. 19). Walton leads U-M with 5.7 rebounds and has bettered that average in B1G play at 6.5 per game.
• Walton has a team-best 132 total rebounds (5.7 rpg) with 122 (5.4 drpg) coming on the defensive end.
• Duncan Robinson is seventh nationally with his 47.8 percent shooting from long range. With 77 total on the season, he needs 23 more three-pointers to become just the second Wolverine ever to reach 100 in a single season.
• Zak Irvin has 81 total assists in 25 games this season (3.2 per game). He tallied a total of 62 assists in his first two seasons (69 games, 0.9 apg).
• Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman has scored all six of his double-figure scoring games this season as a starter. He scored a career-best 25 points at Purdue (Jan. 7). This season, as a starter he averages 10.2 points (153); as a non-starter he is at 2.4 per game (27). All 10 of his career double-digit games have come with a starting nod attached. Abdur-Rahkman has 28 starts in 55 career games.
LEADERS AND BEST -- NATIONALLY
• Michigan is fifth nationally for fewest personal fouls per game (15.5). U-M has been among the top 10 nationally for the last four years including a nation's best 14.2 per game average in 2013-14. U-M was second in 2012-13 (12.7) and seventh last season (14.2).
• Michigan ranks sixth nationally with 9.7 turnovers per game.
• With its 15.2 assists per game (70th nationally), the Wolverines are seventh nationally for assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.58.
• Michigan ranks sixth nationally for turnovers with 9.7 per game. U-M has 12 sub-10 turnover games. Including this season, U-M's has ranked among the top 10 nationally the last four seasons, including leading the county during the 2013-14 season with a 9.32 per game average.
#CHADTOUGH | VOTECOACHBEILEIN.COM
• U-M coach John Beilein, his staff, the Wolverine players and Maize Rage will wore special #ChadTough T-shirts to help raise awareness for the Chad Tough Foundation.
• Help Coach Beilein with your vote by visiting votecoachbeilein.com.
• The special T-shirt day is a tie-in with Coach Beilein's campaign to raise money for the foundation as part of the ESPN Infiniti Coaches Charity Challenge. To date, Beilein continues to lead the fan voted campaign which could yield up to $100,000 for the Chad Tough Foundation.
• Chad Carr was the son of Jason and Tammi Carr and the grandson of former U-M head football coach Lloyd Carr. He was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) -- an inoperable brain tumor on the brain stem -- in September of 2014 before succumbing to the disease on Nov. 23, 2015.
WHAT'S AHEAD?
• U-M's week closes with a trip to College Park, Maryland, on Sunday (Feb. 21) for a second regular-season meeting against 2/2 Maryland at the Xfinity Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. on CBS. Earlier in the season, U-M won a 70-67 decision at Crisler Center (Jan. 12).
• After U-M's trip to Maryland, Michigan has three regular-season games remaining. First is a Wednesday (Feb. 24) matchup with Northwestern at Crisler Center followed by a Sunday (Feb. 28) road trip to Madison, Wisconsin, and the Kohl Center to face Wisconsin. After a late-season, midweek bye, the Wolverines will finish the 2016 B1G slate against Iowa on Saturday (March 5).
Communications Contact: Tom Wywrot
