Michigan’s game at New York’s Madison Square Garden against Rutgers was technically a home game … at least, that’s how it was advertised. The Wolverines gave up its game at Crisler Arena to play in New York City, and it paid off with a 69-63 victory that’s considered neutral court for NCAA Tournament purposes, a critical, quadrant one win for a team that was flirting with the bubble before winning two straight.

Still … the move that was probably designed to give Michigan fans in New York a chance to see the Wolverines at The Garden will go down as one of the bigger head scratchers in recent memory. The Wolverines still have to go to Rutgers later in the year, one of the tougher places to play in the Big Ten this season, after playing in front of a pro-Scarlet Knights crowd and plenty of red in New York City.

“We saw a lot of maize and blue, but I also heard a lot of Rutgers fans here. It seems like it was a road game, to me,” head coach Juwan Howard said in his postgame Big Ten Network interview.