After a pair of losses in the middle of December against Boston University at home and UCLA on the road, the University of Michigan Wolverines have been on a tear. The Wolverines have won their last six contests, including a perfect 3-0 opening to the Big Ten conference season.

“Certainly we are feeling fairly good about ourselves, with a few wins under our belt consecutively, but not thinking that we’ve played as well as we are capable of,” Wolverines head coach Tommy Amaker said. “Playing in our last game against Penn St., we were fortunate to win that game.”

Prior to their 66-62 nail-biting victory over the Penn State Nittany Lions in College Park, Pa., Michigan posted conference wins in a home matchup against Northwestern and in their Big Ten opener against Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.

But victory has come with a cost for the Wolverines. During their contest with then-No. 14 Iowa, Michigan lost junior forward Chris Hunter to a sprained ankle. It remains unclear how long Hunter will sit out for Michigan, but his presence has been sorely missed in the lineup. Hunter was averaging 11.2 points per game and 3.8 rebounds per game before he went down Jan. 5th.

“Chris was playing exceptionally well for us, and certainly I think he was on the verge of having a really special year and I think it’s still possible to have that kind of year for him. But certainly this has thrown a wrench in it for him,” Amaker said.

Hunter, however, is far from being the lone Michigan injury of the year. Guards Daniel Horton, Lester Abram, Ashtyn Bell and Dani Wohland, as well as forwards Brent Petway, Amadou Ba and Graham Brown have all been sidelined due to injury this season. However, Michigan has continued to succeed through the peril, posting a 12-5 overall record, thanks in large part to their team mentality.

“I think that is a positive thing for our program, we’ve preached all along of being unselfish and from day-to-day, night-to-night and game-to-game things can certainly change, and it has for us in terms of certain players being available,” Amaker said. “We’ve always preached, in our program, that the go-to guy is the open guy.”

Michigan will attempt to continue their winning ways this week when they face Indiana tonight and Wisconsin this Saturday.

Ohio State

Admittedly, Ohio State head coach Thad Matta did not have very high expectations for his team this year. Matta entered a situation where he was limited in his recruiting due to his late hire, ineligible for the postseason due to an alleged payout to a former recruit by former head coach Jim O’Brien and working with a team that went 14-16 last season. With those handicaps in mind, Matta entered the season with a different set of goals.

“My number one goal is for these guys to play hard and play smart and really understand the value of playing as a unit and as a team,” Matta said. “Someone asked me down in Columbus the other day to give them a mid-season grade and I really couldn’t do it. It’s such a long process for us … I just try to take what a guy is good at and make him great at it, and same with our team.”

Matta’s methods seem to have paid off, with the Buckeyes going 12-5 thus far. But the remarkable part of Matta’s transformation has been his ability to transform his team without the ability to promise his athletes postseason play. Matta credits his players for having the foresight to look past this impending reality and not throw away their season.

“I think we’ve got too good of kids for that, character-wise,” Matta said. “I think with having three seniors and with the vision we have for this program and building this program, I really don’t foresee that happening. The one thing we’ve really tried to instill in these guys is to take great pride in the challenges you are presented with everyday and we have seven weeks of great challenges ahead of us.”

Instead Matta has chosen other methods of persuasion, giving the team other goals, including improving on the Buckeyes’ lack of success in recent years.

“For the last two years, Ohio State has had a losing record,” Matta said. “There are so many things we can challenge these kids to with.”