It is not often the University of Michigan and the Michigan State Spartans battle each other in back to back games and a lot is on the line for both teams.

With the Wolverines losing to Illinois the other night and the Spartans coming on strong on the back end of the season. Both teams need to win these final two games of the season and they happen to be against each other.

According to FOX 17, U of M forward Isaiah Livers said, "we can't get complacent, we can't get ahead of a a game, we can't think of Michigan State and think about the bubble and that. We got to focus on each game."

The Wolverines are not used to losing this season after only losing two games but in both games they were manhandled by Illinois and Minnesota.

This last loss U of M suffered to Illinois has the team scratching their heads but they hope to learn from the loss. Hopefully the loss doesn't hurt them in tournament seeding because if they had won, they would have surely been a top seeded team in the tournament.

FOX 17 reports Michigan coach Juwan Howard said, "this is a game truly you can learn from. We will learn from a loss like this and the type of performance that we gave tonight was not acceptable at all, we are going to come in tomorrow and watch film and see what areas we can improve on. This is going to be, I call it a horror film because there was many possessions where we didn't do a good job and we didn't compete at the level we are capable of."

The Spartans have their own battles up a head against Michigan. They are coming off winning 4 out of 5 and what was looking like the team may not make the tournament for the first time in 23 years has now become a possibility. If they win just one of the these games against the Wolverines they will be in the tourney for sure.

Coach Tom Izzo said, "we do believe here that pressure is a privilege, I've been here when we weren't playing for anything and we had no pressure and we had no fun, so pressure is a privilege."

Michigan needs to beat the Spartans in both games to solidify their position as a top seeded team in the tournament while the Spartans need just win to solidify their spot in the tournament. None the less, we have two exciting games to watch.

Thursday, March 4 the Spartans travel to Ann Arbor then Sunday, March 7 the Wolverines return the favor for a trip to Lansing. These should be two great games.

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