Will Michigan's pre-NCAA Tournament approach change after L.J. Cason injury? Not exactly.

The Michigan Wolverines have locked up the Big Ten regular-season championship and are now turning their attention to finishing on the best possible note. That means a 19-1 conference record and chase for a No. 1 overall seed, which could extend into the Big Ten Tournament.

Michigan’s in an interesting spot now, though, with the injury to sophomore guard L.J. Cason. With as many as five games to go before Selection Sunday, their new normal will have to be re-established with lineup combinations and responsibilities.

Does that make the next few weeks an experiment, or is the focus still on winning the Big Ten Tournament and defending last year’s crown? Head coach Dusty May weighed in on that on Monday.

“I was talking with a coaching mentor of mine about a month or two ago,” May said. “He obviously thought we had a chance to win a Big Ten regular-season championship and said, ‘Coach Knight didn’t care about the Big Ten tournament at all.’ He almost, I don’t want to say preferred to lose, because he was a competitor, but it didn’t bother him to lose, because then you could start preparing for the NCAA tournament.

“I just don’t know with the competitors we have in our locker room if we could ever go into a tournament setting and a tournament as big as this is for us, as far as who we’re playing, getting better things like that, and not try to win it. So I think that would be our mindset. Sometimes, some coaches discredit the Big Ten tournament. Whoever wins this tournament this year and what we think is the best league in the country, then we’re gonna have a lot of respect for them and the job they did, because whether they win three games in three days or four games in four days against really good teams, that’s not that simple.”

May, whose Wolverines have wins this season against the four teams behind them in the Big Ten standings, all top-10 wins at the time and three of them on the road, has managed a gauntlet. But he even acknowledged that with unbalanced schedules, there’s not a hard-and-fast winner that meets all of the criteria every year.

“With the schedule fluctuations, it’s not as if there’s a truly fair winner in every league,” May said. “I looked at the ACC, and some teams don’t play each other at all, some play twice, some leagues are weighted top and bottom. Our last year in the American [Conference], the team that won it was predicted to be in the bottom, so they played all of the bottom teams twice, and then they happened to play the best teams only at home, and so the scheduling favors certain teams at some point.

“I just think we’re going to go and compete like crazy at Iowa on Thursday. We’re gonna come back on senior night and try to send our seniors out the right way and for our fans and celebrate with our fans [against Michigan State on Sunday], and then we’re going try to go to the Big Ten tournament and try to find a way to win three games in three days, and then go to NCAA tournament and try to win that first-round game and get to whatever’s next.

“I can’t see us doing anything other than that, plus you get better by playing these games. I think one game reps are as valuable as 50 practice reps.”

Michigan’s trip to Iowa tips off at 8 p.m. ET Thursday with a Peacock broadcast. The regular season wraps on Sunday in a 4:30 tip against Michigan State on CBS. The Wolverines will play at noon ET on March 13 as the No. 1 seed at the Big Ten Tournament at United Center in Chicago.