Michigan basketball (13-1, 8-1 Big Ten) will have underwent a 23-day break between games when it hits the floor against Wisconsin Sunday in Madison.

The Wolverines returned to practice this past Sunday after a pause in activities, and saw their game against Illinois Thursday get postoned. Head coach Juwan Howard said he has no information on why that game was not played, revealing it is athletic director Warde Manuel in charge of working on communicating with the league on making those decisions.

While the Maize and Blue were "frustrated" that they had to shut down for a period of time, and they were itching to get back to games, especially ones against fellow Big Ten title contenders like the Illini, senior forward Isaiah Livers explained why he agreed with the decision to wait until Sunday for game action.

"I wasn’t too upset, because I know I was sitting on the couch mainly for a week and a half, two weeks, working out here and there," Livers said. "I don’t know if a lot of players were ready to get back into the game right away.

"But obviously playing Illinois is one I have circled on my list. ... That’s one game I’m really hoping they reschedule."

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During Michigan's long layoff, a total of five games were postponed. Since plenty of Big Ten teams have had to take time off due to COVID-19 concerns, it's easy to see the Big Ten is willing to reschedule missed contests. Nebraska, for example, is in the midst of a six-game stretch played in the span of 11 days.

But Michigan returns with just 22 days remaining in the regular season, meaning, if all of its tilts get made up, it will have to play 11 games over that stretch of days — all in the lead up to tournament time.

"That doesn’t sound fun," Livers said of that possibility. "As much as I would like to, we don’t have robotic legs. I wish we didn’t feel game soreness or else I would be all for it. But I’d be very sore and then going into a postseason, I don’t know if that would be the best idea.

"But then again I’m not the one making decisions so I’ll have to suck it up if that’s the case. If not, I’ll do my best to not have to do that."

"At the end of the day, we're not machines," Howard added. "We are humans. That's not the type of pressure that I want to put on my student-athletes at this time.

"Unfortunately, this is a very uncomfortable year, crazy times that we all are dealing with. We're pivoting in different directions but at the end of the day, we have to be smart. If the main thing is about our health and safety, let's make sure that's the main thing. Is it smart to play that many games in that many days?"

No Michigan player has missed a game due to COVID-19 this season, and Howard revealed Friday that nobody in the program tested positive for the virus during the two-week break, with the shutdown being across the entire athletic department and having nothing to do with his team specifically.

Howard made sure to point out that not having any COVID issues is overwhelmingly a positive. But it also means there's an increased chance for an outbreak in the future, given it's unlikely any team members have the immunity that goes along with the antibody.

"Before the shutdown happened two weeks ago, we knew that at some point, there was going to be some type of COVID issue with what was going on," Livers said. "Not with our team, but with campus in general.

So we had that in the back of our minds, we were just following out leader with Coach Howard and just try to win each day, and don’t take anything for granted. So each day we were just climbing and climbing, worrying about ourselves, can’t worry about things you can’t control.

"We were just putting our heads down and grinding, and that’s what we’re doing right now. If it happens again, it happens again, we can’t do much to control it. All we can do is control the way we play basketball once we get the opportunity. I feel like Sunday is a great chance for us to get back out there and show the world that we’re not done."

Michigan and Wisconsin tip off at 1 p.m. ET Sunday at the Kohl Center in Madison. The game will be televised on CBS to a national audience.

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