Duke faces Michigan Saturday for the second time in fifteen days, and the third Big Ten opponent in that same period.  But unless we miss our guess, it won’t be like the game in New York.  Here’s why.

Michigan is not a bad team and has some significant talent, certainly enough to knock off UCLA. Their primary offensive weapons are DeShawn Sims and Manny Harris, and their 1-3-1 zone can truly annoy people.

But what makes Michigan a dangerous opponent is ball movement.  They can get the ball around the perimeter as well as anyone in the country. It’s a testament to John Beilein’s offensive system, and a primary focus of that system if getting people open for three point shots.

But as good as Sims and Harris are, our guess is that, playing at home, they’ll hit more threes, and someone other than those two is likely to get hot and hit them.  Michigan took 22 threes in New York and only hit six.  Had they hit four more, it would have been a three point game. They could pull that off at home.  They hit 12 against Maryland in College Park, with three of them coming from Zack Novak.

The big difference in the first game was Kyle Singler, who had 15 points and eight boards. Duke outrebounded Michigan, 32-25 before pounding Purdue on the boards in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. It’s a big concern for the Wolverines.  Maryland outrebounded them 35-24 without a real big man.  Greivis Vasquez had 12.

Michigan has also not played particularly well since upsetting UCLA.  You’d think that would be a disadvantage, but in fact, it’s probably not.  Michigan is still going through the process of getting players in who can play Beilein’s elegant offense.  He has some now, but they’re all still getting it down.  A few rough games is not a major problem in this context, and they’re probably due for a breakout.  For Duke, here’s what is a big problem.

As well as Duke has played in the early going, and as poorly as Michigan shot the ball against Duke in New York, at times they moved the ball beautifully and got shots off despite Duke’s intense defense. They didn’t go in, but at times during that game, the ball moved around for Michigan just like it did for West Virginia, when Beilein was there. They had Kevin Pittsnoggle and others who could nail the open shot, and Michigan still has to develop their options.

They won’t get everything down by Saturday afternoon, but they don’t need to.  All they need to do is to hit a few, get the adrenaline going, and get the crowd roaring to have a chance.  They’ll have some different defensive wrinkles for Duke of course, but the main question to us is if they can move the ball and get open outside shots or cutters to the basket, which is something else Beilein-coached teams do exceedingly well.