DETROIT — All right, let's try this again, shall we?
Michigan and Michigan State will play a basketball game Saturday in East Lansing, three weeks after COVID-19 issues within the Wolverines' program forced a postponement of the first rivalry renewal in Ann Arbor.
With both teams back to full strength this week, we're almost sure of that.
Everything else, though, is still up in the air, which makes this nationally-televised showdown all the more compelling as the Spartans try to regain their momentum against a Michigan squad that finally seems to have found some traction.
"Anytime you play your rival, things get a chance to get picked up," said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, whose team sits just a half-game out of first place in the Big Ten despite a loss Tuesday at Illinois. "It doesn't matter what sport, or where you are."
But this being basketball season, and with Saturday's game tipping off at the Breslin Center (12:30 p.m., CBS), the scene figures to be electric. Exponentially so, even.
"Maybe 10x," Michigan's Juwan Howard said, chuckling, "and what I mean by that is ... it's gonna be on steroids."
The Spartans will be playing their only home game in a 23-day span in the middle of the Big Ten season. And it'll be their first against their in-state rival in front of a packed house — and a rowdy "Izzone" student section — in more than two years. (Attendance at last season's Big Ten games were limited to just family and friends due COVID-19 protocols.)
"I'm excited to do that, and I'm sure so is Juwan," Izzo said Thursday afternoon as the Spartans began preparing — again — to face Michigan. "Whether you're at home or on the road, I mean, nobody wants to play in front of nobody. ... A rivalry is not the same without fans, I promise you that."
No one was making any promises three weeks ago, of course. But the fact that Michigan State's team already was in Ann Arbor when that initial meeting was called off — the Spartans went through a Friday night walkthrough at Crisler Center before getting word Michigan had more COVID cases and wouldn't play— only adds to the intrigue for Saturday's matchup.
Yet beyond the predictable social-media fallout from that letdown — who knew there were that many "duck" memes out there? — there's the simple fact that the stakes have been raised here by the way Michigan has played of late.
Heading into the scheduled Jan. 8 game in Ann Arbor, Michigan had dropped three of four, including the program's first-ever loss to Rutgers, albeit while shorthanded. (The Wolverines already had four players missing due to COVID-19 protocols at that point.) Michigan State, meanwhile, had won eight in a row and climbed into the top 10 in the national rankings.
Now, though, Michigan is healthy and hitting shots, looking more like a team that began the season as one of the favorites to win the Big Ten. The offense is running through Hunter Dickinson, as expected, but transfer point guard DeVante' Jones has grown more comfortable in a new system, freshman Caleb Houston has found his stroke — he's 11 for 16 from 3-point range the last few games — and the rest of the rotation seems to have settled into more clearly-defined roles.
As Izzo noted Thursday, "They're a different team than the one we were gonna play the first time."
Whether his team is or isn't probably depends on whom you ask, or when. Because the Spartans have alternated wins and losses since the postponement and remain, in the words of their coach, "consistently inconsistent."
Still, both their losses were one-possession games, and the through-line isn't hard to identify. Turnovers remain Michigan State's Achilles heel, particularly since Izzo's team doesn't force many miscues on its own. (Michigan State ranks 284th in the country with a 20.6% turnover rate, and 324th nationally on the defensive side of that coin.)
Then again, Michigan generates even fewer turnovers than that. So the key may have more to do with whether the Spartans' Big Ten-leading defense can do enough to slow down Dickinson & Co. and capitalize in transition, where Michigan State is thriving again, the way Izzo's most successful teams often do.
That'll certainly be the goal Saturday — "We hope to run them and get them going up and down a little bit more," Izzo said — and if they can, it'll be a way to get their leading scorer, senior wing Gabe Brown, back to playing like he was a month ago. (Brown is shooting 33% from the field the last four games.)
And, of course, it'll be a way to get the building shaking like the last time the Wolverines paid a visit with nearly 15,000 fans in attendance.
"I can't wait to go to that arena, see the crowd, hear all the boos and all the love that comes with it," Jones said earlier this week. "I'm excited."
Now that the wait is finally over, everyone can agree on that, at least.
