A week ago, Michigan beat Michigan State, 74-61, at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.
But if you ask Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney about the game, he might not know what you're talking about.
Last week's contest wasn't a conference game, thanks to the schedule-makers at the Big Ten offices. But Saturday afternoon at 2:30, the scene shifts to Crisler Arena where the Big Ten says that, yes, this is a conference game.
The reason why the two teams only play one conference game this season is because the Big Ten expanded to 11 teams in 1993. Instead of increasing the conference schedule to 20 games annually, the slate was kept at 18.
Therefore, each team plays eight opponents twice and the remaining two only once. These two teams are determined at random each year and by chance, Michigan and Michigan State wound up scheduled only once during this season.
But that didn't bother Michigan coach Steve Fisher and Michigan State skipper Tom Izzo, and last week's tilt was scheduled so that the two rivals could get together at each other's building.
Speaking of the two buildings, the crowd at East Lansing was particularly brutal on the Wolverines last weekend. The partisan fans heckled sophomore center Robert Traylor about his girth and junior forward Maurice Taylor about last winter's automobile incident, when he, several of his teammates, and then-recruit (and current Spartan) Mateen Cleaves were involved in an accident.
So will the Crisler fans be looking to return the favor to some of the Spartans on Saturday?
"Hopefully, we'll have a loud, raucous crowd that will go like crazy and yell in a positive way for us and yell at (Michigan State), but not in a way that is vulgar or offensive," Fisher said. "But I want our crowd loud. We need them."
What Fisher needs is for his home crowd to offset the jeers he heard last week, right?
"I truly 99 percent of the time don't hear (the insults)," Fisher said. "I hear noise. And if you can do that, you're better served."
But it's not easy to block out chants about a weight problem and a near-fatal accident.
"(Michigan State's fans) were pretty loud," Traylor said. "But when you could point to the scoreboard and see that you're up eight or nine points, it doesn't make the crowd seem that loud."
However, Fisher thinks that once the fans are taken out of the equation, there is camaraderie between the players on both teams.
"I think that the kids on the floor and the attitude they have is healthy," Fisher said. "I do feel there is a genuine respect for one another, even a liking for one another. It becomes personal at times from the crowd, and I don't think that's the overall view of most people who support Michigan State."
Don't go telling that to Michigan fans, though. Expect them to be in full force, especially if the Wolverines jump out to a big lead.
Junior forward Maceo Baston, for one, is expecting the Crisler fans to bring the noise.
"Once we get our crowd behind us and cheering loud, and get some dunks and threes, (the crowd) will be rocking," he said.
MARGARET MYERS/Daily
Michigan's Maurice Taylor skies for a dunk earlier this season against Northwestern. The Wolverines will need Taylor to be on top of his game when Michigan State invades Crisler Arena tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.